one kind or another, expressed or implied, literally bristle on his pages, representing in literature the social offence which has earned for comparisons as a class their familiar attendant epithet. As introduced by him, every case of excellence seems to come before us staggering under the weight of its relations to other cases; we never lose the feeling that it is being backed against something else, or something else against it; that some act of fealty is being demanded of it or for it; and though Mr. Swinburne is the last man deliberately to dwarf any greatness that he recognizes, we tire of the way in which authors are hurried off, on any pretence, to make their genuflexions before one or another of his gods. In his company we lose the power of admiring our heroes directly and naturally; from the free citizenship of an intellectual republic we and they seem to pass to the slavery of a hierarchy, in which the rank of everybody and everything is as precisely assigned as in the ritual of some eastern religion, and no one can walk for bowings and scrapings. The very mention of a poet, or of a poem, seems to imply for him a sense of their place, accurately fixed by a combative examiner, in about twenty different triposes. So great is the air of exactitude which, with the turn of a phrase, Mr. Swinburne can give to his class-lists, and so multifarious are the aspects and qualities in respect of which works and workers are classed, that the reader's endeavours to adjust his judgment resembles a perpetual process of pulling and wrenching. Nor can one ever be sure when one is at the end of this Procrustean process. One never knows what new department of excellence may not at any moment crop up, in which some poet will turn out to be "out of all sight or comparison" superior to all his compeers, except, "of course, this, that, or the other of them. Gentler methods would surely be in every way an advantage; for this exaggeration of positiveness and detailed precision in undemonstrable matters not only weakens the force of the judgments, by suggesting that they would never have been thus pronounced had not their author felt that they were bound to be differed from, but actually prompts the difference. Mr. Swinburne has himself remarked on the falseness of the verdicts which great artists have not infrequently passed on one another; and in so doing he has admitted, as completely as his general tone denies, the justice of our main conclusion, that even among "capable articulate creatures" there is a large amount of necessary divergence of intuition in Poetry. But our argument will yield a further corollary of which he, of all others, should reap the benefit-namely, that one who at any point perceives and enjoys more than others, establishes a claim not so much to be differed from as envied by them. This truth, which lies at the very root of the infectious influence of mind on

mind, might perhaps help most of us here and there to a slight though salutary lift in each other's estimation; but Mr. Swinburne in particular, should he realize it, might make his wonderful range of poetic insight and sympathy contribute almost as much to our admiration of him as (what he cares far more about) our admiration for the many objects of his generous and enthusiastic praise. And the first condition-to give the key-note of this paper its final due-would be to strike a pen through nine out of every ten of his comparatives and superlatives.

EDMUND GURNEY.

ART. V.-THE CHURCH AFTER THE CONQUEST. Rerum Britannicarum Medii Evi Scriptores: Eadmeri Historia Novorum in Anglia, et Opuscula duo de Vita Sancti Anselmi et quibusdam Miraculis ejus. Edited from Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. By MARTIN RULE, M.A. 1884. (Rolls Publications.)

SOCH

OCIETIES formed for the publication of books have been very numerous in this country, and have done good service, but it may perhaps be said without offence or exaggeration that none of them have done so much as the Masters of the Rolls have done. Private efforts, aided only by private subscriptions, cannot compete with a publisher who has access to Her Majesty's Treasury, and who cares nothing whether he sells his books or not. He can always obtain the services of able men who understand their business, and whose work when done is a credit not only to themselves, but also to the state which, through the Masters of the Rolls, employs them.

The history of St. Anselm by Eadmer, with which we have now to deal, has been entrusted to Mr. Rule, the admirable biographer of the saint. Nothing could be more fitting; and he has executed his task with that laborious and conscientious diligence so conspicuous and so charming in his "Life of St. Anselm."

Eadmer was one of the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, brought up from childhood in the cloister, and finally one of the companions of St. Anselm, the archbishop. He is a recorder of the things he saw, and of the words he heard, and of the anxieties he felt. His perfect honesty and sincerity are visible in his writings, and there is no trace of exaggeration in them. He has

supplied us with information about the Church of England after the Conquest which is of the very highest importance, and which, when well considered, makes us wonder, not at the Reformation under Henry VIII., but at its delay in coming.

William the Conqueror, when he landed on the coast of Sussex, found everything in confusion, for Harold was as much a usurper as he was a conqueror. The civil state was bad, but the ecclesiastical state was worse. The Witenagemote had taken upon itself the responsibility of governing the Church; it had deposed the Archbishop of Canterbury because he was a Norman, and had put in his place a dependant of Harold-Stigand, who, greedy and ambitious, went from Winchester to Canterbury, and held the two Sees together. It was his pleasure also to sell the abbeys. The Pope would not recognize him, and had ordered the restoration of the expelled primate. Stigand persisted in the usurpation, and having first used the pallium of the exiled prelate, obtained one from the Antipope, who no doubt was glad enough to secure the Archbishop of Canterbury for the schism he had made. This usurpation of the See of Canterbury was a cause of grave disorder, and disturbed the jurisdiction of the Church; for on the vacancies of the suffragan Sees it was difficult to fill them, since the Archbishop of Canterbury, as natural legate of the Holy See, possessed the right of confirming the episcopal elections, and there was no archbishop in the land.

The Conqueror would not allow Stigand to crown him, and that resulted in another wrong done to the rights of the See of Canterbury, for Eldred, the northern primate, crowned the king, and that, too, in the province of Canterbury, where he had no jurisdiction. Then, on Low Sunday, April 11, 1070, within two years of the Conquest, the king got rid of Stigand; for on that day two cardinal priests, legates of Alexander II., deprived him of his dignity he had been already suspended by the Pope-and William put him at once in prison, out of which he never came forth alive.

