quently, especially since the beginning of the thirteenth century, made common cause with those whose claim was for greater political liberty; and, in return, the latter had allowed the church to win itself new privileges. This grouping of antagonistic forces had somewhat changed when, with the middle of the fourteenth century, parliament attained its full development and when, towards the end of that century, there sprang up in the lollards a sect which aimed at reform not only in the church, but also, in some respects, in the constitution of the state. Parliament no longer needed so urgently the assistance of the church in defending political freedom, and was now constrained to regard the privileges of the church as impairing its own powers no less than those of the king. The church, on the other hand, if it were to resist successfully the attacks of the lollards on its constitution and doctrines, was forced to assure itself of the support of the state. But in seeking that support it did not surrender the principle of independence, and its policy was mainly determined by its own interests. Thus from the end of the fourteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century, slight friction between the church and the civil power from time to time arose. In the sixteenth century the reformation robbed the church almost wholly of its independence. The king was now free in filling episcopal sees to ignore the wishes both of the chapters and the pope. Moreover, the preferment at the disposal of the crown was otherwise considerably increased by the confiscation of monastic estates with the rights of patronage attached thereto, and by the reservation of such rights upon the new foundation of secular chapters. The dissolution of the monasteries was the destruction of those centres of ecclesiastical power which until then had been least accessible to royal influence; it operated at the same time to sweep away the ecclesiastical majority in the upper house of parliament. The convocations could henceforth issue binding laws only with the consent of the crown; whereas the crown exercised an uncontrolled right to settle by ordinance the affairs of the church. Appeal lay from the decisions of the ecclesiastical courts to a civil tribunal, whilst in the high commission court the crown set up a judicial body, dependent on its instructions, with punitory powers in matters ecclesiastic. To all this was added, lastly, that general authority to govern the church involved in the idea of the supremacy, an authority which was manifested especially in the visitations carried out under the royal name. During the struggles of the reformation, parliament and the more advanced reformers had supported the sovereign in the endeavour to destroy the independence of the church. As a consequence of the changes which the reformation produced, the church had now become, as we have seen, largely subject to the crown; the crown, for its part, had gained increased strength, which the Stuarts imagined they could use to the curtailment of the liberties of the citizen. The result in the seventeenth century was a new arrangement of the determinative forces in the state. Partly from regard to the adherents of Roman catholicism, partly to defend its own preroga H.C. H tives, the crown became the champion of the constitution and doctrines of the established church against the protestant sects. The church promoted the objects of the crown by evolving doctrines which were calculated to prepare the way for despotism in England. The opposition had originally, under Elizabeth, only protested against any standing still in religious matters; but when the Stuarts, in order to strengthen their temporal power, took to favouring à retrogressive movement therein, then the resistance of parliament was extended to temporal concerns. As on the one side crown and state church had allied themselves together, so on the other the defenders of political freedom and the advocates of a presbyterian or congregational form of church government combined their forces. Hence in the contests of the seventeenth century political and ecclesiastical considerations are curiously and incessantly inter woven. Towards the end of the reign of James II the church again asserted its independence of the crown. A part of its clergy made a similar attempt against the new government, refusing to recognize William III as king; as, however, the greater number of the clergy submitted themselves to him, and the nonjurors, excluded from the church, were but lukewarm in defence of their views, the established church presently fell once more into complete subordination to the government. Impulses towards ecclesiastical independence, which survived among the lower clergy, were suppressed by the prorogation in 1717 of convocation, which did not meet again, except as a mere formality, for more than a hundred years. Moreover, at this time, owing to the toleration of all sorts of abuses of patronage, the lower clergy fell into more and more abject dependence on the large landowners, who formed the ruling class in the state. Hence in the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century