The English Church in the Middle Ages (Paperback)

Excerpt: ... indignation among the clergy than the earlier tax, because they saw that it was the beginning of a system, not an isolated expedient. The chancellor was held to have done the Church a grievous injury, and even his friends traced his later troubles to his sin against her. Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, 1162-1170. When, in 1162, Henry bade his chancellor accept the primacy, he hoped to find him a powerful ally in carrying out the reforms he contemplated. Thomas assented unwillingly, for he was resolved, if he took the office, to maintain the claims of the Church to the utmost, and he knew that this would bring him into collision with the king. Although his life had been pure, it had not been Pg 114 clerical, and he had not even taken priest's orders when he was elected archbishop. He now entered on a new life. Everything that was then held becoming in a churchman and an archbishop he practised to the utmost. With the whole-heartedness with which he had thrown himself into his work as chancellor, he now, in a post that must have been less congenial to his nature, set himself to live up to the highest ideal then current of what an archbishop ought to be as regards both life and policy. He had enemies, for some were jealous of him, and some were honestly scandalized at his appointment. Ever regardless of the fear or favour of men, he added to their number by prosecuting the rights of his see to lands that had been alienated from it. In acting thus, his conduct, though perhaps injudicious, certainly became his office. His position as the head of the nation first brought him into opposition to the Crown. Henry wished that a certain tax, probably a survival of the Danegeld, which was paid to the sheriffs, should be brought into the royal revenue. The archbishop objected, no doubt because he thought that this would revive the old tax. "Saving your pleasure, lord king, we will not give it as revenue; but if the sheriffs and officers of the...