Stigand deserved his miserable lot, but it is not so certain that the others-bishops and abbots, who were deprived of their churches were guilty, all of them, of the offences laid to their charge. St. Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, was assailed, but he maintained his right, and was not afraid of the face of the king. At a later time the Conqueror and Lanfranc also made an attempt to depose him, but failed, and St. Wulstan was Bishop of Worcester when the Conqueror and Lanfranc were in their graves.

The prelates of foreign origin were not disturbed, and these kept their places; but the native prelates had to yield possession to the men who came over with the Conqueror. While the laymen demanded as their share of the booty, counties, manors, VOL. XVII. NO. II. [Third Series.]

Y

and castles, the ecclesiastics, secular and regular, must have abbeys and bishoprics. Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, half-brother of the king, had the county of Kent, of which he was made earl, and immediately plundered the See of Canterbury; Walcheline, the royal chaplain, was made Bishop of Winchester; Remigius, a monk of Fécamp, Bishop of Lincoln, and he is said to have made a bargain with the king which was thus satisfied; Thomas, canon and treasurer of Bayeux, had the See of York, opportunely vacant by the death of Aldred, the last of the native-born prelates of that See, for many years. On the Feast of the Assumption, A.D. 1070, Lanfranc, Abbot of Caen, accepted and took possession of the See of Canterbury. He was consecrated on the Feast of St. John Baptist following, by William the Norman, Bishop of London, who had been expelled with Robert, the Norman archbishop, and whose See had been administered illegally by Stigand, but who recovered it in the train of the Conqueror, and was a great benefactor to his Church. The new Archbishop of York now applied for consecration, which had been delayed for some reason or other. Perhaps it was because he wished to be independent of Canterbury; if so, he must wait till there was an archbishop in Canterbury to maintain the rights which he denied to exist. He would make no profession of obedience to the See of Canterbury, and Lanfranc refused to consecrate him. The dispute was carried, not before the Pope, but before William the Conqueror, and he, taking the Pope's office into his own hands, gave sentence for Lanfranc. Thomas of Bayeux submitted, and the southern primate, though he had not received the pallium, consecrated his defeated rival, and thereupon both went to Rome to petition the Sovereign Pontiff each for his own pallium.

Lanfranc had sent to Rome before for the pallium, but his messengers could not be attended to; he must appear in person, and make the petition in the usual way. He was not unknown in Rome, and it is very probable that the Pope thought it not safe to make any concessions to a prelate who was self-willed beyond ordinary men. With them Remigius, the Bishop of Lincoln, also went, for his simony had become known, and there was no remedy but at the Holy See for his offence. The Pope deprived him, and at the same time deprived Thomas of the See of York, notwithstanding the favour of the king and of Lanfranc. Thomas was incapable of a bishopric, because his father was a priest. The Pope gave Lanfranc authority to determine all matters concerning the two prelates, and that authority was exercised in their favour; Lanfranc interceded for them, and they were restored to their respective Sees. Though Thomas of Bayeux owed Lanfranc much for his help before the Pope, yet the Archbishop of York would not sacrifice the rights of his See. The canons of York had

persuaded him into the belief that he ought to acknowledge no superior in Lanfranc; so upon his restoration to his See he instituted a suit against the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the cause was pleaded before the Pope. Alexander II. declined to hear it out, and said that it was much better to litigate in England, where the witnesses could be more easily produced, and the matter determined by the testimony and judgment of the bishops and abbots of the whole realm.*

The two archbishops came home, and at Easter 1071 presented themselves before the king; that was the way they respected the Papal mandate. They pleaded their cause before the Royal Court, and the Royal Court decided the question, and gave sentence in favour of the See of Canterbury and against the See of York.+

Thomas of York had other grievances, which on this occas on he complained of. The dignity of his See was unjustly lessened by the encroachments of Canterbury. He claimed as suffragan Sees that of Dorchester (afterwards known as Lincoln), that of Worcester, and that of Lichfield. The dispute about these bishoprics was also referred by the Pope to the judgment of the bishops and abbots, but it was determined in a civil court, and these bishoprics were found to be suffragans of Canterbury, and to owe no subjection to the See of York. Lanfranc having gained the cause, gave to Thomas, according to Gervase of Canterbury, the See of Durham for the sake of peace, and that having one suffragan, the See of York might be ruled by an archbishop.‡

The Conqueror gave him the suffragan in the person of Walcher, a native of Lorraine, and from the diocese of Liège, his predecessor Egelwine being in prison at Abingdon, if he was not dead. But it was an unhappy choice on the part of the king. The officials of the bishop oppressed the people, and that oppression became an excuse for rebellion. The bishop went to Gateshead to meet the discontented, and made every effort to pacify them, but they demanded more than the bishop would grant. It is a very sad and bitter story. Liulf, a Saxon nobleman of great possessions in the land, took refuge with all his people under the shadow of St. Cuthbert, where he trusted he might be safe from

* Gul. Malmesb. Gest. PP. lib. i. § 25, Rolls ed.: "Decrevit Alexander Papa oportere hanc causam in Anglica terra audiri, et illic totius regni episcoporum et abbatum testimonio et juditio diffiniri."

+ lbid.: "Uterque igitur in Paschali solemnitate ad regem venit, ibique prolatis in medium partium rationibus, sententiam de negotio regalis curia dedit."

"Actus PP. de Lanfranco. Attamen pro bono pacis Lanfrancus sponte concessit Thomæ, ut Dunelmensis episcopus de cetero sibi profiteretur et ut suffraganeus obediret, ut vel sic uno saltem decoratus episcopo nomen archiepiscopi obtineret.