Becket and Henry II: Select Ruminations
ADDRESS BY THE HONOURABLE J J SPIGELMAN
CHIEF JUSTICE OF NEW SOUTH WALES
TO THE ST THOMAS MORE SOCIETY
27 OCTOBER 1999
The relationship between Henry II of England - warrior, Count, Duke and King - and Thomas Becket - clerk, Chancellor, Archbishop, martyr and saint - is a tale with heroic, indeed Homeric, qualities which has acquired the status of myth, a mother lode of parables for subsequent ages, each with their different pre-occupations. Century after century theologians, medievalists, constitutional lawyers, historians, poets and playwrights have returned to rework the original sources - which include no less than eight contemporary biographies and hundreds of letters.
Myth has bred myth: from the astounding fertility of Becket’s shrine at Canterbury as a producer of miracles, to the apocryphal tale of Henry VIII disinterring Becket’s remains and putting them on trial for treason, before spreading them to the winds and waters of reliquary oblivion. Even two years ago a new book appeared reinvestigating long lost legends as to the continued existence, somewhere in Canterbury Cathedral, of the bones of Thomas Becket.
For advocates of the English monarchy and effective centralised administration of justice, the stiff necked resistance of the Archbishop was treachery. For the religious, the same resistance represents the triumph of the spiritual over the temporal and martyrdom for the church. For the anxieties of a world after the pointless sacrifices of the Great War, T.S. Eliott found an ideal statement of the strength of spiritual belief in his play “Murder in the Cathedral” expressed in poetic form, save for the speeches of the assassins which are in prose. For Jean Anouilh, writing his play “Becket” in Nazi occupied France, there was the theme of resistance to foreign invasion based on the historically inaccurate description of Thomas, in a French biography, as a Saxon resisting the Norman King. In fact Becket was a Norman.
My own attraction to the close study of this period is based on a personal belief that if you try to read everything, you will learn nothing. Accordingly, it is preferable to organise ones ignorance by investigating a particular subject matter in depth. Like others who have returned to the sources of this Homeric struggle between Archbishop and King, I too have been attracted by the thought that in history one can learn lessons for our own time.
One returns to the first centuries of the second millennium of the Christian era, a millennium which commenced on the 1st January, 1001. Those who propose to celebrate the end of the century and millennium on the 31st December of this year are, of course, proclaiming the twentieth to be the first century that consisted of only ninety-nine years. At the time of the creation of the anno domini system, by the sixth century monk, Dionysius Exiguus - a rough translation of his name is “Dennis the Short” - the Arab mathematician who invented the zero had not been born, indeed would not be for several centuries. Accordingly 1 BC was immediately succeeded by 1AD and each century ended on the 31st December of the year ending with double zero.
So it was that when Australia became a federation on 1 January 1901 the slogan of the time was ‘A New Nation for a New Century’. What has happened in this century is that people have got used to the odometer turning over in motor vehicles where one notices 999 becoming 1,000. We have come to attribute a new kind of populist significance to the double zero.
I expect that on 31 December 2000 there will be a more muted celebration of the true new millennium, by a significant number of religious fanatics and a few pedants like me.
In the first centuries of this second millennium, the basic fault line of political life in western Christendom was constituted by the conflicting institutional imperatives of the Church on the one hand and secular rulers on the other. This has some similarities to the fault line of politics over approximately the last two centuries, which has been the conflicting institutional imperatives of the centralised state on the one hand and private organisations of various kinds, particularly commercial corporations on the other. In both of these periods, the pursuit of institutional self-interest was a mainspring of social action. Institutional loyalty was a primary social bond. It was so during medieval times and has become so again.
Institutions like individuals have a craving for self esteem. The personal imperative for prestige, recognition and freedom amongst individuals is reflected in institutional demands for autonomy. A preoccupation with institutional loyalties is present in all ages, but in some periods of history it proves to be more central to the issues of the time than in others. The salience of institutional loyalty is something which our own times share with the twelfth century.
Loyalty was the centrepiece of the medieval moral framework. Loyalty which overrides all standards of ethical conduct. Loyalty which drove four knights to murder an Archbishop in his cathedral. This was just the kind of behaviour that aristocrats demanded and admired - indeed still demand and admire - from their underlings. They call in honour. On the other hand there was a loyalty of similar force based on the power of ideas and faith. Specifically, in the context with which I am dealing, the sense of loyalty demanded by an organised Church and by the institutionalised component parts of that Church.
My approach to these issues is that of a secular historian. For those who regard this as inappropriate when dealing with the life of a martyr and Saint, I apologise in advance.. It is the only perspective which I am capable of bringing to the events.
Any student of medieval society knows the significance attached to the institutional independence of the corporate groups in which that society was divided. A keyword of the contemporary rhetoric was “libertas” identifying the special rights and privileges of particular institutions. In a sense the Church and the various manifestations of secular authority were each claiming autonomy on their own part. The claim of institutional autonomy by the monarchy and by the Church, is the central theme of the conflict between Becket and Henry.
