most commonly in the way of censure, or of prohibition from exceeding the limits of their commission.*

(3.) Towards the end of the eighth century, the office of archdeacon acquired a new character and importance. In earlier times, there had been only one archdeacon in each diocese; but, with a view to a better superintendence of the clergy, the dioceses of the Frankish empire were now divided into archdeaconries," in which the archdeacons, although themselves only deacons, had jurisdiction over presbyters, and exercised all the ordinary administration, except such acts as especially belonged to the episcopal order." The office became so lucrative that laymen attempted to intrude into it-an abuse which was forbidden by a capitulary of 805, and by many canons of later date. As the archdeacons were not removable except for some grave offence,1 it was soon found that many of them endeavoured to render themselves independent of their bishops; and from canons of the ninth century it would appear that their exactions, and the insolence of their followers, were severely felt by the clergy subject to their jurisdiction.s

(4.) The archdeaconries of the new organisation were divided into deaneries (decania), each under an archpriest or rural-dean (archi-presbyter). The clergy of each deanery met on the first of every month," for conference on spiritual and ecclesiastical affairs. The conference was followed by a dinner; but complaints soon arose that these entertainments led to excesses, which more than counterbalanced the benefits of the meeting. Hincmar, archbishop

E. g. Conc. Worm. A.D. 829, c. 6 (Pertz, Leges, i.); Conc. Meld. A.D. 845, C. 44. See De Marca, II. 14, who traces their continuance to the circumstance that their ordinations, although prohibited, were not annulled; also Gfrörer, 'Die Karolinger,' i. 258.

Planck, ii. 585-7. The arrangement is usually ascribed to Heddo, bishop of Strasburg, who is said to have formed his diocese into seven archdeaconries, with the consent of Pope Adrian, in 774. (Patrol. xcvi. 1243; Planck, ii. 589-590; Giesel. II. i. 67-8.) But Rettberg says that the documents on which this statement rests are spurious. ii, 69.

Thomass. II. i. 19, 9; Augusti, xi. 209.

• C. 15 (Pertz, Leges, i. 132.)

See Planck, iii. 771-2, Similar canons against the invasion even of parochial cures by laymen are found under the Merovingians, Conc. Rem. A.D.

625, c. 19; Conc. Cabilon. A.D. 650, c. 5.

Planck, ii. 591.

r Ib. 594-5; iii. 769.

See Capit. Wormat. A.D. 829, c. 7; Conc. Aquisgr. II. A.D. 836, c. 4; Hincmari Capitula, c. 1, A.D. 877 (Opera, i. 738); Planck, iii. 774.

Thomass. I. ii. 1, 5; II. i. 35, 3; Planck, ii. 586-7. The council of Pavia, under the emperor Louis II., A.D. 850, orders that archpriests should be everywhere established. Bishops must not object, on the ground that they are themselves equal to the whole care of their dioceses; but the archpriests must be strictly subject to them, and must make reports to them. (c. 13.) This order was renewed in a capitulary of the emperor Lambert, A.D. 898, c. 12; Pertz, Leges, i. 565.

Hence the meetings were styled Kalenda. Ducange, s. v., p. 962.

of Rheims, in his injunctions of 852, found it necessary to denounce the abuse, and to lay down rules for moderation, restricting the allowance of the clergy on such occasions to three cups for each.

(5.) The bishops were required to visit throughout their dioceses. every year. The expense of entertaining them on their circuits. was often complained of by the clergy; with a view to limiting it, the seventh council of Toledo ordered that the bishop should not on such occasions take more than five (or, according to another reading, fifty) horses in his train, and that his stay in each parish should not exceed one day. But even after this limitation, the expense continued to be heavy, as appears from the list of provisions required by a Lombard capitulary of 855, which includes a hundred loaves, four large swine, a lamb, a pig, fifty pints of wine, and a sufficiency of honey, oil, and wax. Louis the Pious, in 829, charges his commissioners to inquire whether the bishops in their visitations are burdensome to the clergy. A capitulary of Charles the Bald, in 844, denounces the misbehaviour which was common among the attendants of bishops when on visitation, and provides that the clergy of five neighbouring parishes shall combine to supply provisions for the usual hospitality to their diocesan. The priest at whose house the entertainment is held is to contribute in the same proportion as the others, with "perhaps" the addition of firewood and utensils.

