Rome, as Henry VIII called the pope, had no more power than any other
foreign bishop.[2] There still remained the institution known as
benefit of clergy, by which any priest, or later any clerk or cleric
(which word came to mean any one who could read and write) could
get off of any criminal accusation, at first even murder, by simply
pleading his clergy; in which case the worst that could happen to him
was that he was branded in the right hand. But the Constitutions of
Clarendon were a great step toward civil liberty. Taken by us in 1164,
it was followed in so neighboring a country as France only so late as
a few years ago. The priests, however, still managed to retain their
jurisdiction over offences among themselves, as well as over marriage,
the relation between the sexes, slander, usury, and wills--of matters
relating to the sacraments, and of sins.

[Footnote 1: Stubbs, p. 136.]

[Footnote 2: Yet "Peter's Pence" were initiated by Ini, King of the
West Saxons, about 690!]

Now this is a very interesting matter, and were it borne in mind by
our modern legislators they would escape a good deal of unintelligent
legislation; that is, the distinction between a sin and a crime. A sin
is against the church, or against one's conscience; matter, therefore,
for the priest, or one's spiritual adviser. A crime is an offence
against other men; that is, against the state, in which all are
concerned. Under the intelligent legislation of the twelfth century
all matters which were _sins_, which concerned the conscience, were
left to the church to prevent or punish. For the same reason usury was
matter for the priest--because it was regarded under the doctrines
of the Bible as a sin. This notion prevailed down to the early