Over a period of two decades in the middle of the twelfth century a civil war had convulsed England, primarily because of the refusal by a group of barons to accept a woman as monarch. Matilda the daughter of Henry I and grand-daughter of William the Conqueror - so referred to by English historians but still, universally, referred to by French historians with affection as ‘William the Bastard’ - had been deprived of her inheritance by the House of Blois, which put King Stephen on the throne. Matilda abdicated her claim in favour of her son, Henry, product of her union with Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. Count Geoffrey had ruthlessly subjugated Normandy, on behalf of his wife’s claim to succeed her father.
After the death of his own son and heir, Stephen signed a formal treaty adopting Henry on terms that he would succeed as King of England on Stephen’s death, which occurred within a year. This marked a most extraordinary transition for Henry. The 17 year old Henry became Duke of Normandy on his father’s nomination in 1150, Count of Anjou on his father’s death in 1151, Duke of Aquitane in 1152, by marriage within two months of the day on which Eleanor of Aquitane had, for failure to produce a male heir, been divorced by the King of France, and finally, King of England on Stephen’s death in 1154: Henry was 21 years of age.
As part of the peace settlement between Stephen and Henry it had been agreed that all castles which had been erected since the death of Henry I should be destroyed. The reference to the state of affairs at the time of Henry I appears in the young Henry’s actions for the first time. This was to be a central feature of his political rhetoric and programme for his reign. The basis of his legitimacy, and his political strength against the power which the usurper Stephen had obtained from incumbency, was Henry’s assertion of a direct and immediate succession to Henry I. Throughout his reign he continued to assert that the period of usurpation did not create rights enforceable by the barons against him. Nor, though he did not yet articulate it, would he accept the substantial expansion of what the Church perceived to be the rights it had acquired during those years. His rhetoric of restoration was repeated in countless charters, writs and letters as a hallmark, almost, of political obsession.
In the case of the castles described as “adulterine”, because they had not been legitimately licensed by Henry I, Henry was concerned with the practicalities of his future authority. Castles were the basic building blocks of secular authority. Such structures, of varying sophistication, enabled barons to assert independence from the King. A castle enable the castellan to control the surrounding countryside.
Henry’s first task as King was to ensure the full implementation of the treaty by which the barons had bound themselves to destroy or hand over castles. He did so much earlier than any of them could have expected. Even then, there would be 225 legitimate baronial castles against 49 of his own. A ratio of 5:1. Methodically, by continual expansion and improvement of Royal castles and by taking advantage of each domestic accident to remove or reduce the fortifications of the Barons, he and his sons were to reduce that ratio to about 2:1.
This perhaps more than anything else was the foundation of the expansion off Royal justice in England. It is in many ways the definitive measure of Henry’s contribution to the development of the legal system. His first act as King was to identify precise time limits for the destruction of the remaining strongholds. He marched north to invest and attack castellans, some of whom had earlier been his allies. He obtained formal recognition that all fortifications were either his property or required his permission, in return for definite feudal services.
Henry II was a passionate man with boundless aggressive energy. He had one overriding passion and that was to control everything around him. His energy was single mindedly channelled into the exercise of power.
A King could do and say what he wanted, when he wanted. That was the ultimate freedom. He alone had it and he wanted everyone to know that he alone had it. Henry never tried to hide his incessant infidelities. He frequently abandoned both in public and private, any semblance of self-control, as his volatile temper flashed from an affable gentleness into an ungovernable blind rage terrifying all around him with blasphemous epithets. Whatever the context, whether trivial or profound, Henry wanted - needed - to be in complete control. This frequently led to carpet chewing rages of infantile self-indulgence.
As the generally admiring courtier Walter Map noted, when listing what he thought were Henry’s few defects, Henry was “Impatient of repose, he did not scruple to disturb half of Christendom.”
As one hostile, but grudgingly admiring eye-witness, known to historians as Gerald of Wales, recalled:
“He allowed himself neither tranquillity nor repose. He was addicted to the chase beyond measure; at crack of dawn he was off on horseback, traversing waste lands, penetrating forests and climbing the mountain tops and so he passed restless days. At evening on his return home he was rarely seen to sit down either before or after supper. After such great wearisome exertions he would wear out the whole court by continually standing.”
This stocky, barrel chested, bandy legged King continually paraded his considerable physical energy by making everyone keep up with his horsemanship and exploiting the etiquette which prevented anyone sitting unless he sat.
