and praise of Christ in my kingdom, and to enlarge his service, have intended; and, by my faithful well-willers, Dunstan Archbishop, Athelwold and Oswald Bishops, whom I have chosen for my spiritual fathers and counsellors, I have for the greatest part already performed what I intended, &c. "And, by the diligent endeavours of my foresaid helpers, I have now coustituted and made seven and forty Monasteries with Monks and Nuns and, if Christ shall give me to live so long, I have decreed to draw forth the oblation of this my devout munificence unto God to the full number of fifty, which is the number of my remission*. Whereupon, now for the present, I do, by my Royal Authority, confirm to persons of Monastical Religion, and by the consent and astipulation of my princes and peers do establish and consign to them, that Monastery, which the foresaid reverend Bishop Oswald, to the honour of the Blessed Mother of God, hath amplified in the Episcopal See of Wereceastre; and, expelling the wanton and filthy lasciviousness of Clerks, hath, by my consent and favour, bestowed it upon the religious servants of God, the Monks so as, from henceforth, it shall not be lawful for the said Clerks, to challenge any thing therein; as those, which have rather chosen, with the danger of their Order and the loss of their Ecclesiastical Benefice +, to stick unto their wives, than chastely and canonically to serve God. And, therefore, all, that ever they possessed of the said Church, whether ecclesiastical or secular, moveable or unmoveable, together with the Church itself, I do, from this day forward for ever, give and consign to the said Monks, to be possessed of them, in the right of my royal munificence; so firmly, that it shall not be lawful for any Prince or any Bishop succeeding, to subtract ought from them, or to withdraw any of the premises from their power, and to deliver it back again to the right and possession of Clerks, so long as the Christian Faith shall remain in Eng land, &c. "Facta sunt hæc, &c. These things were done in the year of Christ's Nativity, D.CCCC.LXIV: Indiction VIII: in the VIth year of the reign of Edgar, King of England: in the royal city, which, by the inhabitants, is named Glouceastre: in the feast of the Nativity of our Lord, &c." That Dunstan did this, none ever doubted. But, withal, it is considerable, who himself was; an Abbot: and, therefore, partial to the Cloisters. And who put him into this commission? Pope John, the Thirteenth; a monster of men, yea, of popes: one, who, as was articled against him in a General Council, had committed incest with two of his own sisters; who called to the Devil for his help, at dice; who deflowered virgins; who lay with Stephana, his father's con So as it appears, this number was set to King Edgar, by Dunstan, for his penance. ↑ That is, their Prebend. cubine; who drank to the Devil; besides many other horrible criminations: a man, fit to set a Saint on work, against lawful marriages! And, thirdly, what the state of the times were; wherein liberty was degenerate into strange licentiousness. Even change of wives, if we may believe histories, was then no wonder: for the correcting whereof, the Reformers, according to the philosopher's advice, laboured towards the other extreme; as those, which, to straighten a stick, bow it as much the contrary way. ex And, lastly, how far this act and endeavour extended. For Dunstan sought not to thrust married men out of the Clergy, but to thrust married Clergymen out of Cathedral Churches*, which required a quotidian attendance. Which is evident; both, by the sentence of Dunstan, Aut Canonicè vivendum, aut ab Ecclesiá eundum; "Either that they must live Canonically, or get out of the Church;" that is ex Ecclesiis majoribus, "from the greater Churches," as historians relate it: and, by the sentence of the Rood for Dunstan; Mutaretis non benè. How much difference there was in these two, appears in the decree of Bishop Lanfranc, Anselm's predecessor; which, tolerating married Seculars, drives directly against married Canons. Little needed my Refuter then, but that he must have something to say, to fall upon † our right reverend and learned Bishop of Hereford, whose worthy labours have justly endeared him to all posterity, for that true comparison he makes, betwixt these three Saints of theirs and Anselm. They, by action; he, by Synodical Decree; persecuted the Clergy. They bent their endeavours against Cathedral Clerks; he, against Priests. Their project was particular; his, universal. That a peremptory sentence passed generally against the marriage of ecclesiastics, in a public Synod under Dunstan, he refers us to