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of Paris.* One of Bishop St. Hugh's severest struggles with the Crown arose from royal attempts to force courtiers into stalls, and the reputation and the peacefulness of the vast establishment† were much increased by the determination with which, while he sought for men to fill them, 'eminent for the prerogative of diligence and literature,' he yet would not accept the most eminent, unless he could satisfy himself that they were of quiet and modest spirit.' In the same tone we find the great Grosseteste-philosopher, statesman, patriot-not only defying an excommunication for resisting the Pope's demand for a prebend for his nephew, but, with an eye to the substantial work which he expected, refusing Cardinal Otho's request that he would confer a stall upon one whom Grosseteste himself admits to be scientia eminens et moribus præclarus,' simply on the ground that work at Lincoln was not such as would suit him best; while to another scholar of high character he offers a small prebend on condition of his coming at once into residence, there to help feed the flock with the three necessaries, verbum prædicationis; exemplum sanctæ conversationis; et devotio puræ orationis.' It was for the sake of greater efficiency in this same work that earlier in life he had himself resigned 'altior dignitas,' and become spontanee pauperior, devoting himself to the duties of his prebendal stall.

6

It is difficult to realize the amount and diversity of interests which centred in this now quiet retreat. From foreign, national, and diocesan relations, from the numerous monasteries which these seculars' superintended, and on which their larger spirit had salutary effect, let us turn to the cathedral itself, and what was going on around it.

I. There was then, first, the School of Architecture, which, under the 'Masters of the Fabric,' was creating continuously from century to century a Christian Parthenon on a Christian Acropolis,' radiating adaptations through the diocese, and influencing far and wide the taste of the country in every department of Art.

II. There was the School of Music, which, under the headship of the 'præcentor' (second, be it remembered, only to the dean), had offshoots (scholæ cantus) in every parish of the diocese, maintained a strict inspection' through a magister cantus in civitate et comitatu Lincolniensi (p. 28), and gave

*Vita M. Hugonis,' B. iii. c. ix.-x. +Cunctis ecclesiis gloriosius copiosiusque,' id. iii. 8.

Compare in Nov. Reg.' the contrast drawn between the pettiness of monastic discipline and the wider spirit of the cathedral.

'grants in aid' to every school which was not wholly maintained either by some prebendary, or by the rector and curate of the place.

The central school of the choriste themselves (who were not to be mere hirelings,* or wholly free scholars, and who were to be of good birth as well as character) was to be a kind of model, with its strict discipline yet gentle punishments' under the præcentor's immediate direction. The boys resided with one of the canons as warden, had an industrious seneschal' to cater for them, a trusty man to attend them out of doors, and either one or two masters for singing and grammar. §

III. There was the still more important School of Grammar, under the chancellor. He is responsible for all the grammar-schools of the city and county, and for all appointments made to them-save only singingschools, præbendal schools, and-how mo dern an exception-those schools which are wholly maintained by local managers, pro suis parochianis in fide et litteratura erudiendis.' He was in fact a Minister of Education. At St. Paul's, London, the corresponding officer, præest litteraturæ non tantum ecclesiæ sed totius civitatis. Omnes magistri grammatices ei subjiciuntur.' At York his office is more ancient than that of dean or precentor, under the title of 'magister scholarum,' which corresponds to the foreign escolâtre, scholaster or capiscol.

IV. Fourthly, there is the School of Divinity' in the city itself; that it was large and widely popular we know, but we have no means of learning its numbers. It was, like the Schools of Letters, ruled by the chancellor, and it is from cathedral institutions that the Universities borrowed the idea of this high officer. All appointments in this school were to be filled up by him, but he was also required actualiter legere,' himself to lecture. He had besides

* MS. p. 28; see the direction ut expensio puerorum parcatur.'

† p. 28; levi castigatione.'

The remarks on style of singing, pp. 46, 49, are too long for quotation, but they are excel lent; insisting on a sharp, crisp style, on the for intelligence of the sense. Perhaps it is some management of the breath, and on the necessity ancient precentor's precept which is quoted, Auscultanda cave; simul incipe; desine plane.'