The social framework of the Middle Ages was constituted by a hierarchy of interconnected loyalties created by mutual oaths. Henry sought to create an identity between legitimate authority as stipulated in this framework and the realities of power exercised by physical coercion. Future historians would seek to portray his conduct as representing the interests of the people and of stable government. That was not his intention. He identified his person with the institution of the monarchy and the ultimate virtue was his own independence and authority. His autonomy was an end in itself, not some instrument for achieving the peace and welfare of others.
Henry II was one of the great legal innovators of all time. To understand how Henry’s drive for power led to a transformation of the legal system, it is necessary to understand how medieval society was pervaded by a system of rules, not market exchanges. Indeed, its detailed regulation is replicated in the worst bureaucratic nightmares of our own century.
This was a rule bound society down to the very lowest level. In the manors which were the basic farming units, the manorial courts created rules of considerable detail: for example, specifying the size of the loaves of bread which working villeins would receive for lunch or of the sheaves of corn which they would receive at the end of a working day; the amount of the fee payable if a villein’s daughter wanted to marry and of the fine if she were found to be unchaste; the right of a free meal for servants on the day of the lord’s marriage; the gifts that had to be paid to the lord on stipulated religious feast days; the number of days a tenant was obliged to work on the lord’s land; how many days he had to mow and carry hay; the area of land he had to plough, sow and harrow and whether or not he had to supply a plough and oxen; the precise amount of corn he must pay for the privilege of using the lord’s monopoly over grinding and baking at his nominated mill and bakery; how many times he may have to move the sheep a year and how many days he must spend in washing and shearing sheep. One is reminded of the detailed manuals specifying entitlements in the contemporary welfare state.
Henry’s power and authority as Count, Duke and King - and the wealth which brought him military strength - depended on an intricate web of overlapping powers, rights, and privileges and prerogatives. In England, the basic theoretical assumption was that the King owned all the land. He in fact kept direct control of a considerable proportion of England particularly in the area known as “forests”, in which a separate, almost totalitarian, legal regime was in force, protecting his extensive property interests in farms and herds of animals as a royal larder, as well as the favourite royal sport of hunting.
In addition to the services, and fees in lieu of services which the king was entitled to receive from his tenants in chief for the land he permitted them to occupy, the king had a range of rights which entitled him to the profits of land during vacancies - such as before the confirmation of a successor or during the wardship of a minor. This extended to the properties held by the senior ecclesiastics, including the Archbishop of Canterbury. This gave him, of course, a vested interest to delay as long as possible the appointment of any successor to an office particularly, as under the reform papacy, Archbishops and bishops unlike secular barons, were not themselves entitled to pay key money to hasten an appointment.
In addition the King had a right to consent to certain acts - for which a fee, generally called a “relief” could be charged. This included the confirmation of heirs to a deceased estate; the marriage of a widow or single heiress or of a ward. Furthermore there were the profits of justice - yes they were profits in those days - including fines, forfeiture of the estates of convicted criminals, fees of elastic size for providing a forum at all, and for “amercements” - i.e. payment for the King’s mercy - perhaps for failing to perform some public duty like apprehending a criminal, at other times for a breach of a private duty, like taking a wife without permission but often, for merely displeasing the king. Every year a flow of payments were recorded in the Treasury for matters such as this: “for having the King’s benevolence” or his “love” or his “peace” or his “favour” or that “the King’s anger may be allayed” or “abate” or be “put aside”. Henry’s fits of temper were a major royal profit centre.
At every point in the feudal system, there was a detailed list of services and obligations - many of which were commuted for cash payments. These were not only at the level of the monarchy. They were reflected right down through the feudal hierarchy. A bewildering variety of services in addition to or in lieu of a stipulated annual rent were attached to particular grants of land or leases; to feed the animals near the King’s hunting lodge at Woodstock; to keep a certain number of falconers during the mewing and moulting season and deliver them to the King when ready to fly; to provide the King with a meal of roast pork when he hunted in a nearby forest; to supply a new tablecloth worth three shillings at Michaelmas; to supply a pair of scissors at Christmas; to rear one puppy a year for the King; to carry the King’s banner when he visited the area. Nothing was too detailed for specification. Upon the solemn royal crown wearing of Christmas day, Rolland, the tenant of Hemingstone in Suffolk, was required to attend at court and perform - as the rhythmical Latin of his formal deed of title recorded - “Unum saltum et siffletum et unum bumbulum” namely he was obliged to make ‘a leap, a whistle and a fart’.
The complexity and detail of these arrangements - most of which have implications for the King’s revenue - makes even the Income Tax Assessment Act look simple. To maximise the value of all of these various rights and prerogatives required an acute legal mind. This was Henry’s greatest strength. As one of his contemporaries said, Henry was a “subtle devisor of legal processes”. This is an under-statement. The writs that he issued are the foundations of a centralised system of royal justice of which we are the beneficiaries to this day.