C. 15 (Opera, i. 714). Compare the statutes of Riculf, bishop of Soissons, forty years later, c. 20 (Patrol. cxxxi.).

Capit. A.D. 769, c. 7; Conc. Arelat. A.D. 813, c. 17; Thomass. III. iii. 6. These visitations were called Sende-a word which is usually supposed to be a corruption of Synodi. (Giesel. II. i. 73.) But Augusti (ix. 124) and Rettberg (ii. 742) prefer to deduce it from an analogy between the episcopal visitation and that of the missus or Sendgraf. The articles of inquiry drawn up for bishops by Regino are curious. See Patrol. cxxxii. 187-191.

Conc. Tolet. VII., A.D. 646, c. 4. The authority of MSS. is in favour of quinquagenarium, although editors and other writers generally prefer quinarium. But if the higher number be too large, the lower seems hardly large enough to be fixed as an extreme. Five hundred years later we find Pope Alexander III. ordering that the archbishop of Sens shall not burden the abbey of St. Germain des Près by taking more than 40 horses and 44 men on his visitation of it (Ep. 1286, 1439; Patrol. cc.), and re

The third council of Valence,

proving the archbishop because after this order he had taken 70 men in addition to 40 horses (ib. Ep. 1498). The same pope wrote to the clergy of Berkshire that they were not bound to supply their archdeacon with dogs or hawks, to receive him more than once a year, or on such occasions to furnish him with more than was necessary for a day and a night for himself and a train of 7 horses, 7" personæ," and 7 foot-servants (Ep. 1371.) One of Becket's correspondents says of the bishop of Nevers, " Qui in terra sua quindecim esset contentus, apud nos [scil. in Normannia] triginta sex equitaturas adducit." (Patrol. exc. 727.) May not quindenarium be possibly the true reading of the Toledo canon?

in 855, censures an abuse which some bishops had introduced by exacting visitation-dues of their clergy at times when they omitted to visit.d

(6.) The parochial system was not yet completely organised in the Frankish church; the people in country places were often dependent for divine offices on the clergy of the cathedral city, or on the chaplain of some neighbouring castle. The division of England into parishes has (as we have already seen) been ascribed to the Greek archbishop, Theodore; but, whatever his share in promoting it may have been, the general establishment of the system appears to have been slowly and gradually effected."

(7.) With a view of enforcing ecclesiastical discipline, it was attempted by frequent enactments to bind the clergy by strict local ties. No stranger was to be admitted to officiate without producing letters of license and recommendation from his bishop.s Fugitive clerks were to be examined and sent home; wandering clergy or monks, who disturbed the church by teaching error, or by raising unnecessary questions, were to be apprehended, carried before the metropolitan, and put to suitable penance; all the clergy of a diocese were to be subject to the bishop's jurisdiction.k Presbyters were obliged to remain in the diocese where they were ordained; some councils required a promise that they would do so, and Charlemagne even imposed an oath to that effect." No bishop was to receive a clerk from another diocese, or to promote him to a higher degree; but, while this was absolutely forbidden in a capitulary for France, the corresponding enactment for Lombardy allows it with the consent of the bishop to whose diocese the clerk had belonged. And it is evident, from facts which continually meet us in history and biography, that with such consent it was not unusual for clergymen to pass from one diocese, or even from one kingdom, to another.

m

(8.) During the earlier ages, ordination had not been conferred without a title (i. e. without assigning a particular sphere of labour), except in rare and extraordinary instances, such as that of St.

q

Jerome.P The same rule was now often re-enacted; but an exception was necessarily made in the case of missionaries, and was by degrees extended to other cases. Although the ancient canons as to the requisites for ordination were still in force, an important novelty was introduced, after the sixth century, by means of the tonsure. This was regarded as conferring the character of a clerk, without ordination to any particular grade of the ministry; and thus clerks were made in great numbers, without any regard to the canonical conditions or impediments of ordination. It may easily be conceived that much disorder was introduced by these "acephalous" (or headless) clerks, who enjoyed the immunities of the clerical state without being bound by its obligations."

