Archbishop Langton.

DIED A. D. 1228.

STEPHEN DE LANGTON, archbishop of Canterbury, m tne reigns of John and Henry, and one of the ablest men who ever filled the primacy of England, was educated at the university of Paris, where he afterwards taught divinity, and prelected upon the sacred writings with much reputation. After some years spent in this way, he was chosen chancellor of the university, canon of Paris, and dean of Rheims. His reputation having reached Rome, he was sent for by Pope Innocent III., who marked his sense of his merits by bestowing upon him the dignity of a cardinal with the title of St Chrysagonus.

We have adverted in our notice of king John, to the contest which arose betwixt the monks of Canterbury and the suffragan prelates of that diocese upon the occasion of electing a successor to Archbishop Hubert. On the cause being carried to Rome, on the mutual appeal of both parties, the pope decided against the claims of both pretenders to the primacy, and ordered the monks who had been deputed to maintain the cause of their brethren to elect Langton. Innocent had reason to suppose that the choice would not be disagreeable to the king of England, who had frequently written to the cardinal in terms of the highest esteem; but no answer having been returned by the envoys whom he sent to England to solicit John's approbation of the prelate-elect, he proceeded to consecrate him at Viterbo, on the 27th of June, 1207.1

On the arrival of the bull intimating the election and consecration of the cardinal, John, who had favoured the elevation of John de Gracy, bishop of Norwich, to the vacant primacy, was inflamed with rage, and vented his passion on the monks of Christchurch, whom he drove into exile. He then wrote a spirited and angry letter to the pope, in which he accused the holy father of injustice and presumption in raising a stranger to the highest dignity in his kingdom without his knowledge or consent. He reminded his holiness of the extent of revenue which he drew from England; and assured him that unless he immediately repaired the injury he had done him, he would break off all communication betwixt his kingdom and Rome. To this letter Innocent im mediately returned a long answer, in which he exhorted the king not to oppose God and the church any longer, and plainly told him that if he persisted in his obstinacy, he would plunge himself into inextricable difficulties, and would at length be crushed by a power, which no one could hope to resist with success. The quarrel had now become a trial of strength between the power of the king and that of the pontiff. John remained firm even under the dreadful threat of interdiction, which was at last pronounced against him, as already related. While the king continued to hold out against the head of the church, Langton abode at Pontigny in France, whither several of the English bishops hastened to pay their submissions to him as their primate. The king ultimately solicited a conference with Langton at Dover, and offered to acknowledge him as primate, but the parties could not agree as to the article

of reparation and restitution to the clergy, and the negotiations were finally broke off. The archbishop and prelates now united in a representation to the pope, in which they described their own wrongs in forcible terms, and urged the necessity of adopting strong measures against John. Innocent, who required little persuasion on this point, immediately pronounced sentence of deposition against John, and absolved nis vassals from their oaths of fealty.3

The mission of Pandolf, as pope's legate, and the formidable preparations made by the king of France to put in execution the pope's sentence of deposition, at last overcame John's obstinacy; and in July 1213, the prelates who had abandoned their country during the sovereign's contumacy, returned in great triumph to England with Langton at their head. The king met them at Winchester; and Langton publicly revoked the sentence of excommunication which had been pronounced against him; but the interdict was continued until removed by the pope's legate with great solemnity, in the cathedral of St Paul's, on the 29th of June 1214.

Langton's first interference in political affairs places his character in a most respectable light. The barons were now beginning to demand the restoration of their privileges, and the revival of the ancient charters; and with this view, instead of obeying the call of their sovereign to accompany him in an expedition against France, had assembled in council at St Albans, and issued their resolutions in the form of royal proclamations. John determined to punish their disobedience by military execution; and had advanced as far as Northampton for this purpose, when he was overtaken by the primate, who reminded him that it was the right of the accused to be tried and judged by their peers. "Rule you the church, and leave me to govern the state," was the answer of the king, who continued his march to Nottingham, where he was again assailed by Langton, who at last, by threatening him with excommunication, succeeded in diverting him from his rash purpose. Three weeks after this the barons again met at St Paul's in London, when Langton read to them the charter of Henry I., and commenting on its provisions, showed them that its enforcement would still secure their liberties. The barons responded to the primate's address with loud acclamations and expressions of their determination to be guided by his advice; and the archbishop, taking advantage of their enthusiasm, administered to them an oath, by which they bound themselves to support each other, and to conquer or die in the defence of their liberties.5