In such a rule bound society Henry’s preoccupation with legal detail was the essential foundation of his success. His acute sense of his own position transformed his sense of personal honour into an almost oriental concern with “face”. Perhaps more appropriately - given the Norman heritage of Sicily and southern Italy - a mafia like preoccupation with “respect”.
Henry was never more generous than when others gave him complete face or respect or honour in acknowledgment that he was not beholden to any other person. He reserved his greatest wrath for anyone who seemed to question his authority in any way. This was the case during the conflict with Becket.
Becket’s advancement in the world came about under the personal patronage of Theobald, his predecessor as Archbishop of Canterbury. Theobald was born in the Norman town of Thiereville, where Thomas Becket’s father was also born. Theobald had spent the entirety of his adult life in the piety of the Abbey of Bec, four miles from Thiereville. That Abbey, deliberately located in difficult terrain in the Risle valley of Normandy, had attracted as its first prior one of the most cultivated ecclesiastical lawyers of the time, the Italian Lanfranc. The school he established at the Abbey rapidly acquired a reputation throughout Europe attracting patronage as well as numerous monks.
The Abbey prospered with its Norman sponsors. Lanfranc became Archbishop of Canterbury after 1066. The most powerful figure in England after William the Conqueror himself. The second Abbot of Bec, St Anselm, the dominant theologian of the age, indeed one of the greatest of all time, became Lanfranc’s successor as Archbishop.
Becket joined the personal staff of Theobald as a strapping young man in his early twenties with some education and with experience - unusual for a cleric - in the world of commerce. His particular skills, and quite probably his attractiveness to Theobald, lay in his administrative and financial experience. Becket had been employed as a clerk by a London merchant who relished in the name, Osbert Huit-Deniers or “Eightpence”, in what is recognisable as a rudimentary kind of bank.
Becket’s background in practical affairs is referred to by all his biographers, but not even the most devoted of his biographers attempt to portray him as having an interest in matters of theology or any other form of intellectual activity. Plainly he was intelligent, quick witted and had an extraordinary memory, this is the unanimous opinion of his biographers. However, he was never interested in ideas.
His basic education was at Merton Priory, south of London near contemporary Wimbledon. This was followed by study in Paris at its nascent university and, later, Theobald sent him to the law school at Bologna. He was in Paris at the time of Abelard - an outstanding mind and an early example of the Parisian tendency to treat intellectuals as stars. He went to Bologna at the time of Gratian - one of the greatest legal scholars of all time. There is no record that Becket sought out either Abelard or Gratian or was interested in anything they had to offer. Becket’s time in Paris, according to his biographers, was spent in boisterous undergraduate dissipation, including participation in the aristocratic blood sports of hawking and hunting.
Within the Archbishop’s household, Becket attracted the particular patronage of Theobald’s brother, Walter, probably because he worked directly with him in administering the Archbishop’s estates. No biographer suggests that Becket made any contribution to the Archbishop’s spiritual, educational or charitable functions.
Walter held the office of Archdeacon of Canterbury, the superintendent of the hierarchy of rural deans and parish clergy throughout the diocese. For purposes of administration, the archdeacon was the Archbishop’s deputy and alter ego, administering the estates and collecting the fees. The archdeaconry, as a formal office, had is own synod and court for resolving disputes. There were rules of custom as to the proportion of synodal dues or chrism fees or profits of the ordeal which an archdeacon could keep and the proportion he had to pass on to his bishop or archbishop. The income of the Archdeacon of Canterbury was estimated to be 100 pounds a year, which made him a very rich man indeed.
Becket’s intelligence and organisational skills marked him for promotion. Theobald took him to witness the workings of the Church at its highest level at the Council of Rheims in 1148. This was an important experience which requires a separate paper. In 1151 Theobald entrusted to Becket the sensitive task of a mission to Rome to forestall the anticipatory coronation by Stephen of his son Eustace as King of England.
Notwithstanding what appears to be defects of his early education including imperfections in his Latin, unfamiliarity with the intellectual intricacies of theology and his need for catch-up schooling in law, Becket proved a skilled negotiator. His intelligence, wit, eloquence - notwithstanding an engaging slight stammer - personal vivacity and ingratiating manner is attested by all his contemporary biographers. His bearing - handsome, unusually tall, with even features and a slightly aquiline nose - combined with these personal characteristics to make him a pleasant companion, so desirable a quality in a diplomat or a courtier.
Eventually Becket was himself appointed Archdeacon of Canterbury. The position of archdeacon was no role for a sensitive theologian or of a monk preoccupied with salvation. Archdeacons were generally regarded as worldly and mercenary. Theologians of the era debated the ironic question “Is it possible for an Archdeacon to be saved?” One anxious cleric refused appointment as Archdeacon because he feared the temptation of accepting an office with a vested financial interest in the multiplication of sin. Henry II would later voice the common opinion when he complained to Theobald that the archdeacons of England extorted more from the people than he himself could collect in taxes.