Binius: which, at random, talks of Concilium Anglicanum, without all particulars of place or persons; and refers us to Surius, as if he had bidden us ask his fellow if he lie. Why did he not send us to Father Parsons, or his Gabriel Gifford? Sure, it was in some obscure hole of the Peak, or some blind dormitory of a convent: neither can we say of it, with the Apostle, These things were not done it a corner. The Canons, whereunto the fore-alleged charter and the sentence of Dunstan have reference, were no other than Romish; which these Monkish Prelates had persuaded King Edgar to receive; and, in part, to urge upon his married Prebendaries. The success of his Synod at Reading or Winchester, he knows well enough. And is he ashamed of the miraculous sentence of his Holy-Rood (which Jornalensis reports) who there openly spake for the Monks against the Clergy, (Absit ut hoc fiat!) that he passes over § to that of Calne, where the falling of an over-charged floor, crushed * Expulit malos Presbyteros: introduxit pejores Monachos. Polyd. Refut. p. 319, § Refut. p. 321. the marriage of Clergymen? Idle Monks! who, for their own turn, set such a superstitious gloss upon that accident! which, as Henry Huntingdon more probably interprets it*, was Signum Excelsi Dei, quòd, proditione et interfectione regis sui, ab amore Dei casuri essent, et à diversis gentibus digná contritione conterendi: "A sign from the High God, that by their treason and murder of their king," who was slain the year after, "they should fall from the favour of God, and be worthily crushed by other nations." Thus he. Such was the event. For the construction of it, the reader may choose, whether he will believe an Archdeacon of Huntingdon, or a Monk of Malmesbury †. I wis these rotten joists are foundation enough whereon to build the prohibition of our marriages. SECT. XI. UNDER these late Romish Saints, Dunstan and Anselm, I might safely say our English Clergy found the first machinations against their marriage; and, at last, stooped perforce to this yoke of constrained continency. Neither doth my wit, or my logic fail me in this collection t. If these were the men, that made the first opposition to the marriage of Clergymen in England, then it formerly obtained here, without contradiction. The bare word of my Refuter is a hot shot, to batter this necessary illation; and to assure the reader, that the forced celibate of the English Clergy is of greater antiquity than these his Saints. To which he adds, in an ignorant begging of the question, "A thing so filthy, after a solemn vow to God, to take a wife, as it never appeared without the brand of infamy:" as if our predecessors in the English Clergy had been ever charged with a vow: as if the solemnity of this vow had never had beginuing! Chimerical fancies, fit for a shorne head §! When as his master Harding could not produce so much as a probability of any vow, anciently required, or undertaken; whether by beck or Dieu-gard: when as the ancient Saxon Pontifical makes not the least mention of any such profession yea, when Girardus, who was the second Bishop of York after the Conquest, writes flatly to Anselm concerning his own Canons, Professiones verò mihi penitùs abnegant Canonici, &c. " My Canons," saith he , "utterly deny to give me profession of continency, which, without this profession, have been disorderly advanced to Holy Orders." Cùm verò ad Ordines aliquos invito, durá cervice renituntur, ne in Ordinando castitatem profiteantur; "And when I do invite any to take Orders, they do resist me very stubbornly, that they will make no profession of chastity in their Ordi ↑ Gul. Malmes. Refut. * H. Hunt. l. v. § D. Martin's arg. is, Priests' crowns signify their vow. brought worth talking of, but from the barber's shop. Antiquit. Britan. Def. of Pr. Marr. p. 282. P: 332. 2 nation." Thus he. Shewing us plainly, that the Clergy, in those times, challenged no other than the liberty of their predecessors. But, well may he face us down in this more obscure, though certain, truth; when he dares to say, that Greece itself never tolerated this estate in their Clergy: till, by bad life, it fell to schism; and, from schism, to open heresy: while their own Canon Law, besides all histories, gives him the lie; and what Espencæus bath ingenuously spoken concerning this point, we have formerly shewed. If he did not presume upon readers, that never saw books, he durst not be thus impudent. * This argument, therefore, shall ever stand good, and shall scornfully trample upon all his vain cavils: Ethelwold was the first, which, by the command of King Edgar, expelled married Priests out of the old erection of