secular clerks, excepting two or three canons; and the privilege was transcribed into the archbishop's register.43

It is not surprising that attempts were made by convents to become free from episcopal visitation. Certain abbeys obtained from the apostolic see exemption from all diocesan authority. Others tried to hinder the work of visitation or to prevent the diocesan from coming too frequently. The prior and convent of Durham appealed to the Holy See against the intended visitation of Archbishop Wickwane in 1281;44 St. Mary's, York, obtained from Honorius III. a brief forbidding the archbishop to make a visitation more than once a year save in case of urgent necessity."

45

There was the further question whether the exemption which some monasteries possessed extended also to their dependent houses. This arose when Archbishop Peckham went to visit Great Malvern priory, a cell of Westminster, in 1283. "When he asked in due form to be admitted to visit them, R. called Baret, and R. de Vastoprato, proctors of the abbot of Westminster, arose and asserted that the priory of Great Malvern was privileged, and that neither the archbishop nor the bishop of Worcester ought to have any jurisdiction."46 The priory seems never before to have claimed freedom from visitation; bishops of Worcester had visited it in 1234, 1237. 1238, and 1242;47 Bishop Giffard had not only visited the priory but had deposed the prior in 1282;48 but the king sent word that by entering Great Malvern the bishop had violated the rights of the abbot and convent of Westminster;49 and in 1283 the bishop acknowledged the priory's exemption from diocesan jurisdiction and ordinary law. 50

The authority of the bishop as chief pastor was displayed not only in his visitations but also in synods, to which the religious houses as well as the secular clergy sent representatives when summoned by the diocesan. The practice of holding synods seems to have fallen into desuetude during the Middle Ages, but the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, directed that provincial synods be held an

43 Reg. Romeyn, I. 73.

44 Reg. Wickwane, pp. 155-164. The matter was complicated by the whole question of the archbishop's metropolitical rights over the dioceses in his province. Cf. Registrum Epistolarum Fratris Johannis Peckham, R. S., I. 161, 200. See also Victoria County History, Durham, II. 94.

45 Reg. Gray, p. 152; Cal. Pap. Reg., 1198–1304, p. 108.

46 Reg. Godfrey Giffard, pp. 170-171.

47 Ibid., p. 198.

48 Ibid., pp. 164, 178.

49 Ibid., pp. 182-183.

50 Ibid., p. 219; Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1281-1292, p. 90.

nually to control ecclesiastical life and to secure the observance of ecclesiastical law.51 For some time this canon was not obeyed; it was over half a century later that Robert Kilwardby, archbishop of Canterbury from 1272 to 1278, "made a representative provincial synod the regular organ for the conduct of general ecclesiastical business" in England.52 Attendance at synods, either diocesan or provincial, involved to some extent a recognition on the part of those present that they were subject to the jurisdiction of the prelate by whom the synod had been summoned. In the twelfth century the abbot of Battle, summoned by the Bishop of Chichester to attend his synod, refused to go; but went later as a free agent.53 The priors of Binham and Wymondham, cells of St. Alban's Abbey, contested the claim of the Bishop of Norwich to jurisdiction over them, and the case was heard by a commission of three appointed by papal authority. Among the terms of the settlement which they made was the provision that the priors should come to the bishop's synod, or send a proctor or an excuse, and that at synod they should 'sit as other priors ".54

It would seem that attendance at the episcopal synod was the normal fulfilment of one of the pledges given in the oath of canonical obedience: Vocatus ad te, veniam, nisi canonico impedimento fuerim impeditus. That monasteries which claimed to be exempt from ordinary jurisdiction should refuse to send representatives to synods was to be expected. Roger, abbot of St. Albans from 1260 to 1290, refused to appear at the Bishop of Lincoln's synod, and when the case was carried to the courts, the Court of Arches decided in favor of the abbot.55 Archbishop Peckham had some trouble in much the same way,56 but such cases are obviously exceptional.

In addition to visitations, in which the bishop went to the monks, and the synods, when the monks went to the bishop, there were other occasions on which convent and diocesan were brought together. There were certain rites the performance of which was normally restricted to the episcopate, and the monasteries at times required the services of a bishop for just such purposes. None but a bishop could confer holy orders, so the diocesan ordained the members of monastic communities. The services of a bishop were needed to consecrate the churches and chapels belonging to the monasteries,

51 Ernest Barker, The Dominican Order and Convocation, p. 33. 52 Ibid., p. 64.

53 Chronicon Monasterii de Bello (London, 1846), p. 26.

54 Gesta Abbatum S. Albani, I. 278.

55 Ibid., I. 457.

56 Reg. Epist. Peckham, R. S., I. 255.

and to bless their altars and ecclesiastical ornaments. From the bishop, too, were obtained the holy oil and chrism used in the sacraments of baptism and holy unction. "The chrism, the holy oil, the consecration of altars and churches, the ordination of monks or clerks who are to be advanced to holy orders, you shall receive from the diocesan bishop, if he is a Catholic and has the grace and favor of the apostolic see."57 These words, or others of like import, appear again and again in briefs sent from Rome to the English convents. They are evidence of the diversity of ways in which the monks came in contact with the diocesan episcopate.

