greater barons with a riotous force, equally ready for service in time of war and for acts of lawless outrage in times of peace. When the baron could no longer demand the military service of his vassals for private war, "he could, if he chose to pay for it, support a vast household of men armed and liveried as servants, a retinue of pomp and splendor, but ready for any opportunity of disturbance; he could bring them to the assizes to impress the judges, or to parliament to overawe the king; or he could lay his hands, through them, on disputed lands and farms, and frighten away those who had a better claim. He could constitute himself the champion of all who would accept his championship, maintain their causes in the courts, enable them to resist a hostile judgment, and delay a hazardous issue." 1 and maintenance. This custom of the strong man undertaking to maintain Champerty the cause of his weak dependent, although it might be undertaken without pecuniary interest in the result, was so abused to the detriment and disturbance of the common law that, as early as the reign of Edward I., the maintainers of false causes were made the subject of severe repressive legislation, the scope of which was greatly widened by a series of statutes passed in the reign of Edward III.2 When the maintenance of a cause was undertaken upon an agreement that a part of the matter in controversy should be paid to the maintainer as a compensation for his service, it was called champerty,3 — in simple maintenance, the question of compensation not entering into the account. In this connection may be noted another evil growing out Heraldry. of the giving of liveries, which finally expanded into an elaborate system known as heraldry, whose organization and supervision was committed to a body of heralds, regularly organized under the presidency of the earl marshal. The term "livery," which originally embraced the allowance both of food and clothing given by the lord to his dependent, was gradually restricted to the giving of clothing only, which took the shape of a uniform, or badge of service.5 When these 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. iii. pp. 530, 531. 2 See Stat. Westm., i. cc. 25, 28, 33; I Edw. III. st. 2, c. 14; 20 Edw. III. cc. 4, 5, 6. 8 Co. Litt., 38 b; 2 Inst., p. 208. As to the distinction between champerty Co. Litt., 368 b; Blackstone, Comm., service be Badges of badges of service, which were looked upon as most valuable come hered- possessions by those having the right to bestow them, became itary. hereditary, their descent was regulated by a system of complicated rules designed not only to prevent the use of similar bearings by different families, but also to determine the relative rights to the paternal coat as between different members of the same family. The administration of this complicated heraldic system, and the adjudication of the controversies which grew out of it, was committed to the earl marshal, whose jurisdiction was defined by statute in the reign of The heralds Richard II.2 Not until the reign of Richard III. were the rated into a heralds definitely incorporated into the college of arms 3 court under under the presidency of the earl marshal. This court, which the presisurvived the fall of the house of Stuart, and which adjudicated a few causes as late as the last century, was not finally abolished until very recent times. incorpo dency of the earl marshal. Power of the baronage as a military force broken by the discov ery of gun powder. While the cohesion of the baronial body was thus being weakened by the operation of causes working from within, its strength as a military force was rudely broken from without by a revolution in the art of war. By the discovery of gunpowder and its application to actual warfare, which took place during the reigns of the Lancastrian kings, the impregnable feudal castle and irresistible feudal knights were shorn at once of their terror and their power. "The introduction of gunpowder ruined feudalism. The mounted and heavyarmed knight gave way to the meaner footman. The 'Last of the Barons,' as Warwick has picturesquely been styled, relied mainly on his train of artillery. It was artillery that turned the day at Barnet and Tewkesbury, and that gave Henry the Seventh his victory over the formidable dangers ance (liberatio) in provisions and cloth- The term livery was, however, which assailed him. The strength which the change gave to the crown was in fact almost irresistible. Throughout the middle ages the call of a great baron had been enough to raise a formidable revolt. Yeomen and retainers took down the bow from their chimney corner, knights buckled on their armor, and in a few days a host threatened the throne. Without artillery, however, such a force was now helpless, and the one train of artillery in the kingdom lay at the dis posal of the king."1 patriot The influences which thus undermined the power of the The church baronage during the period which closes with the accession loses its of Edward IV. were scarcely more marked in their results spirit. than those which, during the same period, broke the patriot spirit of the church, and led the clergy to seek shelter and protection for their wealth and their privileges at the feet of the monarchy. How in the struggle for the charters the clergy, as a corporate body organized for action, took an earnest part in behalf of the nation as against the crown, has been explained already.2 In that struggle the church, so far as its own special privileges were concerned, was completely victorious. In the hope of breaking the coalition between the clergy and the lay estates John, a short time prior to the making of the treaty of Runnymede, specially guaranteed to the church free elections, while in the Great Charter itself express provision was made that the Church of England should be free, and should have her whole rights and liberties inviolable. By John's surrender of his kingdom to the pope, and by his receiving it back again as a fief, all controversy was for the time removed as to the right of the English Church to submit itself to the papal supremacy which was firmly asserted throughout the reign of Henry III. Not Struggle until the reign of Edward I. was the papal overlordship as admitted by John, both in the ecclesiastical and political order, challenged by the crown and the parliament. When Boniface VIII., claiming to be feudal lord over Scotland, commanded Edward to withdraw his troops from that kingdom, the parliament, before whom the bull was laid by the 1 Green, Hist. Eng. People, vol. ii. pp. 14, 15. 