The Foundatios of the Anglican Church XXV

Henry VII Tudor

Well, our story of the Church of England is coming to its crunch—the break with Rome.  We have seen that there has been an uniquely English Church since at least the second century with the early Christian communities in York, Chester, London, and other Roman towns.  These local churches were in communion with the Church at Rome but, given the geographic distance, were quite independent of it.   While they maintained the same beliefs as Christian communities throughout the Empire, they selected their own bishops, developed their own liturgy, and maintained their own practices. At this point of history, the Church at Rome and its bishop served as a focus of unity and orthodoxy among Christians around the known world but did not in any way supervise the vast network of Christian communities stretching from India in the east to Britain in the west.  This English Church only marginally survived the Anglo-Saxon invasions and did so with an infusion of leadership and vitality from the Irish Church which also has an ancient and very distinct (from the Continental Churches, most especially from the Roman Church) history.  This is not to say that the English or Irish Churches were not in communion with Continental Churches but it is to remember that they had their own peculiar customs and rites as well as a hierarchy that was not influenced (much less appointed) by Rome.
We also saw that with Augustine’s mission, sent by Gregory the Great, a second strain of Christianity, one that was influenced by Rome, was introduced into Britain and that it took a while for the these two strains to join together and that in their joining together the English Church retained its ancient rites of Sarum, York, Hereford, and Lincoln as well as a variety of distinctly English customs and usages.  And while the devotion of the Anglo Saxon kings and faithful to Saint Peter strengthened the bonds of England with the papacy, the policy of later kings such as Henry II, John, Edward I, Edward III and Richard II, was to enact legislation limiting papal power in England.  Note, “limiting” not “eliminating.”   The royal policy was to protect the rights of the King in England against intrusions whereby appeals were made over the King to Papal authority both in secular and ecclesial matters.  The Kings saw themselves as governors of the Church as well as of the State, but remember in the Middle Ages, Church and State were inextricably joined in the reality of the nationhood. 
One of the crucial areas where papal and royal authority came into conflict was over the naming of bishops.  While bishops were “elected” by their Cathedral Chapters, both the Crown and the Papacy demanded a voice in the election.  Nominations to a See were usually carefully negotiated so that both King and Pope were satisfied.  However, with the 1393 Statute of Praemunire (there was a 1353 Statute of the same name and a 1306 Statute of Provisors that provided a foundation for these later acts) it was explicitly claimed to be the right of the King alone to “present” candidates for ecclesiastical preferment.  Moreover, the same act declared that "… if any purchase or pursue, or cause to be purchased or pursued in the court of Rome, or elsewhere, any such translations, processes, and sentences of excommunications, bulls, instruments or any other things whatsoever ... he and his notaries, abettors and counsellors" shall be put out of the king's protection, and their lands escheat.” It was forbidden by these various statutes as well for any Englishman to pay any tax or fees to powers outside the realm.   While such was the law, Rome expected its due and in fact the Crown looked the other way while English churchmen applied for their appointments to be confirmed by Rome and while they, the English churchmen, paid the appropriate (or at times, inappropriate) fees to the Roman Curia.   So what we in fact have is a dual allegiance of the Church to both Crown and Papacy and, while the law claimed, or attempted to claim, one thing, in fact the relations of the English Church and Rome were quite cordial and correct.
There was political trouble in England, however.  In 1399 Henry Bolingbroke seized and deposed his cousin, Richard II and claimed the throne for himself.  Richard was a weak and vacillating man at a time when England needed a strong king and Bolingbroke was strong; nevertheless, Bolingbroke—now Henry IV—did not have as strong a claim to the throne as did Edward Mortimer and England entered a period of political instability and civil war.  Henry IV’s grandson, Henry VI, himself was overthrown by Edward Duke of York, a descendent of Edward III.  This was the period known as the Wars of the Roses—the conflicts between the House of York (the white rose) and the House of Lancaster (the red rose).  The Wars of the Roses came to an end when in 1485 Henry Tudor (a Lancastrian) defeated Richard III (of York) who himself had seized the throne by murdering his nephew, Edward V, a boy of twelve. 
To cement the peace, Henry (a Lancastrian) married Elizabeth of York, the daughter of Edward IV.  (A curious side note:  The portrait of Elizabeth of York is the model for the four queens of playing cards: Spades, Clubs, Diamonds, and Hearts.)   

The point of all this is that England, after 1485, was in a newly found and yet unstable peace.  HenryVII Tudor was on the throne but there were other claimants whose rights, by strict rules of primogeniture, were stronger.  Civil War was always a possibility.  England was still a feudal state with a strong nobility and should leading men of that nobility desert King Henry for another claimant such as Edward Plantagenet, the Earl of Warwick or the brothers Edmund and John de la Pole, Dukes of Suffolk, Henry could have been in deep trouble.  In fact, well into the reign of Henry’s son, Henry VIII, the House of Tudor had to worry about maintaining their hold on the Crown.  Political stability was the chief policy of all the Tudors.  And it was the need for political stability in England that would eat away at the bonds of union between the Church of England and the Catholic Communion.  

Foundations of The Anglican Church XIX

Cardinal Burke's robes don't come cheap and

somebody has to pay for them.

