ENGLAND. (ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.) 



17 



literary subjects, and was possessed of all the learn- 

 ing of his time. His ecclesiastical history is the 

 only performance that throws any light on the reli- 

 gious and literary stale of his country in the times 

 preceding the Saxon conquests down to his own era. 



About the same time flourished John Scotus 

 Erigena, a native of Ayr, in Scotland, who was dis- 

 tinguished both as a philosopher and a theologian. 

 This celebrated Scotsman, abandoning his native 

 country, at that time embroiled with intestine com- 

 motions, travelled on the continent, as tar as Greece, 

 (if some writers may be believed,) and there acquired 

 a knowledge of the Greek language and philosophy. 

 " But in whatever way," says that learned and 

 accurate German, Brucker, " he acquired the know- 

 ledge of languages and philosophy, it is certain, that 

 he nad, not only a very pleasant and facetious, but, 

 also, a very acute and penetrating genius ; that, in 

 philosophy, he had no superior ; and in languages, 

 no equal, in the age in which he flourished." He 

 was the favourite of Charles the Bald, king of 

 France, the greatest patron of learning and learned 

 men in that age. His philosophical tenets bear 

 some resemblance to the Pantheism of the celebrated 

 atheist, Spinoza. He delighted in paradoxes, or 

 seeming contradictions ; and appears to have held, 

 that the universe and all the things* comprehended in 

 it, were not only virtually but essentially in God, that 

 they flowed from him from eternity, and shall, at the 

 consummation of all things, be resolved again into 

 him, as their great fountain and origin. He was 

 the father of the Scholastic Theology, which flou- 

 rished so long in the Christian church. At the 

 request of Charles, he published a treatise upon the 

 eucharist, against Paschasius Radbertus, the first 

 who advanced the absurd idea of transubstantiation, 

 and the corporeal presence of Christ in the sacra- 

 ment. This book of Scotus, in answer to Radber- 

 tus, has perished ; but his doctrine, concerning the 

 eucharist, was the same with that of the Reformed 

 churches. He was also engaged in the Predestin- 

 arian controversy, raised by the famous Gotteschalk ; 

 and wrote against that persecuted and unhappy 

 monk. Alcuin, the preceptor of Charles the Great, 

 was another of the learned men who flemished at the 

 latter end of the eighth century. 



The great Alfred was the most learned prince in 

 Europe ;' and made every effort to introduce literature 

 and the sciences among his subjects ; but his laudable 

 intentions were greatly impeded by the infelicitous 

 nature of the times, being engaged almost all his 

 reign with the warlike, powerful, and ferocious 

 Danes. Alfred erected the university of Oxford, 

 A. D. 886. According to Camden, the first readers 

 there, and regents in divinity, were " St Neot, an 

 abbot, and eminent professor of theology; and St 

 Grimbald, an eloquent and persuasive interpreter of 

 the Holy Scriptures. Grammar and rhetoric were 

 taught by Asserius, a monk, (Alfred's biographer,) a 

 man of extraordinary learning. Logic, music, and 

 arithmetic, were read by St John, a monk of St 

 David's. Geometry and astronomy were professed by 

 John, a monk, and Griuibald's colleague, a man of 

 sharp and immense knowledge. " These lecturers 

 were often honoured by the presence of Alfred, who 

 dedicated one-eighth part of his revenues for the sup- 

 port of the masters and schools in Oxford, and the 

 other schools which he erected for instructing his 

 illiterate subjects ; and he made a law, obliging all 

 freeholders, who possessed two hides of land, or 

 upwards, to send their sons to school, and give them 

 a liberal education." And, by his continued and 

 unremitting efforts'to introduce learning, he succeeded 

 so effectually that, before the end of his illustrious 

 reign, he could boast that all his bishops' sees were 



filled with learued prelates, and every pulpit with a 

 good preacher. 



But this bright gleam did not last long. The 

 successful and destructive.incursions of the Danes, 

 reduced the country to its former state of ignorance. 

 ^Elfric, who was archbishop of Canterbury, from 

 A. D. 995,to A. D. 1000, was one of the most learned 

 and voluminous writers of the age in which he lived. 

 This prelate, conscious of the incapacity of the bulk 

 of the clergy to instruct their flocks in the principles 

 and precepts of religion, translated no fewer than 

 eighty sermons, (188 says Mosheim,) or homilies, out 

 of the Latin into the Saxon language, for their use. 

 He also published a grammar and dictionary, and an 

 Anglo-Saxon translation of the first books of the 

 sacred Scriptures, an ecclesiastical history, &c., and 

 a book of canons and rules for the government of 

 the English church. 



The clergy, by their successive encroachments 

 upon the liberties of the people, and the rights of the 

 sovereign, had attained to such a height of spiritual 

 and temporal domination, as to form an imperium in 

 imperio, particularly after the era of the Norman 

 conquest. Gregory VII., who filled the papal throne, 

 A. D. 1073, was the most audacious, and ambitious, 

 the most able and arrogant pontiff that ever sat in the 

 chair of St Peter. Having wrested the right of supre- 

 macy and investiture from every Christian prince, he 

 imposed the following oath of allegiance, upon every 

 bishop at his inauguration, to the temporal andspiritual 

 authority of himself and successors : viz. " The 

 rights, privileges, and authority of the holy Roman 

 church, and of our lord the pope, and his successors, 

 I will be careful to defend, enlarge, and promote ; 

 all heretics, schismatics, and rebels against our said 

 lord and his successors, I will to the utmost of my 

 power, persecute and impugn." From this time, the 

 bishops became the spies and sentinels of Rome ; and, 

 in order to insulate their affections, to detach them 

 from the state to which they belonged, and to engage 

 them thoroughly in the interest of the holy see, 

 celibacy was strictly enjoined. William the con- 

 queror, to whom a circular letter was sent by 

 Gregory, demanding an annual tribute, boldly resisted 

 this claim ; and asserted his right as an independent 

 sovereign, denying that his kingdom was a fief 

 of the holy see, but agreed to pay the tax of Peter's- 

 pence. This was a tax of a penny on each house, 

 first granted by hum, king of Wessex, in A. D. 725, 

 for the establishment of an English college at Rome ; 

 and afterwards extended by Offa, king of Mercia and 

 East Anglia, in A. D. 794, over all his dominions. In 

 process of time, it became a standing and general tax 

 overall England ; and, though at first it was applied 

 to the support of the English college at Rome, the 

 popes found means to appropriate it to themselves. 

 It was confirmed by the laws of Canute, Edward the 

 Confessor, William of Normandy, &c., and was not 

 totally abolished till the reign of Henry VIII. 



In the reign of Henry II. the power of the clergy had 

 arrived to a stupendous height. The ecclesiastical 

 courts having separated from the civil, had become 

 not only terrible to persons of all ranks, by their 

 interdicts, excommunications, and other censures : 

 but, in consequence of their separate jurisdiction, to 

 which they pretended they were alone responsible, 

 had emancipated themselves from all subjection 

 to civil authority. To put a stop to these evils, 

 and reduce the clergy to the rank of subjects, 

 Henry, in a great council, A. D. 1164, enacted the 

 famous constitutions of Clarendon, sixteen in number: 

 by one of which, all clergymen accused of crime, 

 were to be tried by the civil courts, and, when con- 

 victed, not to be protected from punishment by th 

 church ; but this, and the other canons, as they 



