"oppressed their neighbours: on this account, the government of the monks was preferred to their's. "The people sought them for judges; it was an "usual saying, that it was better to be governed 66 by a bishop's crosier, than a monarch's sceptre." -I wish you to consider this passage; and, what is more important, to reflect, what your own extensive reading must suggest to you upon the subject. Surely you will then think that there is no foundation for your charge. Have I not brought, in my "Historical Memoirs," ample testimony to the services rendered by the monks to education and literature?

One reflection permit me to suggest to you. No one knows better than yourself the impediments which existed, in the middle ages, to the expansion of genius, and the acquisition of knowledge. Supposing that you had lived in that period, with all the mental endowments which you have received from nature, is it quite certain that you would have possessed a better or purer religion; more literary merit, or greater consistency, than the best men or best writers of those times? That you would have excelled Anselm, in holiness; Bede, in agiography; the author of the Alexandreis,-(to whom we owe the celebrated line,

"Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens evitare Charybdim,")

in poetry; Thomas Aquinas, in theology; Matthew Paris, or Matthew of Westminster, in history; or Roger Bacon, in philosophy?--Respect

yourself then in those, whom you might have resembled, if you had lived in their inauspicious ages; and show that blindness to their faults, and that kindness to their virtues, to which, if you had lived in their times, you would have been entitled from ours. Without their preservation of the language and writings of Greece and Rome, and, (what is of greater consequence), without their transmission to you of the sacred writings, which contain the sacred word of God, you would not have been what you are. Which is it most fitting they should receive from you,-gratitude or sarcasms?

VII. 2.

Investitures.

IN considering the unhappy contests in the middle ages, between the popes and the sovereigns, on the subject of investitures, we shall find ample ground for repelling the undistinguishing and unqualified censure, which the conduct of the former has received from modern writers.

It gives me pleasure to find you are not to be classed among these. In the chapter under consideration, you often do justice to the pope: some things however in it call for observation.

You are aware, that, in the early ages of the church, bishops were elected at a congregation of the clergy and laity of the diocese; that one, or more, of the neighbouring bishops presided at the election; that the whole congregation joined in it; that the bishop consecrated; that, from the reign

of Constantine the Great, the body of the people began to be wholly excluded; that the bishops and clergy retained their influence; that it insensibly declined, so that the monarchs usurped to themselves the exclusive rights of nominating to vacant sees; that this was very injurious to the interests of religion, as the motives of their nomination were seldom pure; that Charlemagne, and his successors, endowed the bishoprics with ample territorial possessions; and that, while they were vacant, the monarchs claimed a right to receive the profits of them for their benefit, and on this account frequently delayed to fill them up. It appears from the records of the Exchequer, that Henry I. of England, in the sixteenth year of his reign, had in his hands one archbishopric, five bishoprics, and three abbeys; in the nineteenth, one archbishopric, five bishoprics, and six abbeys; and, in the thirtyfirst, one archbishopric, six bishoprics, and seven abbeys*. You must be sensible that this was an intolerable grievance; but it did not rest here: The monarchs often sold their right of nomination to the vacant sees; and thus, to use your own words, "simony became the characteristic sin of the age."

When the vacancy was immoderately protracted, the popes often threatened to appoint to the see, without waiting for the king's nomination; and sometimes carried their threats into execution. To prevent it, the monarchs required, that, on the death or removal of every bishop, his ring and crosier * Lingard, vol. 2, p. 65; he cites Madox, 209-212.

should be transmitted to him. On the appointment of the bishop's successor, the monarch delivered the emblems to him. The bishops did homage and fealty; and then placed the ring and crosier in the hands of the metropolitan, and received them back from him.

In this ceremonial, three things gave offence to the popes: 1st, they contended, that the monarch's nomination to the vacant see was an usurpation of the rights of the clergy, to whom alone, both by the constitution of the church, and the length of usage, it justly belonged: 2dly, that the delivery of the ring and crosier,-the acknowledged emblems of episcopal jurisdiction,-was a spiritual ceremony, which it was a sacrilege in a layman to perform; that even, if this could be explained away, it facilitated the simoniacal traffic of benefices: and, 3dly, that ecclesiastics, on account of their sacred character, ought to be exempted from doing homage and fealty, or, at least, from the obligation of personal service in war, which was attached to them.

Permit me to ask, if the popes were not founded in all these objections, that only excepted which sought, on account of their supposed sanctity of character, to exempt the clergy from homage and fealty? So much was this the case, that in every state in Europe the contest was settled, by allowing the greater part of the papal claims. The right of electing the bishops was appropriated and confirmed to the clergy. It was provided, that the

bishops should be invested with their temporalties, by delivering the sceptre; and that personal military service should not be required from them.

Thus we find, that, on the merits,-you must excuse a lawyer using this word,-the popes were right on most points of the case; and that their main object in asserting their claims was generally commendable. So far as they resorted to temporal means for establishing them, then they were completely wrong. So far as they resorted to spiritual means, they acted within their proper sphere. But, in the use of these means, were they always right? "Where much is done," says doctor Johnson, "something wrong will always be found."

You present us with an homely likeness of St. Anselm. You cannot call in question his piety, his zeal, his disinterestedness, the beauty of his genius, his firmness, or his learning. You acknowledge that a surprising revival of literature had been effected by him, and Lanfranc his immediate predecessor. You blame him, however, for the part which he took in the dispute on investitures. But, according to the principles universally received in his time, was he not always in the right? and even, according to the received opinions of our times, was he much in the wrong? You do not sufficiently notice, that the dispute between him and the king turned on other matters besides investitures;-on the long vacancy of sees and benefices; on the king's appropriating the profits of them to his own use;