the administration of the church was not much more than a branch of the general administration of the state. As such it was largely under the influence of parliament, which gradually became the dominant power in the constitution and determined the changes of party government. But the parties made no endeavour to meddle with the internal administration of the ecclesiastical body politic. Since the church appointments in the gift of the government were for life, and the government, in regard to the majority of the inferior offices, were not in a position to exercise any influence whatever upon the filling of them, party nominations could effect only a very gradual change in the balance between the various schools of thought in the church. The laws admitted to parliament and the offices of state, none but churchmen and members of other protestant societies, the latter commanding a comparatively small number of adherents. Thus the church might be secure that no adverse current in legislature or government would thwart its progress. A change in this relation of state and church has been preparing from the middle of the nineteenth century. Entrance to parliament and to almost all offices of state was then opened to professors of all creeds; the exclusively protestant character of state institutions was gone. Simultaneously there awoke in the church, in consequence of numerous internal reforms, a stronger consciousness of self, which caused it to place its own interests in the first line. This spirit of self-assertion led to an attempt to win greater independence of the state. With that object in view the more advanced representatives of the tendency recurred not infrequently to the views of the prere formation time or aimed at rapprochement with the present Roman catholic church, alike in liturgy and in dogma. The church of Rome, on its part, sought to gain over completely those who favoured the new departure; one of the clergy of the state church who changed his opinions was made a cardinal, another a cardinal and archbishop of the newly created Roman catholic see of Westminster. The established church found utterance for those who sought greater independence of the state by means of the revived convocations. In these at the present time the lower house represents, as a rule, the purely church view, whilst the bishops, who form the upper house, having regard to general considerations of state policy, exercise a moderating influence. There are three points in particular in the constitution of the church at which the purely church party directs its attacks. It demands that, the altered composition. of parliament being taken into account, state legislation affecting the church should only ensue when the convocations have given their assent or at least been heard. It protests against the continued existence of a final court of appeal in ecclesiastical matters which consists principally of laymen, and repudiates the co-operation of the crown in appointing the judge in the provincial courts. Lastly it requires, as to the appointment of bishops, that a right of proposal or a more extensive right of co-operation should be conferred on the chapters. Whilst the advanced church party thus aspires to limit the rights of the state in the affairs of the church, the opposite party raises its voice in parliament for cancelling the duties of the state towards the church. As then pressure is being brought to bear from both sides to sever the connexion between the two, it is not improbable that a gradual development in that direction will take place. Already the church, to assure itself of sufficient means for freer movement, has had to call for voluntary assistance in many ways. from laymen. Should the detachment of church from state be further advanced, the counterpoise to purely church tendencies supplied by the present necessity of gaining the co-operation of the civil government will hereafter be found in an increased consultation of the laity. So only could the disestablished church avoid schism and provide itself with the funds necessary for the continuance of its work. 1 Compare § 55, note 27. § 9. d. Development of the church constitution internally." I. Archbishops. The mutual relations of the archbishops of Canterbury and York underwent no change. The loss of the rights which they had exercised in virtue of their legatine capacity was compensated, down to the first revolution, by their appointment to the high commission. Their practice of personally adjudicating in the archiepiscopal court, common down to the reformation, became less and less frequent, until ultimately the presidency was left almost invariably to professional lawyers nominated by them. II. Bishops and their officers. The number of bishoprics was largely augmented, first under Henry VIII, and then from the middle of the nineteenth century onward. The position of suffragan bishops was regulated anew under Henry VIII; but from the end of the sixteenth century the nomination of such bishops fell into desuetude, and has only been revived in quite recent times.2 The cathedral corporations which down to the