pontiff, whose extraordinary elevation arose out of the very dismemberment of the empire. The scattered clergy felt the need of an ecclesiastical power which could be a terror to princes-which could protect them by its excommunications and its interdicts, the more terrific the more remote their source; and they therefore raised the Pope to a pre-eminence which they themselves often found extremely inconvenient and oppressive. One man at Rome could do nothing if he had not been supported by that sentiment of reverence amongst the faithful which the clergy had instilled. Contemplating this vast hierarchy as an institution of the middle ages, no one can fail to be struck with its admirable adaptation to the times. It seems to take complete possession of all Europe; and, look when we will, it presents the most conspicuous figure in the retrospect. By the various ranks and orders of its sacred functionaries, it appears to fill every crevice of society. It towers above all princes, it creeps barefoot amidst the humblest peasantry. No part of the population but find themselves in contact with its sacred officers; and whether lord or serf, he encounters a bisnop to control him, or a friar to confess and recomfort. We speak here of the old Church, not, of course, as it stands in relationship to the new-not as opposed to Protestantism-but in relationship solely to its own times, and in its conflict with heathen ignorance and barbarous violence.

Christianity had been called by Constantine to an alliance with the state at a time when civil government had been long established, when laws had been profoundly studied, and eivilisation vividly appreciated; and it must be owned, that the alliance under the Greek empire added no peculiar strength to the laws or to the magistrate, but rendered more difficult than before the task of government. But in Western Europe, after the invasion of the barbarian, and the total disruption of the empire, the Christian hierarchy assumed a very different position with regard to the state. It now appeared as the elder and more vigorous institution, and stood forth as the protector of what remained of law and civilisation. There it stood, one vast religious corporation already established over the

The

land: and when the barbarians took possession of the conquered provinces, they found themselves conquered and subjugated by a power they had no weapons to contend against. To the Goth it had already extended its teaching, and before their inroads had prepared them to be the future conquerors of Rome. At a time when some desperate politicians of that city were debating whether the only means of securing the pre-eminence and safety of Rome was not to make her Pagan, and place her at the head of all Pagan nations, the Church had sent its missionaries into the forests of Germany to secure for it at least Christian conquerors. The Frank and the Norman found themselves taken in the spiritual toils. Here in Britain, the Saxons had come in so great numbers, that the Christian faith was swept from the land, or nearly so; but there came missionaries from Rome who brought us back into the Christian fold. Church, firm, united, and preserving some portion of the intelligence of foregone times, now frequently supplied, amongst the irregular governments into which Europe was split, the defects of a rude, imperfect jurisprudence; it opened its sanctuary to men chased by their fell and unserupulous adversaries, and mediated between them and their enraged pursuers; it gave a refuge to learning, and clothed the man of quiet and meditation in the only garb of peace which the fierce warriors of that age would not have despised; and, above all, it preserved a connexion between the disjointed parts of the old empire, kept them in one faith, which other known means could have effected, and so united a number of nations, speaking many of them a different language, and engaged all of them in perpetual hostilities, that whatever intelligence sprung up in any one part of Europe was participated by the whole. They were made to be still of one family, though they continued, it must be admitted, a very quarrelsome one. The Papal Church was seen in its proper and most significant attitude when it placed the imperial crown on the brow of Charlemagne, with vain attempt on the part both of the monarch and the priest to revive the unity of the empire.

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And for the religious instruction of the people, note one thing-the munificence with which this vast corporation employed the funds at its disposal for this very purpose. Let us call to mind that in an era far from literary when the multitude of books which now oppress us with knowledge, were represented by a few dark manuscripts perused by here and there a solitary student when the ideas which oral discourse could appeal to were exceeding scanty, and the preacher could avail nothing except to move passions more violent than salutary-let us call to mind, that in such an era, religion can be steadily supported amongst a people only by the institution of forms and ceremonies, by the eye-teaching of an outward and visible church, and by the dogmatic authority of its sacred and respected functionaries. In our day, the means of instruction are as much more simple as they are effective. A few sheets of printed paper, carried whithersoever we please, are instrument enough for the communication of thought, or the excitement of the heart. But in those times, when no paper talisman filled the mind even of the peasant with ideas as foreign to the daily routine of his toils or his pleasures, as if a spirit from another world had descended to inspire them, and not only thus directly informed his mind, but prepared it also to receive salutary and correct impressions from the discourse of the preacherfor the orator of an uninstructed multitude is a perilous instrument of culture-in those times, other means of popular instruction were wanted, means as much more costly, as much more vast, complicated, and imposing, as they are in reality less ample and efficacious. Then, if the attention of men is to be called from earthly pur. suits and passions, the lofty temple must rise before them, towering in their sight above all other structures; then must solemn ceremonies be instituted, occurring at stated intervals; then must a sacred class be ordained, who, at all events, by their outward habit and demeanour, symbolize a holy character, whether they attain to it or not. Then is a sacerdotal order not a dogma, but a necessity. The twenty-four letters of the alphabet may suffice for us; but those who have no alphabet to learn from, must be taught in such hieroglyphics as archi

