The Plantagenets: The Kings That Made Britain Read Free

claimed the right to have members of the clergy who were guilty of crimes handed over to royal justice. Becket insisted that men in holy orders were not subject to secular law but should bedisciplined by their ecclesiastical superiors. During the chaos of Stephen’s reign church leaders had increased their rights and privileges, and Becket was determined to make sure that they were not forced now to surrender the power they had gained.
    Henry was equally determined to regain the crown’s position as sole arbiter of justice within the realm. He was not the sort of man to tolerate defiance, and he knew well that any sign of weakness on his part would be an encouragement to any unruly or discontented vassals (such as the Welsh and Scottish rulers). He summoned the bishops to another meeting at Clarendon in January 1164 and set before them a document, the Constitutions of Clarendon, setting out the traditional relationship between crown and mitre and making it clear that the king’s justice applied to all the king’s subjects. The sixteen points were:
    1 If a controversy arises between laymen or between laymen and clerks or between clerks concerning … presentation of churches it shall be treated … in the court of the lord king.
    2 Churches of the lord king’s fee cannot be permanently bestowed without his consent.
    3 Clerks charged and accused of any matter summoned by the king’s justice shall come into his court to answer there to whatever … should be answered there and in the church court to … what should be answered there. However, the king’s justice shall send into the court of holy church [to] see how the matter shall betreated there. And if the clerk be convicted or confess the church ought not to protect him further.
    4 It is not permitted for archbishops, bishops or priests of the kingdom to leave the kingdom without the lord king’s permission …
    5 Excommunicate persons ought not to give security for an indefinite time … but only give security and pledge for submitting to the judgement of the church in order that they may be absolved.
    6 Laymen ought not to be accused save by dependable and lawful accusers and witnesses in the presence of the bishop … And if there should be those who are deemed culpable but whom no one wishes or dares to accuse, the sheriff upon the bishop’s request shall cause 12 lawful men of the neighbourhood … that they will show the truth of the matter according to their conscience.
    7 No one who holds of the king in chief or any of the officials of his demesne is to be excommunicated or his lands placed under interdict unless the lord king … first gives his consent …
    8 As to appeals which may arise, they should pass from the archdeacon to the bishop, and from the bishop to the archbishop. And if the archbishop fail in furnishing justice the matter should come to the lord king at last, that at his command the litigation be concluded in the archbishop’s court … and not pass further [i.e., to Rome] without the lord king’s consent.
    9 If litigation arise … concerning any holding which aclerk would bring to charitable tenure [e.g., a hospital] but a layman would bring to lay fee, it shall be determined on the decision of the king’s chief justice by the recognition of 12 lawful men …
    10 If anyone who is of a city, castle, borough or demesne manor of the king shall be cited by archdeacon or bishop for any offence for which he ought to be held answerable to them and despite their summonses he refuse to do what is right, it is fully permissible to place him under interdict but he ought not to be excommunicated before the king’s chief official of that vill shall agree …
    11 Archbishops, bishops and ecclesiastics of the kingdom who hold of the king in chief have their possessions of the lord king … and answer for them to the king’s justices and ministers and follow and do mall royal rights and customs, and they ought, just like other barons, to be present