surers who paid it over to Italian bankers in London, the intermediate agents with Rome. II. The 1000 marks-700 for England, 300 for Ireland —the sign and acknowledgment of feudal vassalage, stipulated by King John, when he took the oath of submission, and made over the kingdom as a fief. Powerful Popes are constantly heard imperiously, necessitous Popes more humbly, almost with supplication, demanding the payment of this tribute and its arrears (for it seems to have been irregularly levied); but during the whole reign of Henry III. and later, no question seems to have been raised of the Pope's right. III. The benefices held by foreigners, chiefly Italians, and payments to foreign churches out of the property of the English church ;P the invasion of the English sees by foreign prelates, with its inevitable consequences (or rather antecedents, for John began the practice of purchasing the support of Rome by enriching her Italian clergy), in crowding the English benefices with strangers, and burthening them with persons who never came near them, these abuses as yet only raised deep and suppressed murmurs, ere long to break out into fierce and obstinate resistance. Pandulph, the Papal Legate, became Bishop of Norwich. Pope Honorius writes to Pandulph not merely authorising but urging him to provide a benefice or benefices in his diocese of Norwich for his own (the Bishop's) brother, that brother (a singular plurality) being Archdeacon of Thessalonica. These foreigners were of course more and more odious to the whole realm: to the laity as draining away their wealth without discharging any duties; still more to the clergy as usurping their benefices; though ignorant of the language, affecting superiority in attainments; from their uncongenial manners, and, if they are not belied, unchecked vices. They were bloodsuckers, drawing Urban IV., MS. B. M. x. p. 29, Dec. 1261. Clement IV., ibid. 12., June 8, 1266. The convent of Viterbo has a grant of 30 marks from a moiety of the living of Holkham in Norfolk, i. 278; 50 marks from church of Wingham to convent of M. Aureo in Anagni, iii. 110. Claims of another convent in Anagni on benefice in diocese of Winchester, vol. iv. 50. See the grants to John Peter Leone, and others, in Prynne, p. 23. MS. B. M. Pandulph is by mistake made cardinal; he was sub-deacon of the Roman Church. He is called in the documents Master Pandulph. CHAP. XII. BENEFICES HELD BY ITALIANS. 309 out the life, or drones fattening on the spoil of the land. All existing documents show that the jealousy and animosity of the English did not exaggerate the evil. At length, just at the close of his Pontificate, even Pope Honorius, by his Legate Otho, made the bold and open demand that two prebends in every cathedral and conventual church (one from the portion of the Bishop or Abbot, one from that of the Chapter), or the sustentation of one monk, should be assigned in perpetuity to the Church of Rome. On this the nobles interfered in the King's name, inhibiting such alienation. When the subject was brought before a synod at Westminster by the Archbishop, the proposal was received with derisive laughter at the avarice of the see of Rome. Even the King was prompted to this prudent resolution: "When the rest of Christendom shall have consented to this measure, we will consult with our prelates whether it be right to follow their example." The council of Bourges, where the Legate Otho urged the same general demand, had eluded it with the same contemptuous disregard. It was even more menacingly suggested that such general oppression from Rome might lead to a general withdrawal of allegiance from Rome." A.D. 1226. Five years after the people of England seemed determined to take the affair into their own hands. Terrible letters were distributed by unseen means, and by unknown persons, addressed to the bishops and chapters, to the abbots and friars, denouncing the insolence and avarice of these Romans; positively inhibiting any payments to them from the revenues of their churches; threatening those who paid to burn their palaces and barns over their heads, and to wreak the same vengeance on them which would inevitably fall on the Italians. Cencius, the Pope's collector MS. B. M. E. g., grant of a church to a consanguineus of the Pope, one Gervaise, excommunicated for favouring the Barons, having been ejected from it, i. p. 233. Transfer from one Italian to another, 235. Grant from Bishop of Durham to Peter Saracen (Civis Romanus) of 40 marks, charged on the See for services done, ii. 158. Requiring a canonry of Lincoln for Thebaldus, scriptor noster, 186. Canonry of Chi chester for a son of a Roman citizen. Wendover, p. 114, 121, 124. “Quia si omnium esset universalis oppressio, posset timeri ne immineret generalis discessio, quod Deus avertat." 66 Gregory writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury (1234) that the English ægre non ferant si inter ipsos morantes extranei, honores ibidem et beneficia consequantur, cum apud Deum non est acceptio personarum."