Chorus non obest scholis is the dictum old author in answer to a natural inquiry. He which, experientia teste,' is laid down by an points especially to the schools of the Barnabites throughout Italy, and to the litterarum studia, cantionum munus, animarum directio, conversio infidelium, conducted by all those orders which found the full daily usus Hymnodiæ (choral service) to be maxime carus et utilis. Ap. 'Miræum cod. Regg. et Constt. Cleric,' p. 57.

fixed days on which he was bound to deliver | staff of Cathedral service,' while the canons popular lectures or sermons in English. He were the servers of Cathedral work.' The also was responsible for arranging the lec- vicars of the non-resident canons were a tiones or collationes read in the chapter- body corporate under the dean and chapter; house, which are characterised (remarkable the chaplains or commonsales of the resiphrase) as having proved ad fidei et morum dents were subject to their dominus' alone. reformationem plurimum efficaces. He was But they and the vicars served the choir the custodian finally of the precious treasure whether the prebendary was present or not, of the libri scholastici, except such as were and in no case relieved the latter of his 'chained in the library.' His multifarious duties, which were absolutely distinct, not duties, and the extent of the field, made the only as to the 'work,' but in the service of chancellor, as we have seen, the 'principium the choir itself. No one but a prebendary et quasi fundamentum ecclesiæ, and ren- could act as a prebendary's deputy in the dered the office of a Vice-chancellor indis- church. So at Exeter each of the twentypensable. four canons had his vicar from the commencement' ('Cath. Comm.' p. 183). The same is the case in every old cathedral.

V. On the Archdeacons,' whose headquarters were here, it is not necessary to dwell. Each had one of the seven counties of the diocese under his direction, and the jurisdiction since lost through Archidiaconorum incuria seu episcoporum potentia,'* was not without its burdens.

VI. Under the 'treasurer,' besides the management of the funds, and the responsibility of the magnificence with which the pages of Dugdale flash out, as it passes from its old home to the hands of Henry VIII. (and may that moveable magnificence never reappear in the cathedral of the future!), was the supply of large quantities of warm clothing for the poor, distributed by the canons; and the dispensary, of which the medicine-niches yet surround the walls of an apartment in the cathedral.

The present statutes say nothing of the road-making and bridge-making which is described in other cathedral statutes as part of the work.' But their present form sufficiently explains this; and it is clear that the character of the country made it at least as imperative here as elsewhere.

VII. Lastly, we come to the Cathedral Service'; the sole function of the great institution which was limited to its own walls. The ceaseless supplication for Grace, the perpetual Intercession, the endless Praise unbroken, yet ever new, like Nature herself with varying majesty-practical issue of a still languidly acknowledged theory.t

Every prebendary provided a vicar for the choir service. Ignorant assertions are common enough, that priest-vicars, or, as they sometimes are called, minor canons-arose out of the absenteeism of the canons. The fact is, that the vicars were the working

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VIII. We need scarcely speak of the accretion of twenty chantries, each with its chaplain, and the 'pauperes clerici' who guarded the altars. The system was an after-growth, having no true connection with, and no original place in, the cathedral system, a temporary enrichment, but, finally and justly, one of the most active causes of dissolution. When at last a fifteenth-century prelate commissioned two diocesan preachers, who should have had other subject matter, to stimulate the decreasing supply of devotions for the fabric by proclaiming the chapter's care for the souls of departed benefactors-when the offerings of the dead became the trade of the living, the heart of the fabric was near ceasing to beat. But this sad side of the picture, to which it is only just to advert, need nevertheless not detain us, for it belongs only to the centuries in which decay was at work, and is in itself the principal symptom of decay.

It

And now it is worth while to pause for a moment to remember that of this great establishment in its integrity-setting aside the chantry priests-not a single line of the plan has perished. Not one office or title (perexiles tituli though they have become for the time) is extinct, with the significant exception of the treasurership. Vicars, prebendaries in full tale, chancellor, precentors, dean, and deputies are appointed still. is said that when it was proposed to leave the prebendal stalls unabolished while confiscating the funds, the proposal was passed by the House of Commons with a derisive cheer. Members of the then Parliament thought they knew the clergy' too well to suppose that they would accept offices which entailed expense, trouble, travelling, labour in writing, and preaching without reward for the sake of maintaining the ancient forms of their cathedrals in honour and respect. Yet they were mistaken. Prebendal stalls are filled, and the duties ac

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cepted with pride and without hire. It would be difficult to find one instance in which they had ever been declined, and all prebendal stalls are fuli. Is there not significance in the fact?