2 See above, pp. 348, 349. 8 See above, pp. 378, 379, 383. between the crown and the papacy the reign of begins in Edward I. Stat. De asportatis religioso rum. Stat. of king, claimed the right to make answer and emphatically denied the pope's asserted jurisdiction. The repudiation thus announced of the feudal supremacy of the pope over the political relations of the crown, was followed by a series of statutes which were designed to cut off to a certain extent papal interference with the church's internal administration. The first of the series, the statute De asportatis religiosorum (35 Edward I.),2 which forbade the carrying or sending of "any tax, rent, or talliage imposed by the superiors, or assessed amongst themselves, out of the kingdom," was designed to prevent alien priors from drawing tribute from English religious houses. In the 25th Edward III. was passed the great Statute of Provisors, which, after declaring that the elections of bishops and others should be free as in time past, denied to the pope the right to make nominations to benefices within the kingdom, and also imposed severe penalties upon all "provisors" who should obtain them from him by purchase or otherwise. Three years later was passed tion of the a statute designed to protect the jurisdiction of the king's court by forbidding, under severe penalties, any person from withdrawing any cause from its cognizance by means of a citation to the court of Rome. The attempt to defy or evade all such statutes as were designed to hinder the assertion of the papal claims, by procuring excommunications directed. against those who dared to obey them, led to an enactment, Stat. 13th in 1389, which imposed heavy penalties upon all persons who Richard II. should bring or send such excommunications into the kingdom, or attempt to enforce their mandates. In the conflict which then ensued between the crown and the papal court, when Boniface IX. declared all such statutes null and void, the commons stood resolutely by the king. Upon their petiPræmunire. tion was passed the famous Statute of Præmunire (16 Rich. Stat. for the protec king's court. Stat. of 1 Fœdera, ii. pp. 873-875; Richanger, pp. 208-210; Hemingb., ii. pp. 209-213; M. Westminster, pp. 443, 444. See Lingard's account of the transaction, vol. ii. pp. 184-188. 25 Edw. I. st. 1, c. 1-4. As to the relation between this statute and the Statute of Provisors, see Reeves, Hist. Eng. Law, vol. ii. p. 452. 3 25 Edw. III. st. 4. This statute was passed upon "the grievous com II., c. 5), in which it was provided that if any one shall obtain from the Court of Rome, or elsewhere, any sentence of excommunication, ecclesiastical process, or any other thing touching the rights of the crown, or bring the same within the realm, such a one shall be put out of the king's protection, shall be subject to forfeiture and to be attainted, and shall also be subjected to process to "be made against them by præmunire facias, in manner as it is ordained in other statutes of provisors against those which do sue in the court of another in derogation of the regality of our lord the king." wealth and During the period in which the king and parliament were Growing thus defending by means of penal statutes the rights of the influence of crown as against the claims of the papacy, the clergy were the clergy. maturing and strengthening their internal corporate organization, and steadily increasing their enormous wealth, which could only be reached for the purposes of taxation through the two legislative bodies or convocations in which the whole clerical order appeared either in person or by representatives. "The clergy as a body were very rich; the proportion of direct taxation borne by them amounted to nearly a third of the whole direct taxation of the nation; they possessed in the constitution of parliament and convocation a great amount of political power, a majority in the house of lords, a recognized organization as an estate of parliament, two taxing and legislating assemblies in the provincial convocations; they had on their great estates jurisdictions and franchises equal to those of the great nobles, and in the spiritual courts a whole system of judicature parallel to the temporal judicature but more inquisitorial, more deeply penetrating, and taking cognizance of every act and every relation of men's lives." In this terse and graphic statement the master of the history of the middle ages has epitomized the elements which made up the aggregate social and political weight possessed by the clergy at the end of the fourteenth century, when the spiritual influence of the church was assailed by the Lollard revolt on the one hand, and its immense wealth The Lolthreatened by a sweeping confiscation on the other. The first of these assaults grew out of the great religious rebellion which, taking color and form from the teachings of Wyc1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. iii. pp. 365, 366. lard revolt. |