The Church and the Empire: Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304Medley, D. J. (Dudley Julius)
Religion
The Church and the Empire: Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304
Medley, D. J. (Dudley Julius)
Church history -- Middle Ages, 600-1500
The result of the long struggle was that in the matter of episcopal
appointments, speaking generally, the right of election was not
restored to clergy and people, in whom by primitive custom it had been
vested, but that the laity, with the possible exception of the
feudatories of the see, were banished altogether, the rural clergy
ceased to appear, and, after the analogy of the papal election by the
College of Cardinals, the canonical election of the bishop in every
diocese tends to be concentrated in the hands of the clergy of the
cathedral. It was a long time, however, before the rights of the
cathedral chapters were universally recognised. Henry I of England in
his Concordat with Anselm (1107) and the Emperor Henry V in the
Concordat of Worms (122) both promised freedom of election. Philip I
and Louis VI of France seem to have conceded the same right without
any formal agreement. But many of the great French feudal lords clung
to their power over the local bishoprics, and in Normandy, in Anjou,
and in some parts of the south nearly a century elapsed before the
duke or count surrendered his custom of nominating bishops directly.
But the freedom of election by the Canons of the cathedral, even when
it was conceded, was little more than nominal. In England, France, and
the Christian kingdoms of Spain no cathedral body could exercise its
right without the King's leave to elect, nor was any election complete
without the royal confirmation. By the Concordat of Worms elections
were to take place in the presence of the King or his commissioners.
By the Constitutions of Clarendon (1164) English bishops must be
elected in the royal chapel. King John tried to bribe the Church over
to his side in the quarrel with the barons which preceded Magna Carta,
by conceding that elections should be free--that is, should take
place in the chapter-house of the cathedral; but even he reserved the
royal permission for the election to be held, and the _congé
d'élire_ in England and elsewhere was accompanied by the name of
the individual on whom the choice of the electoral body should fall.
It was not the rights of the electors but the all-pervading authority
of the Pope which was to prove the chief rival of royal influence in
the local Church.
[Sidenote: Investiture.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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