Part 17 (1/2)

[2] ”The parish was the community of the towns.h.i.+p organised for Church purposes and subject to Church discipline, with a const.i.tution which recognised the rights of the whole body as an aggregate, and the right of every adult member, _whether man or woman_, to a voice in self-government, but at the same time kept the self-governing community under a system of inspection and restraint by a central authority outside the parish boundaries.”--Bishop Hobhouse, _Somerset Record Society_, Vol. IV.

”The community had its own a.s.sembly--the parish meeting--which was a deliberative a.s.sembly. It had its own officers, who might be either men or women, duly elected, sometimes for a year, sometimes for life, but in all cases subject to being dismissed for flagrant offences. The larger number of these officials had well-defined duties to discharge, and were paid for their services out of funds provided by the paris.h.i.+oners.”--DR. JESSOPP, _Before the Great Pillage_.

[3] Radmer, _Life of Anselm_. (Rolls Series.)

[4] ”The boldness of Anselm's att.i.tude not only broke the tradition of ecclesiastical servitude, but infused through the nation at large a new spirit of independence.”--J.R. GREEN, _History of the English People_.

[5] ”For as long as any one in all the land was said to hold any power except through him, even in the things of G.o.d, it seemed to him that the royal dignity was diminished.”--EADMER, _Life of Anselm_.

[6] See Palgrave's _History of Normandy and England_.

[7] ”A martyr he clearly was, not merely to the privileges of the Church or to the rights of the See of Canterbury, but to the general cause of law and order as opposed to violence.”--FREEMAN, _Historical Essays_.

[8] _See_ Campbell's _Lives of the Chancellors_.

[9] F. York Powell, _England to 1509_.

”Ecclesiastical privileges were not so exclusively priestly privileges as we sometimes fancy. They sheltered not only ordained ministers, but all ecclesiastical officers of every kind; the Church courts also claimed jurisdiction in the causes of widows and orphans. In short, the privileges for which Thomas contended transferred a large part of the people, and that the most helpless part, from the b.l.o.o.d.y grasp of the King's courts to the milder jurisdiction of the bishop.”--FREEMAN, _Historical Essays_.

[10] Walter of Coventry. (Rolls Series.)

[11] Roger of Wendover. (Rolls Series.)

[12] ”Clause by clause the rights of the commons are provided for as well as the rights of the n.o.bles; the interest of the freeholder is everywhere coupled with that of the barons and knights; the stock of the merchant and the wainage of the villein are preserved from undue severity of amercement as well as the settled estate of the earldom or barony. The knight is protected against the compulsory exaction of his services, and the horse and cart of the freeman against the irregular requisition even of the sheriff.”--STUBBS, _Const.i.tutional History_.

[13] ”Quod Anglicana Ecclesia libera sit.”--_Magna Charta_, I.

[14] ”This most important provision may be regarded as a summing-up of the history of Parliament so far as it can be said yet to exist. It probably contains nothing which had not been for a long time in theory a part of the Const.i.tution: the kings had long consulted their council on taxation; that council consisted of the elements that are here specified. But the right had never yet been stated in so clear a form, and the statement thus made seems to have startled even the barons.... It was for the attainment of this right that the struggles of the reign of Henry III. were carried on; and the realisation of the claim was deferred until the reign of his successor. In these clauses the nation had now obtained a comparatively clear definition of the right on which their future political power was to be based.”--STUBBS, _Const.i.tutional History_.

[15] ”Ut quod omnes similiter tangit ab omnibus approbetur.”

[16] Stubbs, _Const.i.tutional History_.

[17] Stubbs, _Ibid_.

[18] ”a.n.a.logous examples may be taken from the practice of the ecclesiastical a.s.semblies, in which the representative theory is introduced shortly before it finds its way into parliament.”--STUBBS, _Const.i.tutional History_.

[19] Stubbs, _Const.i.tutional History_.

[20] Stubbs, _Const.i.tutional History_.

[21] F. York Powell, _England to 1509_.

[22] Sir Courtenay Ilbert, _Parliament_.

[23] Ilbert, _Parliament_.

[24] Bagehot, _The English Const.i.tution_.

[25] Bagehot, _Ibid_.