The Conquering Family (43 page)

English Stephen Langton was a magnificent choice for the primacy. The canons had come to Rome with strict instructions from John to secure the selection of Grey, but there can be no doubt that they were seduced by the bearing and the depth of learning shown by Innocent’s candidate; and this made it easier for them to yield to papal pressure. They confided to the Pontiff the nature of their instructions, and he at once absolved them from a promise so improperly extracted. The canons then proceeded to elect Stephen Langton. All voted for him except one Elias de Braintefield, who cast his ballot for the King’s choice and then
left the chamber. He returned, however, and listened at the door while the
Te Deum
was sung over the new archbishop.

John was not at all mollified by the letter he received from the Pope, informing him of what had happened. Innocent had tried to placate him by a gift of four immensely valuable rings and had indited a homily in his own handwriting on the form of them and the significance of the precious stones with which they were set. The King kept the rings but indulged himself in retaliatory action at once. He dispatched two of his most violent officers to Canterbury to expel the monks and take over the revenues of the see. Fulk de Cantelupe and Henry de Cornhulle entered the abbey with drawn swords and carried out his orders with a thoroughness which fell just short, fortunately, of the violence offered Thomas à Becket. John announced to the world that the action of the Pope had been in contravention of his established rights (which, of course, it was) and that he would never allow Stephen Langton to set foot on
land of mine
, by which he meant England.

The Pope was not to be intimidated. He sent the bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester to inform John that an interdict would be laid on England if he did not give in. All the bishops of the realm were present when this message was delivered. They were frightened, knowing the inflexible will of the young Pontiff, and they fell on their knees before John and begged him to save his people from this dread punishment. John was so enraged that he foamed at the mouth, as his father had done so often when crossed, and swore that if the Pope carried out his threat he would expel from the kingdom every bishop, every abbot, every prior, every priest, and every monk, from the wearer of the proudest miter to the most humble of shaven-polls. He swore that all servants of the Vatican who appeared in England on the Pope’s orders would have their eyes burned out and their noses slit.

John was in a poor position, however, to oppose the will and the power of the Vicar of Christ. His relations with the barons had been growing more strained all the time. If he had assembled them at once and explained the unwarranted authority the Pope had taken into his hands, he might have united them behind him for the struggle. He was unwilling at this stage to face the barons in a body, fearing, no doubt, that they would take advantage of the chance to deprive
him
of some of the unwarranted authority he had been seizing. He decided to oppose Innocent alone and thereby compromised his case and condemned himself to inevitable defeat.

Other popes had talked of interdicts when kings were recalcitrant but had contented themselves with threats. Innocent was different. When he made a threat, he carried it out.

John had been given until Monday of Passion week to change his mind. Convinced that nothing would happen, the King spent the day as usual,
joking with his attendants, telling them that soon there would be a worse devil at large than he had ever been. There would be a postponement, he was sure, leading to more negotiations and more threats. But he had wrongly judged the temper of the young Pope.

That night the three bishops to whom the papal instructions had been given followed out their orders. Wearing the violet robes of mourning usually reserved for Good Friday, they entered their episcopal churches, escorted by priests carrying torches and chanting the
Miserere
. The bells were tolling a funeral knell and the people stood about in silent masses outside and watched, more than half expecting to see the heavens open and avenging angels swoop down to carry God’s punishment over England.

The proper procedure for the occasion was followed inside the churches. The shrines and crucifixes were covered, the relics were removed to places of safekeeping, the Wafer of the Host was burned. In loud voices it was proclaimed that the dominions ruled by John had been laid under the ban of the Church. Instantly all torches were extinguished to denote the withdrawal of light from the land.

England had been laid under the dreaded interdict.

None of the common people knew what was happening until the first outward signs of the interdict appeared. Hearing no church bells, they hurried to see what was amiss and found the priests removing the bells from the steeples and packing them away in straw. This was going on all over England. In every town and hamlet in the land, therefore, the same questions were asked by people with bewildered faces: What was this? Was God leaving them to the mercy of the powers of evil? Or were the bells to be melted down to pay the bad King’s taxes?

The panic spread when the work of dismantling was carried on inside as well. All the sacred vessels were taken down and packed away, the monstrance was removed from the altar, the candles which had been set alight by reverent hands were snuffed out. The doors were closed and locked in the faces of the frightened watchers.

When the meaning of this became clear to them, the people of England were unhappier than they had ever been before. Had God and the Holy Mother and all the good saints given up the struggle in their behalf against the devil? Would all time and life now belong to the powers of evil? Men who conceived of themselves as walking constantly in the Shadow believed that a moment’s relaxation on the part of their guardian angels would deliver them into the hands of the imps of hell with their
pitchforks and red-hot pincers. And now they were alone and had no protectors, divine or otherwise.

Then it became known throughout the bewildered country that five of the bishops had already fled from England, that priests were following them in droves, that those who remained behind would celebrate mass in locked and darkened churches for themselves alone. There would be no marrying, no burying in consecrated ground as long as the Pope’s interdict held. To make matters worse, it was said that the wicked King, who had brought this curse on the land, was swearing he would banish every priest and hang those who remained. This bad King, cried the people in anguish, must indeed be in league with the devil that such things could come to pass!