tecture, and music, and pageant. The Church was not wanting to its duty, and supplied with liberality this costly apparatus of instruction. The Cathe.. dral arose, vying with the towers of Belus, or the vast monuments of India, works of despotic power; the prayer, the incessant chant, resounded in its walls; the gorgeous procession issued from its gates, and passed through the streets, and before the houses of the people; piety was as it were personified, and dwelt amongst them in the vested monk, or the slow friar, stealing from the throng to his cloistered seclusion, while the heart of the troubled worldling followed him to his pious repose; - and by these and other similar means were kept alive in the minds of all men, ideas, vague indeed to the intellect-they could not be otherwise-but elevating and salutary to the character.

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But though this universal Church was friendly to the purposes of civil government, inasmuch as it was friendly to peace and equity, it could not fail from time to time to excite the jealousy of the several potentates of Europe. How far the clergy were to be under the government of the king or of the pope, was a question that gave rise to a succession of disputes that form a striking peculiarity in the history of the middle ages. The great dispute upon investitures, which, under a contest upon ceremonies, involved no less a matter than the patronage of the Church in the appointment of its bishops, agitated in turn every part of Europe. Church was standing on an ancient right to choose its own bishops-aright it could not challenge in opposition to the king, but through its powerful chief at Rome; the king, as the feudal lord of the bishop, who held a barony as well as a religious office, rested on the feudal principle, that homage must be done to him before the ecclesiastic could enter on his temporal possessions. The contest was not unequal, and ended here in England in what might be called a drawn game. Henry I. agreed no longer to profane the crosier by placing it in the hands of the newly elected bishop, but still retained the privilege of investing him by the ring with his temporal possessions.

Thomas-à-Becket, (or Becket, as he is now more generally called,) in his opposition to Henry II., presents a strong example of the haughty Churchman of the middle ages, as he is seen battling with his sovereign for the privileges of his order, and supported throughout the contest by the distant thunders of the Vatican. An immunity from lay jurisdiction in criminal charges, was a privilege that had long been claimed by, and yielded to the Church; and it was a privilege very naturally insisted on by a sacred order, whose reputation with the vulgar was deemed at that time of essential importance to religion, and would certainly have been endangered by the scandalous spectacle of one of its members in the position of a convicted criminal, or under the hands of the common executioner. But the Church, by distributing the tonsure too liberally, had abused this privilege, and many crimes were consequently unpunished, or punished very inadequately. This abuse, together with some others, Henry II. resolved to reform. He determined to take away the privilege. In fact, he had undertaken to reduce the clergy in his dominions to what he considered (and what would be considered by all parties at present) a due subjection to the civil power. In this design he was frustrated by a single opponent, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, unsupported by his own bishops, and with no other aid than what he derived from the sanction of the Roman Pontiff, successfully vindicated the cause of the Church against the most powerful monarch of the age. The circumstances of this contest are many of them so characteristic of the times, that we will briefly recall them. Henry II. collected what were understood to have been the ancient customs of the kingdom with regard to the privileges of the clergy; and these were re-enacted by a statute which, being passed at Clarendon, received the title of The Constitutions of Clarendon. But, though enacted by Parliament, they were considered ineffectual unless the Archbishop of Canterbury personally acceded to them. This he at first prother mised to do, but afterwards retracted; and, on ultimately refusing to attach his seal to the Constitutions of Clarendon, the King ordered him to be impeached in Parliament, on some pretext connected with his late office of Chancellor. That the charges fabricated for the

