The Cross in Ritual, Architecture and ArtTyack, Geo. S. (George Smith)
History
The Cross in Ritual, Architecture and Art
Tyack, Geo. S. (George Smith)
Crosses
In England this emblem of jurisdiction has on more than one occasion
proved a ground of dispute between the archbishops. S. Anselm who ruled at
Canterbury from 1093 to 1114, refused to allow the Archbishop of Dublin to
use his cross in England. Canterbury and York long maintained a struggle
for precedence in the English Church and the point on which it turned was
often the right of the one to carry his cross in the province of the
other. The quarrel became very bitter towards the end of the thirteenth
century, so that we find William de Wickwaine in 1280, the year after his
accession to the See of York, complaining to the Pope of violence shewn
him while travelling in the southern province. "Adam de Hales," he writes,
"an officer of my Lord of Canterbury, rushed like a madman upon my
attendants, and scandalously broke my cross in pieces: but thanks be to
God, I soon caused another to be raised and carried. Moreover, most holy
father, when I am journeying through the province of Canterbury on
business relating to my own see, my Lord of Canterbury forbids food or
lodging to be supplied to myself or my attendants on pain of
excommunication, exactly as if we were heretics, and places the whole
district where I make any sojourn under an ecclesiastical interdict." The
contemporary "my lord of Canterbury," was John Peckham. Twenty years later
the feud was still rife, and we have Robert Winchelsey, the immediate
successor of Peckham, writing to the Bishop of Lincoln, bidding him see
that the northern primate did not have his cross carried before him in
passing through that diocese: he also forbids the laity to kneel to him or
to ask his blessing on pain of the Church's censure, and orders that no
bell be rung and no service said in any place where he may be. In 1325,
William de Melton, Archbishop of York, was appointed treasurer by the
King, upon which Walter Raynold, who twelve years before had succeeded
Winchelsey, again took up the cause of the dignity of his province, and
excommunicated Melton for having had his cross carried in the city of
London, in spite of which Melton publicly said Mass in Westminster Abbey.
In 1354, a compromise was at last arrived at, by which the Archbishop of
York might have his cross borne before him throughout the entire province
of Canterbury on condition that within two months from so doing he sent to
the shrine of S. Thomas à Becket, a gold figure of the value of forty
pounds, of an archbishop with his cross, to be brought by the hands of his
chancellor, a doctor of laws, or a knight. On the other hand the
Archbishop of Canterbury was to enjoy the same privilege in the province
of York unconditionally. The two prelates by whom this arrangement was
made, were Simon Islip of the southern province, and John de Thoresby of
the northern. The above acknowledgement, or fine, was paid about a century
later (in 1452), by Archbishop Booth of York.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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