And now in speaking of the daily corporate life of this great body, our space is too scant to allow us to dwell on the many delicate and even tender provisions for mutual respect and harmony, on the precautions taken for the honourable discharge of all private debts; the grave admonitions not to take up the time of the chapter with personal grievances; the visiting of the sick; the thrilling vigils of all the canons through the night on the occurrence of a death in their ranks; the kindliness towards the 'familia' of the deceased enjoined on the successor; the penalties for violation of such respect; or again, the assignment of a portion of the Psalter to the bishop and each prebendary, so that the whole Psalter might be daily recited as a common act of private devotion, and with the thought and memory of common obligation, but there are three points to which we must advert; they show as well as any number could do, what was the spirit which animated that life.

1. The consideration of inferiors. In the payment of every dividend and every due the inferior ministers and vicars receive their full salaries before any other persons receive anything; 'not in order to give them higher place,' but because they are Christ's poor,' who depend on this their labour bearing the burden of the night as well as of the day.'

2. Elevating influence on subordinates. Every prebendary on his Sunday turn entertains nineteen of the under officers of the staff at dinner; and daily through his week others, some at luncheon, and some at breakfast. The dean, about thirty times a year, gave a 'honorificus pastus' in his own house to all the choir and all the vicars, with a view to making 'life and work more pleasant to them.' One dean having evaded the rule through frequent absence, is enjoined to give the feast equally whether present or absent. But the rule is that the giver shall dine or sup along with his humbler guests, and cultivate personal relations with

them.

3. Companionship. Its importance to 'bachelors' engaged as these men were is fully recognised. Each prebendary in residence is as far as possible to make his vicar a companion; he is to be his commensalis, he is to accompany him in walking. To us, with our restless movements, and distant communications and crowd of acquaintances, this seems, and would be, too formal.

It was otherwise when all these conditions of society were reversed. But even in modern times it is well known how affectionate and lofty have been the friendships of ecclesiastics thus paired, as they loved to think, after the pattern of the first disciples; and we can still recognise the beneficial influence the system would have on the selection, and in the cultivation of the younger man.

From the society itself we pass to the consideration of the head of the society. The Dean was not an original officer in every chapter even in England, and his posi tion is difficult to delineate. His powers were always great but indefinite.* He was simply pre-eminent.' Older than Grosseteste (Ep. 127; Ed. Luard) was the gradual assumption of that place with respect to the chapter which belonged originally to the bishop, but which it rarely seemed worth the bishop's while to battle for.t

Reserved for our days has been a decanal proposition to diminish decanal difficulties, by dissolving the canonical co-operation, and making the dean a grander rector, with vicars for curates. Yet all allowance must be made. Such positions have been ever difficult. The terminable office of the vicechancellor is the solution of similar difficulties in the Universities.

We speak only of the cathedral system as it was in its vigour. During 'the quiet period' a deanery has been often indeed a well-merited reward, which the Church of England is only too blest in being allowed to dispense; a position in which wit and learning, eloquence, hospitality, and gentle Christian life have most fairly flourished. But anciently the very variety of influence assigned in different cases tells of long-felt difficulties. In some cases a dean was but one voice in the chapter; in others he was equipollent with the whole chapter; now independent of it, now superior to it, and

* Quid ad Decani officium spectet modicum reperitur in jure decisum. 'Nov. Reg.' MS., p. 12. In one see an eminent bishop never saw his cathedral during an episcopate of twenty years. The grotesque fact is well known that, in some

cathedrals, the bishop cannot cross from his throne to the pulpit without invitation; in others cannot ordain without obtaining permission. The late Master of Trinity (Dr. C. Wordsworth, in his eloquent letter to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, 1837) expresses sorrow and surprise at the part taken by the bishops against the chapters. But at that time the estrangement was complete.