(9.) The example of the royal household in France induced persons of rank to establish domestic chaplains. These were often disposed to set the bishops at defiance; and it appears from the testimony of many councils that the institution had an unfavourable effect on the religion of the people in general. It is represented that the absence of the lord from the parish-church encourages his dependents to absent themselves; that the clergy have no opportunity of enforcing the duties of the rich and powerful;" and there are frequent complaints of attempts to withdraw the ecclesiastical dues from the bishops and parochial clergy, in order to provide for the chaplains by means of them. But in addition to these evils, the chaplains were usually persons of low and disreputable character; they were miserably paid, disrespectfully treated by their employers, and required to perform degrading services. The position and habits of chaplains were found to bring discredit on the whole body of the clergy, and hence Agobard, archbishop of Lyons, in the reign of Louis the Pious, felt himself called on to write a treatise in vindication of "the privilege and rights of the priesthood." After showing from Scripture the estimation in which the clergy ought to be held, he proceeds by way of contrast to describe the abuses of his own time. Every person of any pretension to station, he says, then kept a priest of his own-" not to obey him, but continually to exact obedience from him, and that

P See vol. i. p. 322; Conc. Chalced. A.D. 451, c. 6; Thomass. I. 2, 34.

a E. g. Conc. Francof. A.D. 794, c. 27; Conc. Mogunt. A.D. 813, c. 22.

Planck, ii. 76-8; Guizot, ii. 37.
The Monk of St. Gall, in his life of
Charlemagne (i. 8), styles them Circum-
cellions.

Planck, ii. 89, Guizot, ii. 41-2; Neand. v. 150.

u

Capit. Attiniac. A.D. 822; Convent. Ticin. 855, c. 3 (Pertz, Leges, i.); Conc. Paris, VI. A.D. 829, c. 47.

E. g. Conv. Ticin. A.D. 855, c. 11. y Conc. Ticin. A.D. 850, c. 18.

in unlawful as well as in lawful things." The chaplains were employed to do the work of bailiffs, butlers, grooms, or dogkeepers, to wait at table, to lead ladies' horses. As no respectable clergyman would accept such a position, the patrons, whose chief object was to obtain an excuse for deserting the public offices of religion, and emancipating themselves from the control of the clergy, cared nothing how gross the ignorance of their chaplains might be, or how infamous their lives. They usually took one of the serfs on their estates, or procured a person of servile birth for the purpose, and were offended if the bishop hesitated to ordain him as a matter of course. Even if we might implicitly believe all that has lately been written against the English domestic chaplains of the seventeenth century," it would appear that the class had lost nothing in dignity between the age of Agobard and that of Eachard.

(10.) A new species of ecclesiastical officers arose in Gaul during the sixth and seventh centuries, under the title of Advocates, Defensors, or Vicedomini-a word from which are formed the French Vidame and the German Vitzthum. Except in name, these bore no resemblance to the defensors of the earlier ages; the new office grew out of the peculiar circumstances of the Frankish church. The bishops and clergy required the assistance of force to protect them against the outrages of their rough and lawless neighbours. Their landed possessions imposed on them duties which were inconsistent with their spiritual office, or which, at least, might be more conveniently performed by laymen-such as secular judicature, (when it was committed to them), and the leading of the contingents which their estates were required to furnish to the national army.d Moreover, as, by the Germanic laws, none but freemen, capable of bearing arms, were entitled to appear in law-suits, the clergy (like women, old or infirm persons, and children) required substitutes who might appear for them, and, if necessary, might go through

sort of parallel in some African canons of the fifth century; but an examination of them will show that he is mistaken. See Conc. Carth. V. A.D. 401, c. 9 (the same with Can. 75 of the African code); Conc. Milev. II. A.D. 416, c. 16. In the first of these, Planck alters the application by reading ipsis (the bishops) for eis (the poor). For the early Defensors, see vol. i. p. 553.

d Ducange, s. vv. Advocatus, Vicedominus; Planck, ii. 454-9; Hallam, Midd. Ages, i. 143; Giesel. II. i. 76-7.