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It was not only in the performance of episcopal functions for the monasteries, or in the exercise of his ordinary jurisdiction over the regular clergy, that a bishop came in contact with the Benedictines. His pastoral work, attending to the parochial life and activities of his diocese, involved him in relations with abbeys and priories scattered throughout the realm. "Of the members of Religious Orders in our Diocese ", says a synodal statute of John de Pontissara, some hold Churches to their own uses, others certain portions of particular tithes, others receive and keep annual pensions from Churches."58 The monasteries, in other words, were the patrons of a large number of benefices and owned the advowson of many parishes. The monks did not themselves serve in their parishes; secular clerks were appointed to minister to the needs of the people. The episcopal registers are in large part records of institutions to livings, and they furnish us with some conception of the number of churches which religious houses held and also with information of the kind of clergy who were instituted. Such a register as that of Hugh de Welles, bishop of Lincoln from 1209 to 1235, gives us an idea of the importance of religious houses in one of the largest of English dioceses in the thirteenth century. The register is incomplete, there being ample evidence that all the bishop's official acts are not there recorded.

In the lists of institutions to churches in the diocese the following Benedictine houses are given as patrons: Abingdon, St. Albans, Bardeney, Beaulieu (a cell of St. Albans), Belvoir (another cell of the same house), Bury St. Edmunds, Coventry, Croyland, Durham, Eye, Eynsham, Freston (a cell of Croyland), Gloucester, Hertford (a cell of St. Albans), Humberston, Luffield, Peterborough, Ramsey, Reading, Rochester, Selby, Thorney, Walden, Westminster, Winchcombe, and St. Mary's, York.

57 Hist. et Cart. S. Petri Glouc., R. S., vol. III., no. dccccix. 58 Reg. Pontissara (Canterbury and York Soc.), I. 210.

Of these it is recorded that in Hugh de Welles's episcopate St. Albans presented to five churches; Bardeney to fourteen; Beaulieu to four; Belvoir to ten; Bury St. Edmunds to two; Coventry to three; Croyland to sixteen; Durham to four; Eye to three; Eynsham to fifteen; Freston to five; Gloucester to three; Hertford to two; Peterborough to fifteen; Ramsey to thirteen; Reading to two; Rochester to two; Selby to six; Westminster to seven; Thorney to nine; St. Mary's, York, to three; and the others to one each.

Some of these institutions were to perpetual vicarages, others to chaplaincies, and a few to parsonships (ad personatum). There are instances in which the presentation was to a mediety, that is to say, to a part of the parish, in which case the other mediety might or might not be in the gift of the monastery. In general the presentee is described as clerk or chaplain, terms which furnish no clue as to what rank he held in the hierarchy. Eight presentees were in deacon's orders, or rather seven, for one received a second benefice without having been advanced to the priesthood. Forty-eight were subdeacons. Only one presentee is described as a priest. Some of the men were not even in the subdiaconate; the abbot of Westminster presented a man who was in minor orders, accolitus, he is called; and the requirement that the presentee must be ordained subdeacon occurs several times. There is little evidence that a man was expected to proceed to orders higher than that of subdeacon. Only in one case, where Thorney Abbey presented a subdeacon for institution to Haddon, is the condition expressed; unless he comes up for ordination the bishop will deprive him. On the other hand, the oft-repeated injunction that the presentee shall "frequent the schools" may be evidence that the living was given in order to enable the man to complete his course of study. Certainly it is evidence that the clerks to whom the religious houses gave their churches were not always fully qualified for their duties. And the darker side of medieval clerical life is suggested by this sentence, written of a chaplain instituted on presentation of the abbot of Croyland: "Si in domo suo vel alibi mulierem unde mala suspicio habeatur secum tenuerit, ecclesia ipsa spolietur."

ALFRED H. SWEET.

THE ORIGIN OF ENGLISH POLITICAL PARTIES

Of all political movements in recent times none is of more profound and far-reaching importance than that by which representative government, a century and a quarter ago confined to AngloSaxon peoples, has been extended to all states possessing or pretending to modern civilization. The cause of this phenomenon is not far to seek. A triumphing democracy finding in this system. a practical compromise between strong administration and popular control suited to its needs, has seized upon it as a means of expression, a weapon, and an administrative device. It has become. a universal test of liberalism and a fetish of popular government. And though there are not wanting signs of its failure to meet the expectations of its most ardent champions, and portents of its imminent modification to meet ideas and conditions which it has itself largely produced, it is, none the less, regarded by most men as the best contrivance yet proposed to convert national opinion into governmental action, to make and keep central authority sensitive to popular will. Above all, perhaps, it is the only system yet devised by which democracy can be extended to wide areas.

Including an executive and a judiciary, independent of each other and, save in cases of last resort, of the legislature, its fundamental conception, that of a central motive force embodied in an assembly drawn from all districts, classes, and interests of the nation and exercising virtual sovereignty, differentiates it from all other systems. With monarchy and oligarchy, the only forms of government which prior to its appearance were available for the administration of great territories and populations, it may be fitly compared in the incidence and efficiency of its functions. But from them it differs fundamentally in the very essence of its existence, the initiative and control of government by those upon whom it operates. There it is on an equality with such pure democracies as those of Athens and the Swiss cantons. But from them it differs in that the system they represent is incapable of territorial or numerical extension beyond narrow limits.

One might naturally suppose, therefore, that under this form of government the means by which central authority related itself to popular will would be fully provided by constitutional measures, but this is far from the fact. Constitutions supply this important rela