From the first moment of his engaging in politics, Langton attached himself to the popular side, and evinced the most enlightened and zealous regard for the liberties of his country. His exertions were mainly instrumental in procuring the great charter at Runnymede, while at the same time, he not unfrequently interfered to moderate the violence of the more impetuous and headstrong barons, and showed that he was friendly to the legal prerogatives of the crown. His patriotic conduct gave so much offence to the pope, that, in 1215, he laid him under a sentence of suspension, and reversed the election of his brother

2 M. Paris, 161.

4 Ep. Innocent, p. 827.

5 Arn. Waver. 178.

Simon, who had been chosen archbishop of York. Yet, in the following year, we find Langton assisting at a general council held at Rome.

In the succeeding reign he recovered his rank and authority, and from this period he chiefly confined his attention to ecclesiastical concerns. In the 6th year of Henry's reign, he held a synod at Oxford, at which he published a new code of discipline consisting of forty-two canons, one of which, prohibiting clergymen from publicly keeping concubines, sufficiently illustrates the manners of the age. In this synod, a clergyman in deacon's orders was convicted of apostacy, delivered to the secular power, and condemned to be burnt. He had suffered himself to De circumcised that he might marry a Jewish woman.6 At the call of the barons, in 1213, Langton readily placed himself again at their head, and demanded an audience of Henry, to obtain a confirmation from him of the charters. He died on the 9th of July, 1228.

8

Langton was a learned and polished writer. His works have not been collected, but they are said to exist in MS. in various public libraries. He wrote commentaries upon the greater part of the books of Scripture, into which he contrived to infuse a large portion of the fashionable dialectics of his age. He is said to have first divided the Bible into chapters." M. de la Rue, in his dissertation on the AngloNorman poets of the 13th century, has placed Langton at the top of the list, and has quoted the first proof of his poetical talents from the stanza of a song introduced in one of his sermons upon the holy virgin. It appears that whole discourses in French verse were then not unusual, which is one of the strongest proofs that could be offered of the very general taste for French poetry, and familiar acquaintance with the language, which must have pervaded all ranks of people in England at that time. In the same MS. which contains this sermon, are two other pieces which have been ascribed to the archbishop. The first is a theological drama, in which Truth, Justice, Mercy, and Peace, debate among themselves what ought to be the fate of Adam after his fall. The second is a canticle on the passion of Jesus Christ, in 123 stanzas, making more than 600 verses. M. de la Rue suggests, that the 10th verse of the 80th psalm, furnished the poet with the idea of the former of these pieces, and says that he has worked it up with equal taste and delicacy.

Bishop Grosseteste.

BORN CIRC. A. D. 1175.— —DIED a. d. 1253.

ROBERT GROSSETESTE, one of the lights of a dark age, was born of obscure parentage at Shadbrook in Suffolk, about the year 1175. He studied at Oxford, where he acquired a knowledge of Greek, and was thus enabled to grapple with Aristotle in the original, whose works had been chiefly read in translation. Here also Grosseteste mastered the Hebrew. He then visited Paris, where he added to Greek and Hebrew the knowledge of the French tongue. He at the same time prosecuted, with the most indefatigable industry, the study of philosophy

Wikes 39. 7 Knyghton, apud Script. col. 2430. See Archæologia, vol. xiii. art. 23.

and theology; and some estimate inay be formed of the extent of hi attainments from the fact that they were attributed to magic. This accusation, as is well known, was not unusually brought against men of profound knowledge, whose erudition seemed to wondering ignorance impossible to be attained in any other way. On his return to Oxford, Grosseteste became the first lecturer in the Franciscan school in that university.