Winchester †, Anno 963. Dunstan and Oswald, together with him, were the men, who, two years after, first expelled married Clergymen out of the greater houses of Merceland. As, 1177, in the days of King Henry the Second, the secular Prebendaries of Waltham were first turned out, to give way to their irregulars. Therefore, until these times, these places were uninterruptedly possessed by married Clergymen. If now he shall except, that this possession of theirs was not of long continuance, but upon usurpation, whereby the married incumbents had injuriously encroached upon the right of Monks; our Monks of Worcester shall herein fully convince him: who write, under their Oswaldus Archiepiscopus ‡, Per me fundatus fuit ex Clericis Monachatus; that is, " By me were Monks first founded out of Clerks :" which was also the fashion of all other erections of this nature; so as it is manifest, that, originally, these Churches were founded in married Clergymen; afterwards, wrongfully translated from them to Monks. And, if the first possessors had been Monks §, how could Monks have been there first founded by Oswald; when as Ethelred had, long before, both founded and furnished it? and how out of Clerks, if Monks had been there before? Let Remy futer shew me but a verse of equal antiquity in a contrary rhyme, Per me fundatus fuit ex and I yield him my argument: otherwise, let the world judge, if he be not shamelessly obstinate in not yielding. * Latinorum nemo, vel veterum vel recentiorum, inter Græcorum errores, aut hæreses, aut schismata, hanc conjugalis usûs retentionem supputavit; non Hugo Eteriamus; non Tho. Aquinas; non Guido Carmelita, ad 26 licet hic numeraverit; non alius, qui vel obiter vel peculiariter de iis egerit. Espenc. lib. i. cap. 4. + Apud Winton. et Monachos, loco Clericorum, primus instituit. De Edgaro. Rogerus Cestrens. lib. vi. Oswald, Archbishop of York. 4 Clericis in Monachos translata est sedes Pontif. hon. vid. supr. SECT. XII. BUT, to strike it dead, my adversary will prove the English Clergy ever to have been continent *. Reader, look now for demonstrations. His first proof is, that in all the pursuit of this business, we never read of any, that did stand upon the former custom of the Church +." A proper argument, ab authoritate negative. And, what other arguments doth my Detector find used by the then-persecuted Clergy? Histories record them not: therefore, doubtless, they said nothing for themselves; and, if they urged other proofs, which are not now descended to us by any relation, why not this for one? Who can but hiss out so silly sophistry? But, to stop that clamorous mouth, in this poor cavil; doth not his own Monk of Malmsbury tell him, that the Clergy urged this plea for themselves, Ingens esse et miserabile dedecus, ut novus advena veteres colonos migrare compellerit, &c? "That it was a great and miserable shame, that these upstarts, the Monks, should thrust out the ancient possessors of those places: that this was neither pleasing to God, which had given them that long-continued habitation; nor yet to any good man, who might justly fear the same hard measure, which was offered to them." Thus they: whose plea and complaint seemed so just, that Alfgina the Queen, Prince Alfere, and others of the nobility overthrew many of those new-founded Monasteries; and reinstalled the Priests, in their former right. His next proof, is, from the Letters of Pope Gregory §, which he wrote to Austin the Monk, here in England. Risum teneatis? Did ever any man doubt, but that Pope Gregory was desirous to establish Romish laws and orders, amongst the English? Where yet his Legate found many, as good Christians as himself, under another rule, conform to the Greek Church. But how follows this? This Pope was willing to in-Romanize the English: therefore the staff stands in the corner. And yet even Pope Gregory allowed marriage to those of the English Clergy, which were not within the higher Orders; appointing them to receive their stipends apart: a favour, which he saw necessarily to be yielded to our nation, while he abridged others. From Gregory, he descends ¶ to Beda: a man doubtless venerable for his learning and virtue; but, as it is in his epitaph, Monachorum nobile sidus; "The noble star of Monks." Whether a neighbour, at least, to Italy, by birth, as they contend; I am sure a disciple of Abbot Benedict: and so great a fautor of the Roman Faction, that he censures St. Aidanus and Golmannus, for adhering to those Greek forms, which the Churches of this island had anciently followed; whose part Joannes Major justly takes against him. *Refut. p. 324. + Non est scriptum, ergo non est factum, &c. |