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The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 06 - (From Barbarossa to Dante) by Unknown
page 42 of 539 (07%)
to demand of his vassal. This "custom" had been introduced by the
Conqueror, and, though the clergy constantly reclaimed, had often been
enforced by his successors.

IV. The next was also a custom deriving its origin from the Conquest,
that no archbishop, bishop, or dignified clergyman should lawfully go
beyond the sea without the king's permission. Its object was to
prevent complaints at the papal court, to the prejudice of the
sovereign.

V. It was enacted that appeals should proceed regularly from the
archdeacon to the bishop, and from the bishop to the archbishop. If
the archbishop failed to do justice, the cause ought to be carried
before the king, that by his precept the suit might be terminated in
the archbishop's court, so as not to proceed further without the
king's consent. Henry I had endeavored to prevent appeals from being
carried before the Pope, and it was supposed that the same was the
object of the present constitution. The King, however, thought proper
to deny it. According to the explanation which he gave, it prohibited
clergymen from appealing to the pope in _civil_ causes only, when they
might obtain justice in the royal courts. The remaining articles are
of minor importance. They confine pleas of debt and disputes
respecting advowsons to the cognizance of the king's justices; declare
that clergymen who hold lands of the crown hold by barony, and are
bound to the same services as the lay barons; and forbid the bishops
to admit to orders the sons of villeins, without the license of their
respective lords.

As the Primate retired he meditated in silence on his conduct in the
council. His scruples revived, and the spontaneous censures of his
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