Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0090/00900.txt

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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Notes To Book VII}
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$Author{Hallam, Henry}
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$Subject{church
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book VII: History Of Ecclesiastical Power During The Middle Ages
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Notes To Book VII

Note I

     This grant is recorded in two charters differing materially from each
other: the first transcribed in Ingulfus' History of Croyland, and dated at
Winchester on the Nones of November, 855; the second extant in two
chartularies, and bearing date at Wilton, April 22, 854.  This is marked by
Mr. Kemble as spurious (Codex Ang.-Sax. Diplom., ii. 52); and the authority of
Ingulfus is not sufficient to support the first.  The fact, however, that
Ethelwolf made some great and general donation to the church rests on the
authority of Asser, whom later writers have principally copied.  His words
are, - "Eodem quoque anno [855] Adelwolfulus venerabilis, rex Occidentalium
Saxonum, decimam totius regni sui partem ab omni regali servitio et tributo
liberavit, et in sempiterno grafio in cruce Christi, pro redemptione animae
suae et antecessorum suorum, Uni et Trino Deo immolavit." (Gale, XV. Script.
iii. 156.)

     It is really difficult to infer anything from such a passage; but
whatever the writer may have meant, or whatever truth there may be in his
story, it seems impossible to strain his words into a grant of tithes. The
charter in Ingulfus rather leads to suppose, but that in the Codex
Diplomaticus decisively proves, that the grant conveyed a tenth part of the
land, and not of its produce.  Sir F. Palgrave, by quoting only the latter
charter, renders Selden's Hypothesis, that the general right to tithes dates
from this concession of Ethelwolf, even more untenable than it is.  Certainly
the charter copied by Ingulfus, which Sir F. Palgrave passes in silence, does
grant "decimam partem bonorum;" that is, I presume, of chattels, which, as far
as it goes, implies a tithe; while the words applicable to land are so obscure
and apparently corrupt that Selden might be warranted in giving them the like
construction.  Both charters probably are spurious; but there may have been an
extensive grant to the church, not only of immunity from the trinoda
necessitas, which they express, but of actual possessions.  Since, however, it
must have been impracticable to endow the church with a tenth part of
appropriated lands, it might possibly be conjectured that she took a tenth
part of the produce, either as a composition, or until means should be found
of putting her in possession of the soil.  And although, according to the
notions of those times, the actual property might be more desirable, it is
plain to us that a tithe of the produce was of much greater value than the
same proportion of the land itself.

Note II

     Two living writers of the Roman Catholic communion, Dr. Milner, in his
History of Winchester, and Dr. Lingard, in his Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon
Church, contend that Elgiva, whom some Protestant historians are willing to
represent as the queen of Edwy, was but his mistress; and seem inclined to
justify the conduct of Odo and Dunstan towards this unfortunate couple.  They
are unquestionably so far right, that few, if any, of those writers who have
been quoted as authorities in respect of this story speak of the lady as a
queen or lawful wife.  I must therefore strongly reprobate the conduct of Dr.
Henry, who, calling Elgiva queen, and asserting that she was married, refers,
at the bottom of his page, to William of Malmesbury and other chroniclers, who
give a totally opposite account; especially as he does not intimate, by a
single expression, that the nature of her connection with the king was
equivocal.  Such a practice, when it proceeds, as I fear it did in this
instance, not from oversight, but from prejudice, is a glaring violation of
historical integrity, and tends to render the use of references, that great
improvement of modern history, a sort of fraud upon the reader.  The subject,
since the first publication of these volumes, has been discussed by Dr.
Lingard in his histories both of England and of the Anglo-Saxon Church, by the
Edinburgh reviewer of that history, vol. xlii.  (Mr. Allen), and by other late
writers.  Mr. Allen has also given a short dissertation on the subject, in the
second edition of his Inquiry into the Royal Prerogative, posthumously
published.  It must ever be impossible, unless unknown documents are brought
to light, to clear up all the facts of this litigated story.  But though some
Protestant writers, as I have said, in maintaining the matrimonial connection
of Edwy and Elgiva, quote authorities who give a different color to it, there
is a presumption of the marriage from a passage of the Saxon Chronicle, A.D.
958 (wanting in Gibson's edition, but discovered by Mr. Turner, and now
restored to its place by Mr. Petrie), which distinctly says that Archbishop
Odo separated Edwy the king and Elgiva because they were too nearly related.
It is therefore highly probable that she was queen, though Dr. Lingard seems
to hesitate.  This passage was written as early as any other which we have on
the subject, and in a more placid and truthful tone.

     The royalty, however, of Elgiva will be out of all possible doubt, if we
can depend on a document, being a reference to a charter, in the Cotton
library (Claudius, B. vi.), wherein she appears as a witness.  Turner says of
this - "Had the charter even been forged, the monks would have taken care that
the names appended were correct." This Dr. Lingard inexcusably calls
"confessing that the instrument is of very doubtful authenticity."

     The Edinburgh reviewer, who had seen the manuscript, believes it genuine,
and gives an account of it.  Mr. Kemble has printed it without mark of
spuriousness.  (Cod. Diplom., vol. v. p. 378.) In this document we have the
names of Aelfgifu, the king's wife, and of Aethelgifu, the king's wife's
mother.  The signatures are merely recited, so that the document itself cannot
be properly styled a charter; but we are only concerned with the testimony it
bears to the existence of the Queen Elgiva and her mother.

     If this charter, thus recited, is established, we advance a step, so as
to prove the existence of a mother and daughter, bearing nearly the same
names, and such names as apparently imply royal blood, the latter being
married to Edwy.  This would tend to corroborate the coronation story,
divesting it of the gross exaggerations of the monkish biographers and their
followers.  It might be supposed that the young king, little more than a boy,
retired from the drunken revelry of his courtiers to converse, and perhaps
romp, with his cousin and her mother; that Dunstan audaciously broke in upon
him, and forced him back to the banquet; that both he and the ladies resented
this insolence as it deserved, and drove the monk into exile; and that the
marriage took place.