Decanal functions like those of Christ

Church are exceptional. No retiring dean (still less a bishop) could discharge them.

indeed its visitor;

that no law had defined the status of deans, and that it was so various in various places that local custom alone could regulate it. But he does not hesitate to affirm that, while the enemy 'jugiter sedet insidians ecclesiasticis viris,' and while there arise innumera et scandalosa jurgia, adeo inveterata quod ex eis infinita mala et pericula animabus personis rebusque ecclesiæ nostræ pervenerint et perveniunt (pro dolor) incessanter,' the main cause of the cathedral mischiefs and evils of his day was to be found in the conduct of the deans; so obvious was this that the prebendary's very oath of obedience quaintly anticipated it. At his admission he promises to obey the chapter 'vobis (i. c. decano) absentibus aut negligentibus,' when you, the dean, are absent or neglectful.t

but Alnwick declared | parochiani, whose presence he requires to
form his consilium, to compose his boards
for examining, for teaching whether by lec-
tures or by sermons, for inspecting, for
visitations, for organisations of every kind,
for the protection of church rights and
charitable funds, for resistance alike to
royal, aristocratical, and papal encroach-
ment, for the promotion of learning and
science. Nay, in order that the prebends
themselves might not lose their original re-
lation to the bishop, the 'vicars perpetual'
of the prebendal churches were still imme;
diate subjects' to the bishop, and from him
received their cure of souls. The bishops
accordingly were the founders and endowers
of every prebendal stall; they nominated
the incumbents; when convenience required
an additional prebendary besides those en-
dowed with land, it was the bishop who
paid his stipend. They on their part, in
order to represent them, to exercise their
jurisdictions more consistently, to sum up
and unite their voices, elected with absolute
freedom their own dean; but not until the
Crown had appropriated this appointment,
and until various interests had largely influ-
enced the appointments to stalls, did the
aims and interests of chapters begin to draw
away from the bishops. The older history
brings out the full force of terms and usages.
Dean and chapter addressing the bishop, de-
signate the cathedral universally as 'vestra
ecclesia;' he to them always calls it 'nos-
tra.' It was not theirs, but his; the bells
are to peal when he attends service; the
seemly choir salutations (too frequently dis--
used) are to be made to the dean only when
the bishop is absent, to the bishop alone if
present; he alone is to give any benediction
(frequent as they were in the old services),.
may supersede at his pleasure any dignitary
in his turn for celebrating mass; and now
that to these the preaching turns have suc-
ceeded,* he has an indubitable right to
preach at pleasure. He convokes the entire
body of dignities, canons and prebendaries

A few words must be said on the position of the Bishop with regard to the dignitaries and prebendaries of his cathedral, because much misconception prevails on the point. He is, according to the definition, not only a dignitas within his Church, but the culmen dignitatum.' According to the still more important definition above quoted (p. 231), Quinquaginta et sex canonici ecclesiae B.V.M. Lincolniensis cum capite suo corpus et capitulum constituunt,' and this caput of the Mystic Body' is (p. 14) the bishop himself.

Non-residence and jealousies have converted this into the present unreasonable status; a supposed 'courtesy' has allowed him to preach or appoint preachers on Ordination Sundays, but his right of preaching is supposed to be confined to his turn as a prebendary. This is far from the original conception. The pastoral office and work are doubtless not the same as the canonical or cathedral function. Yet the canons are, says Saravia, 'fratres episcopi,' as the car dinals are fratres papa;' he is the pastor of his canons as much as of his parochial clergy. They are in fact, according to an early, if not primitive, idea of the institution,§--the long chapter, as it is in some places

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This is clear enough from the statutes, in spite of Grosseteste's logical proof that the dean

was visor, not visitator. Ep. 127.

Few sketches of medieval life are more amusing than the history of Dean Macworth's ingenious evasions and tyrannical contraventions of the statutes.

So Saravia Quæstio, i. § 7, episcopus [not Decanus] est caput Capituli et per persequens principalis pars ipsius.' 'Faciunt unum corpus corpus non licet a capite separare.' Frances, 'De Eccl. Cath.' c. 30, § 19.

According to the Augustinian theory of their origin the connection with the bishop is still closer. See Cheruel, Dictionnaire des Institutions,' s. v. Chanoine.

VOL. CXXX.

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called-not 'immediately,' but through the dean and chapter of residentiaries by mandate. They appear either personally or by proxy; receive his communication, deliberate, and vote. Lastly, the bishop is the sole

*Even this 'Ordo Prædicatorum' is the comparatively modern legislation of Bishop Sanderson for his own Cathedral of Lincoln.