Later when an avaricious cleric used Becket as an example to justify taking money from sinners for the computation of penance, the exasperated Bishop declared, “Believe me, it was not that which made him a Saint!” It is no accident that his contemporary biographers do not dwell on Becket’s role as archdeacon.
Combining administrative and judicial functions, the archdeacon represented the Bishop in numerous delegated functions: holding courts and synods, going on visitations, searching out married clergy, collecting fines, fees and tithes. Sometimes this was done like tax farming in the manner of the rural office of sheriff - namely paying a fixed annual amount to the bishop or archbishop and keeping anything that could be collected over and above that. Today, this old tradition of tax farming would be called “privatisation”.
Theobald had formally consecrated Becket as a deacon prior to his appointment to the archdeaconry. He was then prohibited - as he had not been as a mere tonsured clerk - from pursuing activities inconsistent with that status, such as marrying or bearing arms. However he had still not heard a call for a vocation as a priest. That call, with its additional restraints, would not come until the time of his appointment as archbishop.
Becket was a practical man of the world with real knowledge of administrative requirements. Immediately upon the coronation of Henry II, Theobald urged the new king to appoint Becket as his Chancellor. That occurred. Becket did not however surrender the other appointments he held at Canterbury including the archdeaconry and a number of other specific appointments together with the profits they brought him.
There can be no doubt that Becket’s appointment was in part due to the new king’s need for the Church’s goodwill, particularly that of Theobald, at a time when his authority in his new kingdom had yet to be established on a firm footing. He was about to launch his attack on the adulterine castles.
The appointment was a triumph.
A close personal bond was quickly created between Henry and his Chancellor. In his play, Becket, Jean Anouilh captured the easy, almost fraternal, amity between them, to which all the contemporary biographers testify, as follows:
“Becket: I received two forks ---
King: Forks? -
Becket: Yes it’s a new instrument a devilish little thing to look at - and to use too. It’s for ronging meat and carrying it to your mouth. It saves you dirtying your fingers -
King: But then you dirty the fork? So are your fingers. I don’t see the point.
Becket: It hasn’t any practically speaking. But it’s refined, it’s subtle it very un-Norman.
King: You must order me a dozen! I want to see my great fat barons’ faces at the first court banquet when I present them with that. We won’t tell them what they are for. They won’t make head nor tail of them! I bet they’ll think they are a new kind of dagger.”
Becket emerges as the King’s closest confidante and friend at court, not merely an adviser but a daily companion. They shared a mutual passion for hunting and hawking. Henry was fluent in a number of languages including Latin and, even more unusually for an aristocrat of that time, was even known to read books. The King and his Chancellor even enjoyed what was then regarded as the somewhat raffish game of chess, when the moves of bishops, knights and castles had layers of meaning long since lost and in the words of a contemporary chronicler:
“Where front to front the mimic warriors close,
to check the progress of their mimic foes.”
The relationship was not such as to prevent Henry, on numerous occasions making sure that everyone knew who was boss, including his closest associate Becket.
Later, after the breakdown of their relationship at the moment of a formal reconciliation, Henry’s spontaneous outburst revealed his greatest hurt. According to the chroniclers he said: “Oh, if you would only do what I wish.” It was almost a cry of pain.
As long as he was Chancellor, Becket did precisely what Henry wished. Becket understood from the closeness of their relationship and by witnessing a myriad of examples of Henry’s preoccupation with his own authority, that it would be suicidal to challenge Henry in any way which questioned his ability to freely exercise his will or pursue his own interests as he saw them. When he did so as archbishop, he knew what to expect.
In the time available to me this evening, it is only possible to give one example. One of the first tasks Becket had to perform as Chancellor involved a conflict of interests between the King and the Church, including Archbishop Theobald. This concerned a jurisdictional conflict over Battle Abbey.
For his victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and in penance for the slaughter, William the Conqueror established an abbey and ordered that the altar stone be laid at the very spot that Harold fell. Battle Abbey was a sacred site in both a secular and theological sense. It was the Norman cenotaph.
By reason of its unique status as a Royal chapel - like Westminster Abbey - it laid claim to unique privileges, particularly in the form of exemption from control of the local bishop, the Bishop of Chichester. Its claim was based on the circumstances of its creation. It asserted that William as its founder had expressly preserved its independence from episcopal control.
Whether or not a secular ruler could, even by means of a foundation grant for the creation of a religious institution, alter hierarchical relationships within the Church, engaged one of the most important political issues of the time. This is sometimes described as a conflict between Church and State: somewhat anachronistically because the word State does not accurately describe the network of interconnecting mutual rights and obligations upon which secular authority was based. Nevertheless the terminology is convenient.