So honest and so undisguised was his opposition to ecclesiastical abuses, that he was once actually excommunicated by the convent of Canterbury. This sentence he treated with the contempt it deserved; it neither abated his zeal, nor shook his perseverance. Though the hypocrisy of the Dominican and Franciscan friars imposed upon him for a time, he at length began to detect it, and became convinced that ecclesiastics might be guilty of other crimes besides those of licentiousness, and be destitute of humility and piety, though clothed in sack cloth, and ostentatious of their poverty. In the year 1247, two Franciscans, commissioned by the pope, and furnished with regular credentials, were sent into England to extort money. They modestly demanded of Grosseteste 6000 merks as the quota for the see of Lincoln. He did not hesitate to refuse compliance with this insolent demand, and told his visitors, though agents from the vatican, that it was as dishonourable to require such a sum, as it would be impracticable to levy it. In 1248, after much trouble he obtained, from Pope Innocent IV., leave to reform the religious orders. Thus authorized, he proceeded to institute a rigorous investigation of the revenues of the religious houses, the rents of which he resolved to take into his own hands, intending to distribute them in a more beneficial manner. The monks, as usual, resisted such an unprofitable innovation; and as they appealed to the pope, Grosseteste was compelled to repair to Lyons to meet him. The pontiff not only decided against the English prelate, but added insult to injustice. Grosseteste warmly retorted, almost accused the papal court of bribery, and in a remonstrance which he left behind him, fully exposed its abominable abuses. He particularly inveighed against the infamous non obstante clause—that ingenious expedient by which his holiness was enabled to dispense with oaths and promises, customs and statutes, all that is sacred in the Word of God, or the laws of man. At this period, the ascendency which the court of Rome had attained over the English church was unbounded, and was the necessary consequence of the concessions made by King John and Henry the Third No stronger proof of the extent of this usurpation can be imagined, than the fact, that many of the richest benefices in England were conferred upon Italians-men absolutely ignorant of our language-favourites, and in some cases, relations of the pope. Grosseteste, incensed at such a flagrant abuse of power, has been known, upon some occasions, to throw from him in scorn the bulls commanding this shameless appropriation of church property. At length the pope and the bishops came to an open rupture. Grosseteste, it seems, had received an order from the pontiff to promote his nephew, then a mere boy, to the first vacant canonry in the cathedral of Lincoln. The pope apparently suspecting opposition from his refractory servant, enjoined his agents, by

1 Gross. Ep. 113, 114,

the non obstante clause, to see this arrangement effected. To this barefaced attempt Grosseteste offered the most spirited resistance. He immediately wrote to the pope. This letter contained an explicit refusal to comply with this request, couched in the strongest terms, and a cutting reproof of the flagitious conduct of the pontiff. This bold reply threw the pope into a paroxysm of rage. The cardinals endeavoured to soothe him, though, it must be confessed, their topics of consolation were rather oddly chosen. They frankly assured him that he would get nothing by quarrelling with the English prelate; that for learning, piety, honesty and worth, he had not his match in Christendom; and that all he had asserted was substantially true. The pope, however, was not to be reasoned with, especially when arguments were so humbling; and proceeded, therefore, to launch his thunderbolts against the bishop, but they harmed him not. He viewed with pity or contempt the impotent malice of the enraged pontiff, and retained quiet possession of his dignity.

In the summer of 1253, he was taken ill at Buckden. From this attack he did not recover. He lingered till October 9th of the same year, when he died. The corpse was taken to Lincoln. On his deathbed, he displayed the same unshaken courage and fortitude which had distinguished his whole life. Conscious of his own integrity in his disputes with the pope, he retracted not a syllable of what he had said,— he repented of nothing he had done,-nay, he is reported in his last moments to have inveighed in the strongest terms against the gigantic abuses of the papacy, and even to have denounced the pope as Antichrist. The pope was of course rejoiced to hear of his death, and, with the characteristic malice of a little mind, ordered his remains to be disinterred and burnt. The letter, however, containing this order was not sent. It is needless to say that Grosseteste never arrived at the honours of canonization. But he needed no such damning' honours; posterity has spontaneously done him that justice which Rome denied him. Grosseteste did not surpass the ecclesiastics of his age more in judgment, piety and integrity than in learning. Old age found the ardour with which he had sought knowledge when a youth, still undiminished. His acquaintance with all branches of learning was very extensive; but his favourite pursuits seem to have been logic, philosophy and theology. He also possessed-what was, alas! a rare attainment in those days, an accurate knowledge of the scriptures. His writings are very voluminous. The mere catalogue occupies not less than twenty-five quarto pages in Dr Pegge's life of him.

Of Bishop Grosseteste it is impossible to form a correct opinion without carefully remembering the circumstances of the age in which he lived, and estimating the various influences which concurred in the formation of his character. That he held many absurd dogmas of the church of Rome,-that he saw not a tenth part of the enormities of that system against which he was partially opposed, will not appear wonderful to any one who reflects how slowly the human mind extricates itself from error-especially religious error-and how gradually it arrives at truth. That Grosseteste saw more than could have been reasonably expected in such circumstances, and in such an age, will be