occasion were of a trivial or groundless nature, was no reason that they should be less effective for his destruction. On the day when sentence was expected to be passed, he entered the Parliament attired in his archiepiscopal robes, and taking the long silver cross from the officer who usually bore it before him, he carried it himself as his safeguard. The King felt the power of his adversary, who had come, as he complained, "armed" against him. Becket took his seat calmly and in silence with his cross before him; he sat alone, forsaken even by his own bishops, who disclaimed his authority, and, renouncing allegiance to him as their ecclesiastical superior, appealed to the Pope. He quietly and willingly acquiesced in that appeal. some of the lords then approaching to pronounce the judgment of the Parliament, (or Great Council, as it was then called,) he rose and interposed. "Earl of Leicester," he said, "I command you, as a son of the Church, not to presume to give judgment against your spiritual father!" And so saying, he walked slowly away, none preventing him.

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But the danger of Becket was imminent, and he was compelled to escape by stealth from the country. The King, as a means of annoying and embarrassing his adversary, sent after him a number of his dependents, to be provided for by the now impoverished archbishop. Their feudal protector, their patron, was absent, and the King could act towards them, it seemed, in what arbitrary manner he pleased. Becket retired to a monastery of the Cistertian order, from which retreat he carried on an epistolary warfare. After six years of fruitless discussion, the King-at that time in Normandy, and partly induced by the mediation of his brother of France, who, being a pious prince, was scandalized at Henry's opposition to his Holiness-submitted to a reconciliation with his refractory prelate. If the reconciliation on the part of the King may be suspected of insincerity, the return of the Archbishop to his country was marked by a conduct which showed the haughty uncontrollable temper of the man, and boded ill for future tranquillity. During his absence, the Archbishop of York, assisted by other bishops, had crowned the young prince, Henry's

eldest son, thus encroaching on the privilege of the see of Canterbury. For this invasion of his rights a decree had been privately obtained from the Pope, suspending those dignitaries; and this decree Becket now fulminated on the heads of his opposing brotherhood. The suspended prelates hastened over to Normandy, and laid their complaint before the King. Henry was perplexed in the extreme, and his resentment was kindled. He saw he had to cope with an untired adversary, and an adversary of no mean power, being supported in his cause by the Pope, and having been welcomed to his own see with the loudest demonstrations of popular applause. In his anger, he uttered reproaches against his friends for allowing him so long a time to be vexed and harassed by such an enemy. On this, four knights took upon themselves the quarrel of their master, and travelled night and day till they reached England.

The story is familiar to every one. The four from Normandy rushed into the presence of the Archbishop. After some fruitless demands and threats, which failed to shake the constancy of Becket, they left him but only to return armed, and accompanied with others, to accomplish his destruction. His retainers now gathered round him, and the battle-axes of the knights were heard thundering at the door for re-admission. Becket was advised to take refuge in the church. His bold spirit rejected what seemed a timid counsel, until one of his attendants reminded him that it was time for vespers. Then ordering his cross to be brought, he followed it slowly through the cloisters, and ascended the altar of the cathedral. The shades of evening were falling in the church; his enemies, who had followed, were heard to call aloud for the traitor; his friends called on him to fly. remained stationary, nor did he condescend to supplicate, but extended his head to the inevitable blow.

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first and second stroke threw him on his face before the altar; he collected his robes around him, that he might die with dignity, and joining his hands as if in prayer, he received in this posture a third blow, which fell with such violence, that after entering the skull the sword broke on the pave

ment.

The whole country seems to have

been struck with horror at this sacrilegious murder. The usual service was suspended in all the churches, the crosses were veiled, and the altars denuded of their sacred ornaments, as in the Passion; and the monks in low and monotonous tone, from which all music was purposely banished, deplored day and night the sins of the King and the people. The King was defeated by the dead saint, and, to appease the popular indignation, was compelled to show signs of the deepest contrition. The monarch was brought to kneel like a penitent before the tomb of his murdered adversary. Approaching to the town of Canterbury, he was no sooner in sight of the towers of the cathedral, than he divested himself of his regal garments, threw a coarse cloth around him, and barefooted, and submitting his shoulder to the scourge, proceeded to the shrine of Becket, where he extended himself in humiliating penance. The Constitutions of Clarendon, as might be expected, were not attempted to be enforced, neither, we may add, were they repealed-such were the lax notions of legislation in those days. Henry wrote to the Pope, and promised that the clergy should be exempted as heretofore from lay criminal jurisdiction, and made other concessions. Whether from the general compassion at his death, or from the gratitude of a clergy whose cause that death had rendered triumphant, the martyr of Canterbury became the most popular saint in the Calendar; Popular more miracles were wrought at his tomb than elsewhere; and even succeeding kings were anointed at their coronation with oil that had been trusted to Becket by the Virgin Mary. He retained this pre-eminence till the Reformation, when Henry VIII., now head of the Church, resenting what appeared to him the treason and rebellion of the Archbishop, cited the dead saint to appear in his Court Ecclesiastical, and as Becket made no appearance, nor any answer to the summons, he pronounced his saintship forfeited, and scattered his dust from the tomb.