In 1306 Parliament, under King Edward I, enacted the Statute of Provisors which prohibited monies belonging to the Church being sent out of realm as any form of tribute or fee due to a foreign prelate.  This was primarily intended to stop monies being paid to the papacy in return for papal appointment to office in England or for appeals made to Rome for judgments in ecclesiastical cases.  A second Stature of Provisors was enacted in 1350. 
The problem was this.  Traditionally offices were filled either by election—normally bishops and abbots were elected by their cathedral or monastic chapters—or by appointment by the individual with the right of patronage.  Rectors (pastors) were appointed to parish churches, not by the bishop, but by the individual having the right of appointment which was called the advowson.  If, by way of fictitious example, the Earl of Grantham built a church for the peoples on his land, he had the right of advowson and “presented” the candidate for Rector to the bishop for approval.  The bishop had very limited rights of refusal and almost always had to accept the presentation.  Lord Grantham could give that advowson to another—perhaps it could be part of Lady Mary’s dowry.  Or he could give to the nuns or monks of a nearby abbey.  Most parish churches were filled by such rights of presentation and, as the candidate presented then began collecting the rector’s income—which could be quite handsome—it was a valuable gift to be named rector of a Church.  The advowson itself was valuable too as the person with the right of presentation also collected a share of the Church income. 
There were other ecclesiastical offices that were also “in the gift” of various prelates, nobles, or the Crown.  The head of a hospital or a college, a canonry, a chaplaincy, a chantry in a cathedral, and other positions—all with an endowed income—might be filled by the person, secular or religious, having the right of presentation.  (A chantry was a chapel to which a priest was appointed to offer masses and other prayers at various times in return for a salary.)    
One of the reasons that the Statutes of Provisors were enacted is that popes had begun appointing people to these positions while the incumbents were still alive.  In other words, the pope might appoint a Rector to Lord Grantham’s parish church to succeed the current rector upon his death or advancement to another post.  This papal appointment would thus deprive Lord Grantham of his right to appoint whomever he would choose.  So the Pope appoints the Reverend Dominus John Smith to be the Rector of Downton village Church upon the death of the Reverend Dominus Michael Jones.  (In the Middle Ages secular priests were not called “Father” but usually “Dominus” which is the Latin for “Lord.” This survives in the Italian and Spanish “Don.”)  In return for the appointment, R.D. John Smith sends the Pope ₤50 sterling.  Lord Grantham is completely shut out of his right to appoint the rector (and receive whatever gratuity the new rector might see fit to make.)   The papacy was raking in money from the usurped appointments. 
A variation on this was the matter of Rome naming bishops to English Sees in violation of the right of the respective chapters to elect.  Of course, elections were rarely free for if the Pope was not telling the chapter whom to elect, the King most likely was.  And then, whoever was elected, had to appeal to Rome for the bulls authorizing his consecration and installation to the see.  All this meant considerable money going to Rome.  By the time of the Reformation the amount being paid to Rome for the confirmation of a bishop in his see was called an Annate—from the Latin, Annus, a year.  This is because the fee was generally the bishops’ first year’s income from his diocese—something measured in thousands of pounds, or in today’s money, millions of dollars.     
Another problem the statute addressed was that Lady Mary Crawley wished to marry her cousin, Matthew Crawley, Esq., but being cousins, such marriage was prohibited under canon law.  No problem.  Papal letters of dispensation can be obtained.   ₤20 sterling will nicely cover the costs of notaries and scribes.  (The ₤ sterling was worth far more in purchasing power in the Middle Ages than today. ₤ 20 would be worth several thousand today.)  
The Statutes of Provisors were meant to stop cash from leaving England for Rome but they were also attempts to limit ever increasing papal power and keep the authority of the English Church in English hands.  
Finally in 1353 Parliament enacted the Statute of Praemunire declaring that “ the right of recovering the presentments to churches, prebends, and other benefices . . . belongs only to the king’s court of the old right of his crown, used and approved in the time of all his progenitors kings of England."  It then went on to declare that “if any purchase or pursue, or cause to be purchased or pursued in the court of Rome, or elsewhere, any such translations, processes, and sentences of excommunications, bulls, instruments or any other things whatsoever ... he and his notaries, abettors and counsellors shall be put out of the king's protection, and their lands escheat.”   “Translations” here refers to moving a person from one ecclesiastical office to another—as in Justin Welby was “translated” from the Bishopric of Durham to the Archbishopric of Canterbury.   This provision prohibited an English prelate from purchasing a position from the papacy.  Escheat means forfeit so that if Justin Welby had paid Pope Francis to advance him from Bishop of Durham to Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Welby’s lands would be forfeit to the Crown.  Of course these days Pope Francis doesn’t get any say in who is Archbishop of Canterbury, but we will get to that part of the story down the line. 
I hope this isn’t too confusing.  We don’t have advowsons in America, though they still exist occasionally in the Church of England.   We do have something similar to it, however, as a Religious Order that has charge of a parish still presents a candidate to the bishop who then names the candidate the pastor.  Like the advowson, the bishop must have grave reasons to decline the nomination.  However today newly named prelates—Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, and monsignors typically make appropriate (or inappropriate) gratuities to the Holy See upon their appointments.    Bishops are still translated from one see to another.  Timothy Dolan was translated from Milwaukee to New York.  And such “translations” are generally steps “up the ladder.”  Handsome gifts are still presented to the Holy See or to individual prelates who work there by individuals seeking various favors. (Cardinal Burke’s scarlet silk and fur trimmed cappa magna probably cost in the neighborhood of ten thousand dollars.) 
The Statutes of Provisors and of Praemunire will come back with great importance when Henry VIII will use them to force the Bishops of England to break with the Holy See.