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Councils of Clovesho
Clovesho, or Clofeshoch, is notable
as the place at which were held several councils of the
Anglo-Saxon Church. The locality itself has never been
successfully identified. It is supposed to have been in Mercia,
and probably near London (Bede, ed. Plummer, II, 214). Lingard, in
his appendix to the "Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church",
takes it to be Abingdon, and Kemble (Saxons in England, II, 191)
to be Tewkesbury, and others have thought it might be
Cliff-at-Hoo, in Kent, but Haddan and Stubbs (Councils, III, 121,
n.) consider all these conjectures to be based upon unreliable
evidence. Whatever uncertainty exists in determining the place
which was known as Clovesho, there is no doubt as to the fact of
the councils or to the authenticity of their Acts. When Archbishop
Theodore held the Council of Hertford in 673, in which he declared
to the assembled bishops that he had been "appointed by the
Apostolic See to be Bishop of the Church of Canterbury", a
canon was passed to the effect that in future yearly synods should
be held every August "in the place which is called
Clofeshoch". (Bede, H. E., IV, ch. v.) Notwithstanding this
provision, ìt was not until seventy years later that the
first Council of Clovesho of which we have an authentic record was
assembled. It is true that in the Canterbury Cartulary there is a
charter which says that the Privilege of King Wihtred to the
churches was "confirmed and ratified in a synod held in the
month of July in a place called Clovesho" in the year 716;
but the authenticity of this document, though intrinsically
probable, is held by Haddan and Stubbs to be dependent upon that
of the Privilege of Wihtred. The councils of Clovesho of which we
have authentic evidence are those of the years 742, 747, 794, 798,
803, 824, and 825.
(1) The Council of Clovesho in
742 was presided Over by Ethelbald, King of Mercia, and Cuthbert,
Archbishop of Canterbury. According to the record of its
proceedings (given in Kemble's "Codex Diplomaticus Ævi
Saxonici", 87), the council "diligently enquired into
the needs of religion, the Creed as delivered by the ancient
teaching of the Fathers, and carefully examined how things were
ordered at the first beginning of the Church here in England, and
where the honour of the monasteries according to the rules of
justice was maintained". The privilege of King Wihtred
assuring the liberty of the Church was solemnly confirmed. Beyond
this, no mention is made of particular provisions.
(2) The Second Council of
Clovesho, in 747, was one of the most important in the history of
the Anglo-Saxon Church. Its acts were happily copied by Spelman
(Councils, I, 240) from an ancient Cottonian Manuscript now lost.
They are printed in Wilkins, I, 94; in Mansi, XII, 395; and in
Haddan and Stubbs, III, 360. They state that the council was
composed of "bishops and dignitaries of less degree from the
various provinces of Britain", and that it was presided over
by Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury. According to the
Manuscript preserved by William of Malmesbury, "King
Ethelbald and his princes and chiefs were present". It was
thus substantially representative of the Anglo-Saxon Church. The
Acts relate that "first of all, the Metropolitan, as
president, brought forth in their midst two letters of the
Apostolic Lord, Pope Zachary, venerated throughout the whole
world, and with great care these were plainly read, and also
openly translated into our own language, according as he himself
by his Apostolic authority had commanded". The papal letters
are described as containing a fervent admonition to amendment of
life, addressed to the English people of every rank and
condition, and requiring that those who contemned these warnings
and remained obstinate in their malice should be punished by
sentence of excommunication. The council then drew up thirty-one
canons dealing mostly with matters of ecclesiastical discipline
and liturgy.
The thirteenth and fifteenth canons
are noteworthy as showing the close union of the Anglo-Saxon
Church with the Holy See. The thirteenth canon is: "That all
the most sacred Festivals of Our Lord made Man, in all things
pertaining to the same, viz.: in the Office of Baptism, the
celebration of Masses, in the method of chanting, shall be
celebrated in one and the same way, namely, according to the
sample which we have received in writing from the Roman Church.
And also, throughout the course of the whole year, the festivals
of the Saints are to be kept on one and the same day, with their
proper psalmody and chant, according to the Martyrology of the
same Roman Church." The fifteenth canon adds that in the
seven hours of the daily and nightly Office the clergy "must
not dare to sing or read anything not sanctioned by the general
use, but only that which comes down by authority of Holy
Scripture, and which the usage of the Roman Church allows".
The sixteenth canon in like manner requires that the litanies and
rogations are to be observed by the clergy and people with great
reverence "according to the rite of the Roman Church".
The feasts of St. Gregory and of St. Augustine, "who was sent
to the English people by our said Pope and father St. Gregory",
were to be solemnly celebrated. The clergy and monks were to live
so as to be always prepared to receive worthily the most holy Body
and Blood of the Lord, and the laity were to be exhorted to the
practice of frequent Communion (Canons xxii, xxiii). Persons who
did not know Latin were to join in the psalmody by intention, and
were to be taught to say, in the Saxon tongue, prayers for the
living or for the repose of the souls of the dead (Can. xxvii).
Neither clergy nor monks were in future to be allowed to live in
the houses of the people (Can. xxix), nor were they to adopt or
imitate the dress which is worn by the laity (Can. xxviii).