The claim that such exemption could be given by a lay ruler was entirely inconsistent with the agenda of the reform papacy of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
There were practical matters involved as well as the principle of autonomy. If the abbey were subject to supervision by the archbishop then it had to attend his court and synod, paying the synodal fees. It also had to provide hospitality to the archbishop and his entourage wherever he paid a visit.
In the context of the hiatus in secular authority during the reign of Stephen, Hilary, the Bishop of Chichester asserted his authority over Battle Abbey. He excommunicated the Abbot for failure to obey his orders.
The Abbot of that time was a Norman of impeccable heritage. Walter de Luci was the brother of Richard de Luci, a knight who had acquired significant estates in the service of Stephen. Under the truce between Stephen and Henry, Richard was the custodian of the key castles at Windsor and the Tower of London, to ensure the succession of Henry. At the time of the truce Archbishop Theobald, had to direct Hilary to lift the sentence of excommunication so that Walter, together with all the other Normans who owed an oath of fealty directly to the king for the lands which they held of the king, could renew their oaths in person before Henry and ensure the succession that had been agreed.
The detailed house history kept by the monks of the Abbey, known as the “Battle Chronicle”, described Walter as “standing manfully firm to preserve unharmed the treasures of the Church, its lands, liberties and royal customs”. Walter relied on a formal charter which purported to be issued by William, together with confirmatory charters in the names of his successors, William Rufus and Henry I. Notwithstanding the assertion of their veracity in the Battle Chronicle, it is quite likely that the charters were forgeries. They had first emerged at a conference in the Royal Chapel of the White Tower in London attended by King Stephen and a group of loyal Barons and ecclesiastics. No-one had apparently heard of them until then. Not even the Battle Chronicle suggests that they had. Their existence is probably inconsistent with the profession of obedience which Walter de Luci himself had made to the Bishop of Chichester upon his appointment to Battle Abbey.
These charters were probably concocted in an active copying centre at Westminster Abbey which, having made its own matrices of the seals of Edward the Confessor and William I had provided a stream of writs and charters for abbeys at Coventry, Gloucester, Ramsay, Bury, St Peters of Ghent as well, of course, for itself.
Forgery was a well established tradition of the era. Monasteries were notorious throughout Europe for practising forgery when it suited them. No doubt it was believed that these documents merely provided documentation for an actual event which had, or should have, occurred but for some reason was negligently conveyed only in oral form or, even worse, had been left to implication.
When arranging a forgery to establish what was no doubt a genuinely held oral tradition of their exceptional status, the monks of Battle Abbey stood in a well established tradition. Their in-house history, the Battle Chronicle, proclaimed:
“Christ did not suffer His Church to be bereft of its ancient and just privileges, but at an appropriate time, by His watchfulness he renewed them stronger than ever before.”
To say the least this is an odd way to describe a jurisdictional conflict between a group of monks on the one hand and an archbishop and bishop on the other.
Shortly after the coronation of Henry II, Abbot Walter forwarded the charters to the new King and sought their confirmation by a fresh charter. Henry was not then in a position to act. His authority was not entirely secure after so many years of civil war. He was not prepared to offend the Church.
The Norman nobility undoubtedly supported the Abbey not least in the persona of Richard de Luci, Stephens former right hand man, appropriately called “The Loyal One”, whom Henry had just appointed co-justiciar of England, the Crown’s most senior administrative post. The critical task for Henry was to confirm his actual authority over the group of regional war lords who had consolidated contiguous areas of territory over which they ruled. The adulterine castles had yet to be suppressed.
The claims of the Bishop of Chichester were supported by the official hierarchy of the Church and, in particular, by Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury. The ideology of the reform papacy rejected such lay interference in the internal affairs of the Church. Furthermore, the Archbishop of Canterbury had a direct interest in ensuring the claims of his own Bishop, who reported to him. Finally, Theobald himself was engaged in a longstanding conflict of a similar character with the monks of St Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury itself. When the issue of Battle Abbey arose, that conflict had not been resolved.
England was unusual in that some English cathedrals were manned by monks, clergy called “regular” because they lived by a “rule”. Christ Church in Canterbury, which was attached to the Cathedral made it one of those cathedrals. A longstanding conflict existed with the neighbouring monastery of St Augustine’s, located just outside the Canterbury city walls. It was of course St Augustine who, as a monk leading a band of monks, had executed the mission to convert the heathens of what became known as England.
The celebrity of St Augustine’s was based on its relics. St Augustine’s body, entombed within the Abbey, was, at that stage, of infinitely greater significance to pilgrims and others than anything which Christ Church or the Cathedral could offer.
Other Abbeys had local patron Saints, such as the Santo in Padua, St Zeno in Verona and St Appolinaire in Ravenna - this was St Appolinaire in Classe not St Appolinaire Nuova, the former being determined, in a bitter arbitration, by Pope Alexander III to be the true resting place of St Appolinarus. These abbeys were regarded as more sacred edifices than the cathedrals in their city, and many still are. St Augustine’s would remain such, until completely overshadowed by the shrine of St Thomas at Christ Church.
