THE P RTAL
November 2014
Page 7
The Popes and the Ordinariate
Dr Harry Schnitker traces his subject through
the fourteenth century and makes a startling discovery
about the roots of the Reformation in England
The collapse
of the regime of King Edward II, which we saw in last month’s edition of The
Portal, paved the way for the final Anglicisation of the English royal court. To date, French, or rather
Anglo-French, had been the language of court and, importantly, in court. Occitan, the language of southern
France, had long been spoken at the English court, too, since it was the language of culture.
As long as the Duchy of
Guyenne retained its importance
to the English crown, Occitan
survived, and it was the language
of choice of Edward III’s famous
son, Edward, the Black Prince.
a new sense of identity
However, Edward III’s constant
wars with France created a new
sense of identity, an English
one, based upon an invented,
mainly Arthurian-chivalric past.
From 1364, English became the
language of the legal courts and
in that year parliament, too, used
English. This ‘nationalisation’ of
the country and its culture had
deep consequences, many rather
unforeseen.
ness of Edward’s reign, it mattered
deeply. The King of England was
claiming equality with his French
counterpart, and there was no
place in this world-view for any
Papal claims. The measure was
accompanied by several acts that
can only be described as ‘anticlerical’.
These built upon legislation
already passed during the reign
of Edward I, when the Statute
of Provisors was passed in 1306.
This had forbidden the shipping
abroad of money by non-English
abbots or bishops. However,
Edward III went much further
than his grandfather. In 1350-1,
the parliament passed a law which
effectively removed Papal control
over the nomination of bishops
Whereas the crown would seek
to maintain its French lands and eventually even pursue or abbots. Interestingly, this was done on the basis
its claim to the crown of France, it was increasingly that a foreign power could not control goods or lands
done from an English perspective rather than from the belonging to the English crown as feudal sovereign.
vantage point of a French-speaking dynasty.
the breach with Rome
With the demise of a cross-Channel culture, only the
Church was left as an international body within the
realm of England. Of course, the monarchy had long
sought to maintain a large measure of control over the
Church in its lands, as this series has amply testified.
However, something rather new was afoot from the
reign of Edward III onwards. In 1366, two years after
French was replaced with English in the parliament,
Edward officially repudiated his vassalage to the
Papacy, which had been a feature of English political
life since King John.
The central phrase in the legislation was “seinte eglise
d’Engleterre”, or the Holy Church of England. This
notion, namely that the Catholic Church had become
a national one, is profound. Combined with the other
developments in England during the reign of Edward
III, we are effectively witnessing the laying of the
foundations for the breach with Rome.
Of course, there was no question of Edward going
down Henry VIII’s path: it simply would have been
unthinkable in the fourteenth century. However, a
crucial tie had snapped, and the king and not the Pope
no place for Papal claims
was now the de facto head of the Catholic Church in
This was not the formality that many think it was: in England, or, as the legislation had it, the seinte eglise
the world of chivalry, which shaped the new English- d’Engleterre.
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