The character of Becket has been variously interpreted. As the Chancellor of Henry II., he is allowed to have exhibited great capacity and firmness, being accounted haughty to his superiors and equals, but condescending and affable to his inferiors. He was brave and accomplished, distinguished for his warlike propensities, his knightly bearing, his liberality and munificence; but not at all for the fervour of his devotions, or the multiplicity of his prayers. In the embassy he undertook to Paris, the display he made of wealth and pageantry was so dazzling, that those who make report of it, run riot in extravagance of description. His ordinary mode of living, when resident in England, was so sumptuous as to have been the astonishment of the times; and his residence being in the west, it earned for him the title of the wonder and delight of the western world. Such was the man advanced to be the head of the Churchin England. But no sooner had he accepted the primacy than he became an altered being; and the sagacious chancellor, the witty companion of the monarch, the splendid ambassador, the munificent host, was converted into the ascetic religionist, a complete example of piety as it was practised in those days. Underneath the gorgeous robes of the archbishop he wore foul sackcloth overrun with verminhis drink was water, in which nauseous herbs had been purposely boiled -the scourge was not idle-he walked apart amongst the cloisters, suffused in penitential tears-he wept, he fasted, he prayed, he humbled and tortured himself with all the zeal of the poorest friar who has nothing to commend him to earth or to heaven but his own miserable self-immolation. Was this change sincere, or was it but the cloak of ambition?

The charge of hypocrisy, which is frequently, perhaps generally, imputed to Becket, appears to be founded entirely on the suddenness of his conversion. But this suddenness is made so striking, let it be remembered, by the ostentatious mode of devotion prevalent in the middle ages, in the adoption of which, even with the most sincere intention, a change of manners so easily outruns the change of heart. As an artifice of ambition, it is not easy to understand why Becket should have practised these painful austerities. Men to raise themselves from obscurity to eminence have submitted to this species of self-infliction; but what had he to gain by such a device who was Archbishop of Canterbury, and who might have retained,

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had he pleased, the chancellorship together with his new dignity? What had he to gain by a rupture with the King? Nothing. But he had, on the contrary, every thing to lose, and the prospect of that exile in which his predecessor Anselm had passed so great a portion of his life. read the matter thus: When Becket accepted the primacy, he appears, from some language he is reported to have used, to have foreseen that either he must betray the trust which the Church would repose in him, or offend his sovereign. Indeed, from the situation in which he was placed, it is plain that he could not at the same time have earned the character of fidelity to the Church, and retained his friendship with Henry. Even such an acquiescence in Henry's measures as might have been pardonable in another, would have been suspicious in one who would appear to have accepted his ecclesiastic preferment for the very sake of executing those measures. He was a man of high and noble spirit, proud and fearless. Would such a man have consented even to seem the traitor, or to act like a cowed and submissive churchman? Placed at the head of the English Church, he was resolved to uphold its privileges, and his own rights as Primate of England. If not sincere in his piety, he was at least sincere, we think, in his championship of the Church. To prepare himselt for his novel and perilous position, what more natural than that he should adopt a total change of manners? And in this change how far he gave scope also to that religious feeling which lies buried and oppressed, we believe, in the hearts of most men, and requires only to be elicited by propitious circumstances, who can venture to divine?

That he was so far sincere in his piety as to escape the charge of hypocrisy, is the impression his history leaves upon our mind; that he had relinquished his pride and ambition, his violent conduct towards his brother bishops is sufficient utterly to contradict. We speak it with reverence, but there are few positions more favourable to the growth of pride and the love of power than the priestly function. If it makes not the heart exceeding humble, which we have reason to hope it frequently does, it