The early Archbishops of Canterbury, many of whom became saints, were buried in St Augustine’s rather than the Cathedral - until the ninth Archbishop, Cuthbert, having negotiated the secret permission of the Pope and the King of Kent, directed his remains to be interred in his own Cathedral and that his death be kept a secret until after his burial. Foiled by what they regarded as a conspiracy, on the death of the next Archbishop, the Abbot of St Augustines tried to storm the Cathedral at the head of an armed mob but was repulsed.
Throughout Europe there were abbeys which had acquired institutional freedom from the supervision of the Bishop, by asserting a direct, unintermediated subjection to the Pope himself. This was a privilege which successive Popes were not reluctant to grant.
St Augustines sought to acquire such independence for itself. After all, its Abbot ranked second only to the Abbot of Monte Casino in the Benedictine order.
Theobald became involved in a long legal battle when he attempted to enforce the annual dues which, according to Canterbury tradition, were owing by the Abbey to the Archbishop.: two pounds ten shillings and seven pence in cash; two rams; 30 small loaves; two and four units of mead and one of beer. This aspect of the conflict was settled when the monks assigned substantial property to the Archbishop to remove this annual reminder of their bondage.
During Stephen’s rule, various aspects of St Augustine,s had been conducted in defiance of Archbishop Theobald’s instructions. He excommunicated the second and third ranking officers in the hierarchy, the prior Sylvester and the sacristan. Theobald won this case in Rome. Sylvester and the other defaulting officers had to publicly confess their sins and endure a period of humiliation and penance. However, when Sylvester became Abbot, he refused to swear, as all of his predecessors had done, “Canonical obedience in all things” to Theobald and his successors. It took Theobald six years and numerous appeals to the Pope, before he obtained an order that Sylvester make the traditional promise. This issue had not been resolved when the jurisdictional conflict over Battle Abbey erupted. Theobald shared the belief of the Bishop of Chichester of the importance of maintaining the hierarchy of the Church.
When Walter de Luci first raised the alleged charters with Henry II, Archbishop Theobald appealed to the King not to confirm the charters by reissuing them. He said, according to the Battle Chronicle:
“The King ought not to allow the Church of Canterbury, the mother of all England and the authority by which the King himself had been crowned and the church of Chichester, its suffragan, to be despoiled of liberties and privileges held from ancient times, merely for Battle, a church of no such authority or rank.”
This was a direct challenge to the great significance the Norman nobility attached to the Abbey. There can be little doubt that Henry made it clear to the de Luci brothers that as soon as he felt able to stand up to the Church, the Abbey would have its charter.
Within days of the formal submission by the last recalcitrant northern baron on 7 July 1155, at a full assembly of Bishops and Barons at the site of the siege, Henry gave Walter de Luci his charter.
Henry of Chichester had not given up. He approached the Pope who summonsed Walter de Luci to come to the episcopal centre at Chichester to receive orders from the Pope himself. Walter replied with a series of qualifications unknown to the canon law:
“He would obey in all respects, saving the honour of the Lord Pope, his fealty and honour of his own Lord King, his own person and his order and saving the rights of his Church.”
The phrase “saving his order” was a phrase which Becket would himself use to Henry and which would trigger the crisis between himself as Archbishop and the King. Walter de Luci’s qualifications were particularly fulsome. They were those of a man who was confident of his supporters.
Henry decided to put an end to the dispute once and for all. He called a full council of archbishops, bishops, earls and barons for May 1157. A few days before the formal council was due to commence in Colchester Abbey, Henry summoned a group of Battle Abbey supporters to a secret preparatory meeting: the Abbot, his brother Richard de Luci, Becket and a few close confidants. At this meeting, Becket took the King through the various charters, including a new version of William’s original charter which had just been “discovered”. It bore the “signature” of the Bishop of Chichester of the day. At an earlier time Hilary had pointed out the absence of any such acknowledgment by any of his own predecessors in the copies of the charters shown to him. That problem had been overcome.
One of the issues to be discussed was the fact that upon his succession as Abbot, Walter de Luci had made a formal profession of obedience to the Bishop of Chichester. According to the Battle Chronicle, a biased but, as far as one can tell, not inaccurate source, Henry responded:
‘Profession is not against the privileges of Churches. For those who make profession do not promise anything beyond what they ought.”
A flexible doctrine indeed designed, as so many of Henry’s positions were designed, to maximise his own flexibility in all circumstances. He of course had to make such professions to the King of France as a Count and a Duke. During the course of this preliminary meeting, Richard de Luci forcefully put the Norman case:
“This Church should be elevated to the highest rank by you and by all us Normans. For there the most noble King William by God’s grace and with the aid of our kin, won that by which you hold the Crown of England at this very moment in hereditary right and by which we have all been enriched with great wealth. We therefore pray your clemency to protect this Church and its privileges and exemptions with the hand of your authority and to command that it, with all its possessions, be free.”