Quite apart from this feeling of abandonment, the people knew they would miss the ministrations of the Church. In lives as bare as theirs, the tolling of bells at stated hours was a great pleasure, as was the ritual of matin and compline. They were accustomed to hear the knelling when someone they knew was dying, the slow and measured strokes teaching them the solemnity of death. Some of the sting of separation was taken from death by the customs which wrapped it about. They liked the services and they found a sense of God’s nearness therein, even in the dread moment when the hearse was taken down from the ceiling of the church where it was suspended, a triangular frame of wood or latten. It would be placed in front of the altar and fifteen lighted candles would be deposited on it, fourteen of yellow wax to represent the eleven apostles and the three Mary’s, and one of white which stood for the Christ. Then the fourteen psalms of
Tenebrae
would be sung, and at the end of each, one of the yellow candles would be extinguished. And then finally only the white taper of Christ would remain, and this would be carried behind the altar so that darkness descended on the church.

There had never been any fear for the souls of departed relatives and friends when the tolling of bells accompanied the carrying out of the coffin, nine strokes for a man, six for a woman, three for a child; nay, there had been solace and comfort and a complete sense of security. There had even been pleasure in the good cheer of the
arvil
, the funeral feast, and a chance for some amusement out of the sin-eaters, those Old Sires who sat outside the house on low stools called crickets and were ready, on payment of a groat, a crust of bread, and a mazer of ale, to rise up and declare that they would pawn their souls for the ease and rest of the departed.

Death would now become a grim and frightening thing. Would the bodies of those who were unfortunate enough to die be buried or would they be left in ditches to rot away? Certainly bodies would be held for more than the usual three days allowed in the hope that they might come back to life, for would not that be the only hope?

It was feared, too, that the joy would go out of weddings, if indeed they would be possible at all. The mating rites had always been jolly affairs in merrie England: the gay procession to the church, the minstrels leading with their capering and playing, the youths next to carry the bride-cup with its gilt rosemary and ribbons, the bride and her two bachelor attendants preceding the groom and his two maidens who held the dow-purse, in which would be the dowry. Would couples in search of happiness be allowed to kneel before priests at the church door and say the responses while the groom endowed his bride by throwing money into a handkerchief held open by the maids in attendance? Certainly there would be no right now to go into the church and kneel together under the care-cloth (a great privilege which only professed virgins were permitted to enjoy) while the blessing was pronounced.

Perhaps feasting at weddings would still be allowed, but would the best man throw a plate from a window when the couple appeared (if the plate broke, the marriage would be a success), and would later the oatmeal cake be smacked down on the bride’s head? Would the John Anderson dance be performed with as much zestful passing of the cushion and as much happy chanting of

Later it was found that things would not be so bad as feared. The papal bull had carried with it some modifications. Children could be christened, weddings could be performed at the church door, sermons could be preached in churchyards, priests would be permitted to recite the offices for the dead in private homes. The hardest problem facing the nation was that of burial, for no bodies could be laid in consecrated ground. The result was that they were placed in fields. Later, when the ban was lifted, the bodies were transferred to the churchyards. It is recorded that in one small community as many as twenty had to be exhumed. In London it became necessary to make use of empty lots and of the yards of hospitals. There was a large area around St. Bartholomew’s which the authorities enclosed and devoted to the burying of the dead. The hospitals did not object; they charged fees both ways.

Most reports of what happened in connection with burials were exaggerated. It was said that bodies lay in ditches and were gnawed by dogs and rats and that pestilence was spread by the stench of them. The problem was handled, as a matter of fact, with common sense and expedition.

The harm that the interdict did was borne equally by people and Church. Cut off from the consolations and the rites of religion, many men found that they suffered no harm. They began to wonder. Was religion as important as they had believed? Heretical ideas, which had not been
spreading in England, received impetus from the conditions which Innocent imposed on the country. There was also the matter of tithes and payments for this and that, the mortuary claims of the Church and deodand. Freed from much of this during the years that the interdict lasted, men would find it hard to accept again their share in the upkeep of the Church.

The struggle between Pope and King continued much longer than Innocent had expected when he ordered the three bishops to put the land under ban by bell, book, and candle. As the years passed the rift became deeper and the feeling more bitter. Church properties fell into disrepair, the rents were expropriated to the Crown, the ranks of the clergy shrank. It must have become apparent soon to the Pope that, in casting the thunderbolt, he had indulged in a costly gamble. But the step had been taken and there was no turning back.

John fought with fang and claw. He tried to regain the loyalty of the people by conducting campaigns in Scotland and Wales. He went on processionals from city to city, taking in his train a bevy of beautiful hostages who had been put in his hands. They included the princesses Margaret and Isabella of Scotland; the Pearl of Brittany, Arthur’s lovely sister, who was to remain a captive in England all her life; and Ada, the fair young countess of Holland. He seems to have respected these hostages of high degree; in fact, he went to great pains to find husbands for some of them. He saw that they were clothed expensively, and there is one item among royal expenditures for the purchase of one hundred pounds of figs for their pleasure and health.

In the meantime John was carrying the war to the enemy. Stephen Langton’s father, a humble North Country man, had to flee the country into Scotland. The primate himself had taken up residence at Pontigny, where Thomas à Becket had spent most of his exile, and was addressing letters to the people of England. John had the ports watched to stop all such communications from getting into the country, and it became a criminal offense to possess or read these messages. The property of all churchmen who obeyed the commands of the Pope was confiscated.

The bitter seesaw of invective and retaliation went on interminably between the main actors in the drama. And because of this an innocent nation suffered.

The Pope had withheld some of his thunder. When the interdict seemed to be failing of results, the second thunderbolt was launched. Innocent called for his bell and he called for his book and he called for his bishops three. They were given another dangerous and thankless task,
the excommunication of the King. They obeyed with an understandable degree of caution. Knowing that John would hang them if they set foot on English soil, they published the decree from their safe sanctuaries.