(3) The record of the Council of
Clovesho in 794 consists merely in a charter by which Offa, King
of Mercia, made a grant of land for pious purposes. The charter
states that it has been drawn up "in the general synodal
Council in the most celebrated place called Clofeshoas". At
or about the time when the papal legates presided at the Council
of Chelsea in 787, Offa had obtained from Pope Adrian I that
Lichfield should be created an archbishopric and that the Mercian
sees should be subjected to its jurisdiction and withdrawn from
that of Canterbury. Consequently at this Council of Clovesho in
794, Higbert of Lichfield, to whom the pope had sent the pall,
signs as an archbishop.
(4) A council was held at
Clovesho in 798 by Archbishop Ethelheard with Kenulph, King of
Mercia, at which the bishops and abbots and chief men of the
province were present. Its proceedings are related in a document
by Archbishop Ethelheard (Lambeth Manuscript 1212, p. 312; Haddan
and Stubbs, III, 512). He states that his first care was to
examine diligently "in what way the Catholic Faith was held
and how the Christian religion was practised amongst them".
To this inquiry, "they all replied with one voice: 'Be it
known to your Paternity, that even as it was formerly delivered
to us by the Holy Roman and Apostolic See, by the mission of the
most Blessed Pope Gregory, so do we believe, and what we believe,
we in all sincerity do our best to put into practice.'" The
rest of the time of the council was devoted to questions of
church property, and an agreement of exchange of certain lands
between the archbishop and the Abbess Cynedritha.
(5) The Council of Clovesho in
803 is one of the most remarkable of the series, as its Acts
contain the declaration of the restitution of the Mercian sees to
the province of Canterbury by the authority of Pope Leo III. In
798 King Kenulph of Mercia addressed to the pope a long letter,
written as he says "with great affection and humility",
representing the disadvantages of the new archbishopric which had
been erected at Lichfield some sixteen years previously by Pope
Adrian, at the prayer of King Offa. King Kenulph in this letter
(Haddan and Stubbs, III, 521) submits the whole case to the pope,
asking his blessing and saying: "I love you as one who is my
father, and I embrace you with the whole strength of my
obedience", and promising to abide in all things by his
decision. "I judge it fitting to bend humbly the ear of our
obedience to your holy commands, and to fulfil with all our
strength whatever may seem to your Holiness that we ought to do."
Ethelheard, Archbishop of Canterbury, went himself to Rome, and
pleaded for the restitution of the sees. In 802 Pope Leo III
granted the petition of the king and the archbishop, and issued
to the latter a Bull in which by the authority of Blessed Peter
he restored to him the full jurisdiction enjoyed by his
predecessors. The pope communicated this judgment in a letter to
King Kenulph (Haddan and Stubbs, III, 538). This decision was
duly proclaimed in the Council of Clovesho held in the following
year. Archbishop Ethelheard declared to the synod that "by
the co-operation of God and of the Apostolic Lord, the Pope Leo",
he and his fellow-bishops unanimously ratified the rights of the
See of Canterbury, and that an archbishopric should never more be
founded at Lichfield, and that the grant of the pallium made by
Pope Adrian, should, "with the consent and permission of the
Apostolic Lord Pope Adrian, be considered as null, having been
obtained surreptitiously and by evil suggestion". Higbert,
the Archbishop of Lichfield, submitted to the papal judgment, and
retired into a monastery, and the Mercian sees returned to the
jurisdiction of Canterbury.
(6-7) In 824 and again in 825
synods were held at Clovesho, "Beornwulf, King of Mercia,
presiding and the Venerable Archbishop Wulfred ruling and
controlling the Synod", according to the record of the
first, and "Wulfred the Archbishop presiding, and also
Beornwulf, King of Mercia", according to the second. The
first assembly was occupied in deciding a suit concerning an
inheritance, and the second in terminating a dispute between the
archbishop and the Abbess Cwenthrytha (Haddan and Stubbs, III,
593, 596).
It is evident from the records that
the councils held at Clovesho and those generally of the
Anglo-Saxon period were mixed assemblies at which not only the
bishops and abbots, but the kings of Mercia and the chief men of
the kingdom were present. They had thus the character not only of
a church synod but of the Witenagemot or assembly fairly
representative of the Church and realm. The affairs of the Church
were decided by the bishops presided over by the archbishop, while
the king, presiding over his chiefs, gave to their decisions the
co-operation and acceptance of the State. Both parties signed the
decrees, but there is no evidence of any ingerence of the lay
power in the spiritual legislation or judgments of the Church.
While it must be remembered that at this period the country was
not yet united into one kingdom, the councils of Clovesho, as far
as we may judge from their signatures, represented the primatial
See of Canterbury and the whole English Church south of the
Humber.
KEMBLE, Codex
Diplomaticus Ævi Saxonici (London, 1839-48); THORPE ed.,
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (London, 1861); BEDE, Historia
Eccl. Gentis Anglorum, ed. PLUMMER (Oxford, 1896); WILKINS,
Concilia Magnœ Britanniœ (London, 1737); HADDAN
AND STUBBS, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents (Oxford,
1869-78); SPELMAN, Concilia, decreta, etc., in re ecclesiarum
orbis Britannici (London, 1639-64).
J.
MOYES
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