PAGE THE CONTROL OF ENGLISH EPISCOPAL ELECTIONS IN THE THIRTEENTH CEN- 573 FATHER ROBERT PARSONS, S.J. Bernard Wiesman, B.A..... 583 RURAL ENVIRONMENT AS A BACKGROUND FOR RELIGION, John Lafarge, S.J. 630 MISCELLANY: FRANCISCANA: 639 1. II. The Little Poor Man. Felix M. Kirsch, O.M.Cap. III. The Irish Franciscans in Rome. T. J. Corcoran, S.J., Litt.D. IV. CHRONICLE BOOK REVIEWS BEHRENDT, The Ethical Teaching of Hugo of Trimberg; BELLOC, A History of England; BROU and GILBERT, Jésuites Missionaires; CARVER, The Catholic Tradition in English Literature; COLEMAN, New England Captives Carried to Canada Between 1677 and 1760 During the French and Indian Wars; CONANT, The Early Architectural History of the Cathedral of Compostella; CUNNINGHAM, A Book of Church History; FORBES and CADMAN, France and New England; GILES, Latin and Greek in College Entrance and College Graduation Requirements; GWYNN, Roman Education from Cicero to Quintillian; HAGEN, Mahnungen zur Innerlichkeit; HERRICK, White Servitude in Pennsylvania; HUGHES, The Right Reverend Richard Luke Concanen, O.P., First Bishop of New York (1747-1810); JESPERSEN, Mankind, Nation and Individual from a Linguistic Point of View; KERR, The Life of the Venerable Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey; LUDY, Historic Churches of the World; O'DANIEL, The Father of the Church in Tennessee; ROSTOVTZEFF, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire; ZEDLER, Von Coster zu Gutenberg. NOTICES NOTES AND COMMENT.. BOOKS RECEIVED NOTEWORTHY ARTICLES IN CURRENT PERIODICALS. 661 685 722 745 763 764 J. P. BELL COMPANY, LYNCHBURG, VA. BEHRENDT The Ethical Teaching of Hugo of Trimberg, By Francis S. Betten, S.J. BELLOC A History of England, by Francis S. Betten, S.J.. BROU and GILBERT Jésuites Missionaires, by P. G... CARVER-The Catholic Tradition in English Literature, by J. F. L... CUNNINGHAM-A Book of Church History, by P. G.. FORBES and CADMAN-France and New England, by M. T. M.. GILES-Latin and Greek in College Entrance and College Graduation Re- GWYNN-Roman Education from Cicero to Quintillian, by Roy J. Deferrari HUGHES The Right Reverend Richard Luke Concanen, O.P., First Bishop 709 685 708 710 701 697 707 703 700 693 699 691 713 JESPERSEN-Mankind, Nation and Individual from a Linguistic Point of 694 KERR―The Life of The Venerable Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey 706 LUDY-Historic Churches of the World, by J. F. L.. 698 O’DANIEL—The Father of the Church in Tennessee, by P. W. B... 717 695 711 ROSTOVTZEFF-The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, by ZEDLER Von Coster zu Gutenberg, by Frances S. Betten, S.J.. BOARD OF EDITORS Editor-in-Chief RIGHT REV. THOMAS J. SHAHAN, D.D. Managing Editor REV. PATRICK W. BROWNE, D.D., Ph.D. Associate Editors VERY REV. PATRICK J. HEALY, D.D., Chairman CHARLES HALLAN MCCARTHY, Ph.D. REV. HENRY IGNATIUS SMITH, O.P., Ph.D. REV. PETER GUILDAY, Ph.D. LEO F. STOCK, Ph.D. RICHARD J. PURCELL, Ph.D. REV. EDWIN J. RYAN, D.D. Published at 816 Main St., Lynchburg, Va., by the Catholic University of America, of Washington, D. C. Correspondence in regard to subscriptions may be sent either to 816 Main St., Lynchburg, Va., or to the Managing Editor, Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C. All correspondence in regard to contributions should be sent to the latter address. The Catholic Historical Review NEW SERIES, VOLUME VI JANUARY, 1927 NUMBER 4 THE CONTROL OF ENGLISH EPISCOPAL ELECTIONS IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY The election of bishops in the medieval church is a matter that has direct bearing on more than one question of moment in ecclesiastical history. The successive eliminations of the laity and the extra-capitular clergy from the electoral body, leaving the right of election in the hands of the cathedral chapters alone, obviously affected somewhat the position of the diocesan episcopate in the ecclesiastical economy; the influence on elections exercised by kings and princes was a considerable factor in the relations of the secular power with the hierarchy; the urgent insistence of popes that vacant sees be filled, their intervention in disputed elections, and papal provisions to bishoprics make up part of the story of the strengthening of the Roman jurisdiction over the western church. By no means is the question simply one of machinery, a topic in ecclesiastical polity barren of interest save to canonists. What the late Father Tyrrell called "the conception of the church as a boat in which the laity serve as ballast and the clergy do all the rowing" was furthered by restricting to the clergy the choosing of the chief pastors of the church; the active participation of king and Roman pontiff in episcopal elections involved the relations of each with the other as well as the relations of each with the electoral body-the cathedral chapter. The conflict at the opening of the thirteenth century that resulted in England becoming a vassal kingdom of the Holy See had as its immediate occasion the refusal of a cathedral chapter, the Canterbury monks, to elect the king's candidate, and John's rejection of pope Innocent III's attempted compromise:-the quashing of the two disputed elections and the choice of Stephen Langton as archbishop. In the struggle of the baronage and the crown, a struggle that began early in the reign but which for years was cast in the shade by the war with the king of France and the strife with the papacy, the same issue manifested itself: the opening chapter of Magna Carta promised freedom of election to the English church. An examination into English episcopal elections in the reign of Henry III, who was much under clerical influence, and in that of Edward I, when antipapal feeling manifested itself, will show whether the promise of 1215-Ecclesia Anglicana libera sit—was fulfilled by these kings; and it may throw some light also on the influence exerted by the Roman court on the church in England. Stephen Langton died in July, 1228. During the remainder of Henry's reign three archbishops occupied in succession the see of Canterbury: Richard le Grand, Edmund Rich, and Boniface of Savoy. The monks of Christ Church elected after Langton's death one of their own number, to whom both the king and the suffragans of the province raised objections; the king's agent went to Rome, where the election was quashed, and, in Matthew Paris's phrase, Richard le Grand, chancellor of Lincoln, "was not elected to the archbishopric but was given it." In the mandate for the restoration to the archbishop-elect of the temporalities of the see, the choice is attributed to the pope; but Richard seems to have been the king's nominee to whose support the pope was won over. The next archbishop owed his position to the pope, who rejected three successive elections before he "gave the monks power of electing master Edmund Rich" and 1 MATT. PARIS, Chronica Majora, III, 157. (Rolls Series.) 2 SHIRLEY, Royal and Historical Letters, I, 339. (R. S.) 6 Ralph Neville, bishop of Chichester, was rejected by the pope, who received an unfavorable report of him. (Matt. Paris, III, 207-208). John, subprior of Canterbury, was induced to resign his election to the archbishopric. (Les Registres de Gregoire IX, no. 822. This and other papal registers cited are in the Bibliotheque des Ecoles Francaises d'Athénes et de Rome.) The third election, that of John Blund, which received the royal assent 30 August, 1232, (Patent Rolls 1225-1232, p. 498), was quashed by the pope ten months later. (Reg. Greg. IX, no. 1432.) 7 MATT. PARIS, III, 244. |