     It is more difficult to deal with the story originally related by the
biographer of Odo, that after his marriage Edwy carried off a woman with whom
he lived, and whom Odo seized and sent out of the kingdom.  This lady is
called by Eadmer una de praescriptis mulieribus; whence Dr. Lingard assumes
her to have been Ethelgiva, the queen's mother.  This was in his History of
England (i. 517); but in the second edition of the Antiquities of the
Anglo-Saxon Church he is far less confident than either in the first edition
of that work or in his history.  In fact, he plainly confesses that nothing
can be clearly made out beyond the circumstances of the coronation.

     Although the writers before the conquest do not bear witness to the
cruelties exercised on some woman connected with the king, either as queen or
mistress, at Gloucester, yet the subsequent authorities of Eadmer, Osbern, and
Malmesbury may lead us to believe that there was truth in the main facts,
though we cannot be certain that the person so treated was the Queen Elgiva.
If indeed their accounts are accurate, it seems at first that they do not
agree with their predecessors; for they represent the lady as being in the
king's company up to his flight from the insurgents: - "Regem cum adultera
fugitantem persequi non desistunt." But though we read in the Saxon Chronicle
that Odo divorced Edwy and Elgiva, we are not sure that they submitted to the
sentence.  It is therefore possible that she was with him in this disastrous
flight, and, having fallen into the hands of the pursuers, was put to death at
Gloucester. True it is that her proximity of blood to the king would not
warrant Osbern to call her adultera; but bad names cost nothing.  Malmesbury's
words look more like it, if we might supply something, "proxime cognatam
invadens uxorem [cujusdam?] ejus forma deperibat;" but as they stand in his
text, they defy my scanty knowledge of the Latin tongue.  On the whole,
however, no reliance is to be placed on very passionate and late authorities.
What is manifest alone is, that a young king was persecuted and dethroned by
the insolence of monkery exciting a superstitious people against him.

Note III

     I am induced, by further study, to modify what is said in the text with
respect to the well-known passages in Irenaeus and Cyprian.  The former
assigns, indeed, a considerable weight to the Church of Rome, simply as
testimony to apostolical teaching; but this is plainly not limited to the
bishop of that city, not is he personally mentioned. It is therefore an
argument, and no slight one, against the pretended supremacy rather than the
contrary.

     The authority of Cyprian is not, perhaps, much more to the purpose. For
the only words in his treatise De Unitate Ecclesiae which assert any authority
in the chair of St. Peter, or indeed connect Rome with Peter at all, are
interpolations, not found in the best manuscripts or in the oldest editions.
They are printed within brackets in the best modern ones.  (See James on
Corruptions of Scripture in the Church of Rome, 1612.) True it is, however,
that, in his Epistle to Cornelius Bishop of Rome, Cyprian speaks of "Petri
cathedram, atque ecclesiam principalem unde unitas sacerdotalis exorta est."
(Epist. lix. in edit. Lip. 1838; lv. in Baluze and others.) And in another he
exhorts Stephen, successor of Cornelius, to write a letter to the Bishops of
Gaul, that they should depose Marcian of Arles for adhering to the Novatian
heresy.  (Epist. lxviii. or lxvii.) This is said to be found in very few
manuscripts.  Yet it seems too long, and not sufficiently to the purpose, for
a popish forgery.  All bishops of the Catholic church assumed a right of
interference with each other by admonition; and it is not entirely clear from
the language that Cyprian meant anything more authoritative; though I incline,
on the whole, to believe that, when on good terms with the see of Rome, he
recognized in her a kind of primacy derived from that of St. Peter.

     The case, nevertheless, became very different when she was no longer of
his mind.  In a nice question which arose, during the pontificate of this very
Stephen, as to the rebaptism of those to whom the rite had been administered
by heretics, the Bishop of Rome took the negative side; while Cyprian, with
the utmost vehemence, maintained the contrary.  Then we find no more honeyed
phrases about the principal church and the succession to Peter, but a very
different style: "Cur in tantum Stephani, fratris nostri, obstinatio dura
prorupit?" (Epist. lxxiv.) And a correspondent of Cyprian, doubtless a bishop,
Firmilianus by name, uses more violent language: - "Audacia et insolentia ejus
- aperta et manifesta Stephani stultitia - de episcopatus sui loco gloriatur,
et se successionem Petri tenere contendit." (Epist.lxxv.) Cyprian proceeded to
summon a council of the African bishops, who met, seventy-eight in number, at
Carthage.  They all agreed to condemn heretical baptism as absolutely invalid.
Cyprian addressed them, requesting that they would use full liberty, not
without a manifest reflection on the pretensions of Rome: - "Neque enim
quisquam nostrum episcopum se esse episcoporum constituit, aut tyrannico
terrore ad obsequendi necessitatem collegas suos adigit, quando habeat omnis
episcopus pro licentia libertatis et potestatis suae arbitrium proprium,
tamque judicari ab alio non possit, quam nec ipse potest alterum judicare." We
have here an allusion to what Tertullian had called horrenda vox, "episcopus
episcoporum;" manifestly intimating that the see of Rome had begun to assert a
superiority and right of control, by the beginning of the third century, but
at the same time that it was not generally endured.  Probably the notion of
their superior authority, as witnesses of the faith, grew up in the Church of
Rome very early; and when Victor, towards the end of the second century,
excommunicated the churches of Asia for a difference as to the time of keeping
Easter, we see the germination of that usurpation, that tyranny, that
uncharitableness, which reached its culminating point in the centre of the
mediaeval period.