reformation had retained a monastic constitution were by Henry VIII converted into secular chapters. Parliamentary measures of reform, dating from the middle of the nineteenth century, reduced, as far as possible, the inequalities in the incomes of the various archbishoprics, bishoprics and chapters, or rendered the constitutions of the chapters more uniform, whilst a part of the revenues was set aside in aid of parochial cures of souls. Archdeaconries have been gradually multiplied in the present century. The office of rural dean had much sunk in importance even before the reformation. In the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it became almost everywhere extinct. From the beginning of the nineteenth century it began by degrees to be restored in the several bishoprics, and has now again come to be general in all.+ III. Parish priests. The after effects of the appropriations continued to be felt in the insufficiency of the incomes attached to many livings. Appropriated income which, in consequence of the dissolution of the monasteries and the confiscation of their property, passed to the crown, was by it further alienated, in many cases to lay owners; so that it was lost to the parishes. Repeated attempts were afterwards made to recover some part of the appropriated property for the parishes to which it had originally belonged; but a general restitution was never made. At the beginning of the eighteenth century money was obtained for the better maintenance of poor parsons by the transference of an ecclesiastical tax, which 1 Compare § 33, notes 35, 37-39. 2 Compare § 39, notes 6 and 7. 4 1 Eliz. cc 4, 19), parl. ordin. of 8th June, 1649 (cf. ordin. of 5th April, 1650, 2nd Sept. 1654 c 49, act of 1656 c 10, 12 Car. II [1660] c 11 ss 44, 48). Gneist, Engl. Verwaltungsrecht, 3rd Ed. §§ 169-171, 173, 174. The from reformation times had formed part of the revenue of the crown, to the purposes of a fund for assisting such maintenance." In the eighteenth and in the first half of the nineteenth century the state several times granted considerable sums to be applied in erecting new parish churches and endowing poor livings. Further means of improving livings were procured in the present century by devoting to such purposes part of the property of the bishoprics and chapters and by encouraging private liberality. The payment of tithes in kind or by modus was, also in this century, commuted into a rent dependent on the price of corn.10 personal exercise of clerical ministrations in cures of souls was gradually obtained by means of permanent parish priests, resident and independent, and especially by means of stricter regulations respecting pluralities and residence," abolition of commendams 12 and sinecures,13 by means of the more careful enforcement of prohibitions against simony,1 and by endeavouring to place the ministers of parishes appropriated quoad temporalia et spiritualia on the same level, in respect of perpetuity and endowment, as the holders of other parochial cures.15 The parish, even after the reformation and for the most part until a quite recent date, formed a unit for both ecclesiastical and secular purposes. The vestry and many parish officers, such as churchwardens, sexton, beadle and parish clerk, united in themselves spiritual and temporal powers.16 This identity of ecclesiastical and secular administration ceased in respect of a number of parishes (especially in the northern counties) owing to an act of 1662, by which it became allowable to appoint overseers of the poor in smaller districts (townships and villages) of large parishes.16 By a series of acts beginning in 1818 (Church Building Acts and New Parishes Acts), • Compare § 31. 7 Compare $ 31, note 10 and § 32, near notes 1 and 3; also Perry, Hist. of Engl. Church II, 577, note 2 c 39 § 1. 8 Compare § 32, note 13. Cf. Perry, Hist. of Engl. Ch. III, 537 c 33 § 4. According to the Church Year-Book for 1893, p. 559, voluntary contributions for church purposes in 1860-84 amounted to £81,500,000, including £21,500,000 for church schools. 10 6 & 7 Gul. IV (1836) c 71, to which are supplementary 1 Vict. c 69, 1 & 2 Vict. c 64, 2 & 3 Vict. c 62, 3 & 4 Vict. c 15, 5 & 6 Vict. c 54, 9 & 10 Vict. c 73, 10 & 11 Vict. c 104, 14 & 15 Vict. c 53, 23 & 24 Vict. c 93, 36 & 37 Vict. c 42, 41 & 42 Vict. c 42, 48 & 49 Vict. c 32, 49 & 50 Vict. c 54. 11 21 Hen. VIII c 13, 1 & 2 Vict. c 106, 13 & 14 Vict. c 98, 48 & 49 Vict. c 54. 12 6 & 7 Gul. IV c 77 s 18, 1 & 2 Vict. c 106, 13 & 14 Vict. c 98. 13 Compare § 44, near note 22. 18651 14 Compare especially 31 Eliz. (1588/9) c 6, canon 40 of 180, 1 Gul. & Mar. sess. 1 (1688) c 16, 13 Ann. (1713) c 11 s 2, Perry, Hist. of Engl. Church III, 19 c 1 § 23. 15 Cf. § 44, near notes 20 and 24 ff. 16 Cf. especially Toulmin Smith, The Parish with Illustrations of the Practical Working of this Institution in all secular affairs; and of some modern attempts at ecclesiastical encroachment, 2nd Ed. London, 1857. 16 14 Car. II (1662) c 12 s 21. A similar regulation in reference to the repair of highways was made by 14 Car. II c 6, an act which, however, remained only a short time in force. |