Medieval panorama : the English scene from conquest to Reformation / by G.G. Coulton.

  • George Gordon Coulton
Date:
1947
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Medieval panorama : the English scene from conquest to Reformation / by G.G. Coulton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    47/842 (page 27)
    *7 years of early Christianity, we find that the bishop is elected by the clergy and the community; a clero et populo. But, already at that date, the clergy play the principal part; they choose, and the people are called in to accept and confirm the choice. St Ambrose’s election by mere popular acclamation at Milan in 374, before he had even been baptized, was a relic of the earlier Christian practice. In principle, the wrhole population—the males at least— might take part in the election. But, strange as it may seem, their choice was, theoretically, unanimous. We find this in England even as late as Lucius III (1181-4), whose decree, enshrined in Canon Law, bids the clergy “procure the king’s assent, and agree unanimously upon an honest, literate and proper person, and elect him consentaneously as pastor and bishop”—unanimiter con- veniatisy eligatis concorditer. Here, at least on the face of it, we have the old Germanic principle, common to rudimentary civilizations, of compulsory unanimity. Agreement to differ is one of the latest steps in social evolution. Tacitus describes these Germanic people, still far re¬ moved from such political organization as the Roman Empire could boast, where the magistrates had little executive power, and the operative factor was the assembly of the whole tribe or clan, and yet the decisions were unanimous. The hearers showed dis¬ approval by a hollow murmur, or approval by the clashing of shields and spears, and the result was something like the unani¬ mity which reigns in certain countries of to-day. In twelfth- century London the chronicler gives us something like the same picture of a folk-moot, the populace securing decision by their shouts of “Ya, ya!” or “Nay, nay!”4 This same principle of unanimity survives in our modem jury, not always entirely free from all elements of intimidation or coercion. Yet this principle may be traced in many councils, civil or ecclesiastical, in East and West. At Nicaea, for instance, the minority of twenty out-and-out Arian bishops was gradually reduced to two by imperial and other pressure; and those two, obstinately refusing to sign, were sent into exile. Therefore we need not choose between the great authority of Gierke, who traces the unanimity principle to Germany, and Esmein, who would stamp it as a Christian idea. “In itself”, writes Esmein, “the choice [of the populace] for the election of the bishop, God’s minister par excellence, is not a natural and comprehensible thing.... But, so long as this electoral