Table Of ContentFORDHAM UNIVERSITY
GRADUATE SCHOOL
Januar y 15^ 19 51
This dissertation prepared under my direction by
Mary Byles, RSCJ
entitled ARCHBISHOP ROBERT WTNCHBLSEY
AND THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY UNDER EDWARD I
has been accepted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
Degree of ....Pop.$P.T....PT...philosophy.........................'...........................
.............Jeremiah ...VDSul.livan....
(Faculty Adviser)
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ARCHBISHOP ROBERT WINCHELSEY AND THE
STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY UNDER EDWARD I .
BY
MARY BYLES, R.S.C.J.
M.A., Fordham University, *47
DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR (F PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF
HISTORY AT FORDHAM UNIVERSITY
NEW YORK
1951
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. INTRODUCTION..................................... 1
II. RELIGIOUS FREEDOM BEFORE THE TIME OF
ARCHBISHOP WINCHELSEY.............. 8
Lanfranc and William I
Anselm and Henry I
Becket and Henry II
Langton and John ,
Grosseteste and Henry III
III. EDWARD I AND ROBERT WINCHELSEY BEFORE
THE CRISIS OF 1297 . ....... 48
. Edward I and financial problems
Edward I and Archbishop Pecham
Edward I's political philosophy
Early career of Robert tfinchelsey
IV. THE CRISIS OF 1297................................ 75
First.stage November 1296 to July 1297
Second stage July to September 1297
Third stage September to November 1297
V. ROYAL RETALIATION....... Ill
The Scottish War
Fall of Archbishop Winchelsey
VI. EPILOGUE.................................. 132
BIBLIOGRAPHY....................... 139
ARCHBISHOP ROBERT WINCHELSEY AND THE
STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY UNDER EDWARD I.
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INTRODUCTION
Four constants in the story of England's great churchmen stir the
historian's imagination, especially when he views them in conjunction
with one another. The first is that great churchmen have served great
kings; Lanfranc the Conqueror, Becket Henry II, Winchelsey Edward I.
Anselm and Langton also illustrate this tendency, for their sovereigns,
William Rufus, Henry I and John, although not to be compared with the
giants, excelled in strength or sagacity if not in both. Secondly, Eng
land's great churchmen have served under great popes; Lanfranc under
Hildebrand; Becket under Alexander III who humbled Barbarossa; Winchel
sey under Benedict Gaetani, Boniface VIII; Anselm had his Pope Urban II
and Langton the greatest of the Innocent's. Thirdly, the chief crises in
the history of the Church in medieval England arose under these peers of
the hierarchy. Fourthly, except for St. Anselm, not one of these great
prelates held the papal favor uninterruptedly.
As to the crises, it may well be that vigorous characters ruling
with force and farsightedness produce historical crises by the chain of
reactions which they set in motion. The lack of consistent papal approval
for some of the Church's great servants provides no source of astonishment,
much less of scandal, when the full historical canvas is unrolled, reveal
ing legal complexities, political implications, and the uncertainties caused
by distance and unfamiliarity with language, customs, and national character
istics.
Several such crises in the history of the Church in England will be
briefly examined in the first part of this paper. They serve to throw light
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onto the great year of Archbishop Winchelsey1 s career, the year 1297.
No attempt is made to analyze the general problem of church-state rela
tionships in the middle ages either in theory or in practice. What has
been undertaken is an historical investigation of one illustration of
the medieval concept of liberty, namely, ecclesiastical privilege or im
munity in the Church in England in the late thirteenth century. This
investigation, it is hoped, will reveal certain relationships between
religious freedom or immunity on the one hand, and civil freedom or immu
nity on the other. For instance, it will appear how, in defending the
liberties of their own order, churchmen frequently strengthened the civil
liberties of their countrymen, and how, in violating ecclesiastical lib
erty, kings nearly always violated at the same time "the laws, liberties
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and free customs" of Englishmen."
It is particularly the purpose of the present paper to examine the
defense of ecclesiastical liberties by Archbishop Winchelsey, who ruled
the Church in England from the primatial see of Canterbury at the turn
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of the century from 1295 to 1313. These were crucial years. In time!s
perspective they stand out as transitional years between the medieval
1. This phrase is found in the De tallagio non concedendo as given in
Wia. Stubbs, Select charters and other illustrations of English con
stitutional history. 9th edition, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1929,
p. 494.
2. Winchelsey*s predecessor, Archbishop Pecham, died in December 1292
and he himself was elected in 1293. Owing to a vacancy in the papal
see, his confirmation and consecration were postponed to the fall of
1294. He reached England as Archbishop only on New Year's Day 1295.
His enthronization at Canterbury took place in the royal presence on
the 2 October 1295. The most recent complete account of these events
is that of Dr. Rose Graham, "Archbishop Winchelsey: from his election
to his enthronement," Church quarterly review. CXLVIII (July-Sept.
1949), - 161-175* .See also C, E. Woodruff, "The election of Robert
Winchelsey,;i ibid.. Cffl (Jan. 1936), 210-232.. .
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and modern ages. In constitutional history they embrace the Model Par
liament, the Confirmation of the Charters, the Ordinances of the Lords
Ordainers in the Gaveston crisis, thus bridging the last years of the
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English Justinian and the first stormy years of his unworthy son. In
papal history they span the pontificates of Celestine V, Boniface VIII
and the first eight years of the Avignon Residence. In the history of
the English episcopacy they mark a watershed, whether the first or the
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last year of Winehelsey*s incumbency be taken as the turning point.
The history of these eighteen crowded years, whether in English
constitutional development, in the papaey or in the episcopacy, would
alone exceed the limits of this study. The broad lines as well as many
of the details of such history have been the object of works that will
be quoted frequently in the following pages. I© unfamiliar facts con
cerning the struggle for religious liberty and its bearing on civil lib
erty under Edward I will be revealed, but a new focus will be indicated
in emphasizing the position of Archbishop Winchelsey in the struggle.
The story of the crisis of 1297 might be told in such a way as to spot
light the wool merchants, the English earls, the twenty-pound knights,
1. Kathleen Edwards, "The political importance of the English bishops
during the reign of Edward II11, English historical review, LIX
(1944), 311-347* "Winchelsey*s pontificate thus seems to form a
link between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in episcopal
history. Certainly, for the episcopate the main dividing line in
the political history of Edward IIfs reign comes in the spring of
1313 when Winchelsey1 s death removed from the political stage the
only really dominating personality among the bishops,11 324*
2. David Knowles, "Some aspects of the career of Archbishop Pecham,"
English historical review, LVII (1942), 1-18, 178-201: "The death
of Pecham ended an epoch in English church history...Pecham*s
successor, Winchelsey, though in some ways even more independent
of the secular power than his two predecessors, had his centre of
gravity, so to speak, fixed in England," 199-200.
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