-MS. B. M. A.D. 1232. Χ of Peter's Pence, a Canon of St. Paul's, was suddenly carried off by armed men, with their faces hid under vizors; he returned with his bags well rifled, after five weeks' imprisonment. John of Florence, Archdeacon of Norwich, escaped the same fate, and concealed himself in London. Other aggressive measures followed. The barns of the Italian clergy were attacked; the corn sold or distributed to the poor. It might seem almost a simultaneous rising; though the active assailants were few, the feelings of the whole people were with them." At one place (Wingham) the sheriff was obliged, as it appeared, to raise an armed force to keep the peace; the officers were shown letters-patent (forged as was said) in the King's name, authorising the acts of the spoiler: they looked on, not caring to examine the letters too closely, in quiet unconcern at the spoliation. The Pope (Gregory IX.) issued an angry Bull, which not only accused the Bishops of conniving at these enormities, and of making this ungrateful return for the good offices which he had shown to the King; he bitterly complained of the ill usage of his Nuncios and officers. One had been cut to pieces, another left half dead; the Pope's Bulls had been trampled under foot. The Pope demanded instant, ample, merciless punishment of the malefactors, restoration of the damaged property. Robert Twenge, a bold Yorkshire knight, who under a feigned name had been the ringleader, appeared before the King, owned himself to have been the William Wither who had headed the insurgents; he had done all this in righteous vengeance against the Romans, who by a sentence of the Pope, fraudulently obtained, had deprived him of the right of patronage to a benefice. He had rather be unjustly excommunicated than despoiled of his right. He was recommended to go to Rome with testimonials from the King for absolution, and this was all. The abuse, however, will appear yet rampant, when we return to the history of the English Church. IV. The taxation of the clergy (a twentieth, fifteenth, The Pope so far admitted the justice of these complaints as to issue a bull allowing the patrons to present after the death of the Italian incumbents.MS. B.M. iii. 138. Gregory IX. said that he had less frequently used this power * Apud Rymer, dated Spoleto. CHAP. XII. TENTHS. 311 or tenth) as a subsidy for the Holy Land; but a subsidy grudgingly paid, and not devoted with too rigid exclusiveness to its holy purpose. Some portion of this was at times thrown, as it were, as a boon to the King (in general under a vow to undertake a Crusade), but applied by him without rebuke or remonstrance to other purposes. This tax was on the whole property of the Church, of the secular clergy and of the monasteries. Favour was sometimes (not always) shown to the Cistercians, the Præmonstratensians, the Monks of Sempringham-almost always to the Templars and Knights of St. John. Other emoluments arose out of the Crusades; compositions for vows not fulfilled; besides what arose out of bequests, the property of intestate clergy, and other sources. The Popes seem to have had boundless notions of the wealth and weakness of England. England paid, murmured, but laid up deep stores of alienation and aversion from the Roman See." Clement IV. (Viterbo, May 22, 1266) orders his collector to get in all arrears "de censibus, denariis Sancti Petri, et debitis quibuscunque." Of these debts there is a long list. "Aut ex voto seu promisso, decimâ vel vicesimâ, seu redemptionibus votorum tam crucesignatorum quam aliorum, vel depositis vel testamentamentis (sic) aut bonis clericorum decedentium ab intestato seu aliâ quâcunque ratione modo vel causâ eisdem sedi Apostolicæ et terræ sanctæ vel alteri earum a quibuscunque personis debentur." The collectors had power to excommunicate for non-payment.-MS. B. M. xii. CHAPTER XIII. Papacy and Gregory IX. FREDERICK II. AND GREGORY IX. THE Empire and the Papacy were now to meet in their Last strife of last mortal and implacable strife; the two first Empire. acts of this tremendous drama, separated by an interval of many years, were to be developed during the Pontificate of a prelate who ascended the throne of St. Peter at the age of eighty. Nor was this strife for any specific point in dispute like the right of investiture, but avowedly for supremacy on one side, which hardly deigned to call itself independence; for independence, on the other, which remotely at least aspired after supremacy. Cæsar would bear no superior, the successor of St. Peter no equal. The contest could not have begun under men more strongly contrasted, or more determinedly oppugnant in character than Gregory IX. and Frederick II. Gregory retained the ambition, the vigour, almost the activity of youth, with the stubborn obstinacy, and something of the irritable petulance of old age. He was still master of all his powerful faculties; his knowledge of affairs, of mankind, of the peculiar interests of almost all the nations in Christendom, acquired by long employment in the most important negotiations both by Innocent III. and by Honorius III.; eloquence which his own age compared to that of Tully; profound erudition in that learning which, in the mediaval churchman, commanded the highest admiration. No one was his superior in the science of the canon law; the Decretals to which he afterwards gave a more full and authoritative form, were at his command, and they were to him as much the law of God as the Gospels themselves, or the primary principles of morality. The jealous reverence and attachment of a |