Henry made it quite clear that he had made up his mind to do just that.
When the formal trial convened at Colchester Abbey a few days later, Hilary and his key supporters, like Archbishop Theobald, were taken by surprise by the determination of the King.
Hilary chose to give the King a lecture on the ideology of the reform papacy. According to the Battle Chronicle, he said:
“Jesus Christ our Lord has established two abodes and two powers for the governments of this world: One is the spiritual the other the material. The spiritual is that to which our Lord Jesus Christ referred when He said to our first shepherd the Apostle Peter and through him, to all his disciples and successors, ‘You are Peter and upon this rock shall I build my Church’. As a result the Church of Rome, marked out by the apostolate of the Prince of the Apostles has achieved so great and so marvellous a pre-eminence world wide that no Bishop, no ecclesiastical person at all may be deposed from his ecclesiastical seat without its judgment and permission.”
Hilary invoked the doctrine by which each Bishop could trace his authority by a direct line of succession back to the sacred powers conferred by Christ on each of his twelve Apostles. This is the most successful direct lineage of institutional legitimacy that the world has ever known, with the possible exception of the Chinese imperial tradition.
Henry reacted with his usual undisciplined anger to the suggestion that his authority was in any way limited. In response to Hilary’s assertion that no ecclesiastical person may be deposed from his ecclesiastical seat, Henry said, “Very true a Bishop may not be deposed”. However, gesturing with his hands he added, “But see, with a good push he could be ejected”.
Ignoring what the Battle Chronicle describes as “universal laughter” Hilary pressed on:
“It is impossible for any layman, indeed even a King to give ecclesiastical privileges and exemptions to Churches and ecclesiastical authority shows that it is impossible for those arrogated to them by laymen to be valid except by the permission and confirmation of the Holy Father by the laws of Rome.”
Henry responded in fury:
“You are plotting to attack the royal prerogative given to me by god with your crafty arguments. I command that you undergo just legal judgment for presumptuous words against my crown and royal prerogative.”
Becket assumed something of the role of a counsel assisting the Court. He reminded Hilary of the oath of fealty he had taken to the King and said, “You should therefore be prudent”, by way of warning.
Then Walter de Luci played his trump card. He presented the new copy of William’s charter which purported to be sealed by Hilary’s predecessor as Bishop of Chichester. Hilary pointed out that he had never seen or even heard of the charter in the years of disputation.
Becket was called upon to reply to Hilary. He described Battle Abbey as “The King’s own chapel” and proceeded on the assumption that the charters were genuine.
At this point a crucial moment in the trial occurred. As I have mentioned the Pope himself had issued a direction to the Abbot to present himself at Chichester and accept the authority of the Bishop. Appeals from any part of the English Church to the Pope, which occurred without the King’s consent, were plainly regarded as a fundamental challenge to the monarch’s authority. Indeed in the previous year in the context of the claim for exemption by St Augustines, Pope Adrian, the only English Pope, had accused Archbishop Theobald of conspiring with Henry to “bury appeals to Rome”.
Becket directly challenged Hilary on this question of the appeal to Rome and the way in which the papal order had been implemented by officers of the Archbishop when they refused the request for a delay by the Abbot of Battle. Becket is recorded as saying:
“Your clerks kept demanding from him things that were against the royal prerogative. The Abbot prayed that they give him a delay so that he might go to our lord King and hear his advice and his wishes in the matter. They refused and he was unable to get his delay.”
At this point, Henry, menacingly demanded to know whether Hilary had procured the papal letter. Perhaps realising the debate was over, Hilary denied it, on oath - to everyone’s astonishment. Theobald, according to a malicious aside by the chronicler of Battle, crossed himself.
The king’s determination was plain. Theobald made one last effort to obtain a face saving formula which acknowledged the independence of the Church. He asked the king:
“May Your Excellency command us to reconsider what should be done about this and settle it by the judicial method of Church custom.”
Henry replied emphatically:
“No. I shall not command it to be settled that way by you. I shall put a proper finish to it in your company and having taken counsel about it.”
After lengthy discussions, Hilary capitulated. He renounced his claim which meant there could be no appeal to Rome from this decision. Archbishop Theobald ratified the agreement both as archbishop and papal legate.
Henry made it quite clear that he was prepared to exercise his authority over the English Church and would not tolerate claims to independence based on the superior status of the papacy. He was determined to restrict the Pope’s claim to exercise a legal jurisdiction within his kingdom.
The principles of the independence of the Church enshrined in the canon law were regarded by Henry as an affront to his own status. When, in the years to come, Becket sought to draw on those principles, he knew that this was not a matter on which Henry was likely to compromise.
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