Nos Willelmus vocatis de mandato nostro per Decanum et Capitulum juxta Eccãe nrãe consuetudinem loci Canonicis et aliis dignitates et officia atque personatus in eadem obtinenti bus universis de consuetudine hujusmodi evo candis; et 9° die mensis Junii sic vocatis, viz. :.

interpreter of the cathedral statutes, and it may startle us to find how responsible he is for the good conduct of the dean, 'quem ad hoc vel ad aliud quod tenetur compellare debet et arctare.' Liable to such responsibilities he is armed with adequate power; he visits at will the cathedral and the prebends; he is bound to present offences in the first instance to the chapter for their correction, but such intervention then becomes compulsory on their part, and if they neglect to correct them he corrects them himself, and may punish the chapter with interdict or even excommunication.

We have hastily surveyed the constitution and the functions of the large yet compact body which constituted an ancient chapter. We have not averted our eyes from its possible or actual failure. Its scope and aims may be summed up in three words-science, law, religion.' Not severed, like monastic orders, from the daily interests of the citizens, the secular foundation continued for centuries to be of the people, as it sprang from the people; its members were the busiest of men, and the least recluse. The history of an early English bishop of that age-himself a man of the people-is often a narrative of successful war against nobles, courts, and popes. The identity of his interests with the interests of the commons is set forth in the old metaphor that he was betrothed to his Church, and bound to stand by her as a husband ad latus sponsæ.' The continuity of the tradition was set forth with a strange beauty in the church of Lincoln, when, on the recurrence of any bishop's "orbit,' the canons lit with tapers not his tomb only, but the tomb of every bishop through the church. The brightness of that continuity has ceased for a while, and various influences have effected a divorce which discretis viris et comparentibus et in Capitulo adunatis Præmissa et alias convocacionis prædictæ causas aperuimus super quibus communicatione et deliberatione præhabitis. .. nobis et omnibus sic convocatis videbatur saluberrimum fore. . . . [Marginal note. Canonici convocantur per Decanum et Capitulum et non Episcopum.] The prescription of the modus convocandi assumes the existence of the Jus, p. 114. Preamble to the Laudum. Considerantes quod id quod omnes tangit ab omnibus debet approbari, et ne quis confratrum nostrorum dignitates personatus aut præbendas in ipsa Ecca nra obtinentium in ea parte possit conqueri se contemptum et aliis ex causis nos moventibus ad certam diem in Capitulo ejusdem Eccãe eosdem omnes et singulos fecimus convocari, quibus dietis die et loco comparentibus, aliquibus viz. personaliter, et nonnullis per eorum Procuratores comparentibus, &c. . . . Here it is assumed that the bishop summons as many or as few as he will. To summon all is an act of grace in some degree.

*

Nearly the same severance has occurred in

gave

to both sides ease without peace, awoke jealousies which shifted their ground from the best interests of society to poorest trivialities, distorted the view of chapter life, and forfeited its claim to administrate noble means.

The cathedral has in our day to begin the world again, and inch by inch to win its way back to a usefulness commensurate with its dignity.

For is there no need? Rather is not the conviction very general and very strong that the Church of England labours under disabilities which no existent machinery is at work to remedy; that its excellent scheme is invalidated by deficiencies which are scarcely supplemented, much less repaired. It may not be possible to deny the necessity of such changes as have been made from other points of view; but we cannot refuse to see the fact, that while the church is unable in any way to contract her operation, and must accelerate her work of evangelisation, not only upon divine principles, but upon national grounds, she must also cease to look to the Universities for a complete training of ecclesiastical or clerical energies. They have altered their aims. Her hold is not merely precarious on them, it is assumed to be declining, and she is thereby left for the present without either centres' or organisms' from and through which living forces of the nature required can come into operation. Yet we already possess in our cathedrals-if the Church shall devote itself to renew their vitality, and to reconstruct them-organie centres, bases of operation, outlines of advance. We have them in types of societiesdwindled, yet alive-which resemble, which indeed gave the pattern to the Universities themselves, and are specially adapted to address themselves successfully to the solution nite necessary functions to be performed; of these problems. On the one side lie defion the other side there are capable bodies, craving these very functions, and with faculties for expansion in just proportion to the demands. May we not forge the link which The shall restore the office to the officers ? cathedral bodies themselves are inseparably connected with the history and progress of Christianity in England. They date back to its very planting. They have needed revision and renovation from time to time. Speaking approximately, the 11th, the 14th, and the 16th centuries have been the periods

the Church of Rome, for which Saravia gives two causes:-1. Negligentia Canonicorum; 2. The fact that the chapters were not represented at the Council of Trent, and that their ancient rights were then curtailed. In England at least one of those causes has not been operative.

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