nce confused and
uncertain, partly of Anglo-Saxon, partly of Norman origin, and
depending on precedents, of which some were furnished by memory,
others had been transmitted by tradition. The clerical judges were men
of talents and education; the uniformity and equity of their decisions
were preferred to the caprice and violence which seemed to sway the
royal and baronial justiciaries; and by degrees every cause, which
legal ingenuity could connect with the provisions of the canons,
whether it regarded tithes, or advowsons, or public scandal, or
marriage, or testaments, or perjury, or breach of contract, was drawn
before the ecclesiastical tribunals. A spirit of rivalry arose between
the two judicatures, which quickly ripened into open hostility. On the
one side were ranged the bishops and chief dignitaries of the Church,
on the other the King and barons; both equally interested in the
quarrel, because both were accustomed to receive the principal share
of the fees, fines, and forfeitures in their respective courts.
Archbishop Theobald had seen the approach, and trembled for the issue
of the contest; and from his death-bed he wrote to Henry, recommending
to his protection the liberties of the Church, and putting him on his
guard against the machinations of its enemies.

The contest at last commenced; and the first attack was made with
great judgment against that quarter in which the spiritual courts were
the most defenceless, their criminal jurisdiction. The canons had
excluded clergymen from judgments of blood; and the severest
punishments which they could inflict were flagellation, fine,
imprisonment, and degradation. It was contended that such punishments
were inadequate to the suppression of the more enormous offences; and
that they encouraged the perpetration of crime by insuring a species
of impunity to the perpetrator. As every individual who had been
admitted to the tonsure, whether he afterward received holy orders or
not, was entitled to the clerical privileges, we may concede that
there were in these turbulent times many criminals among the clergy;
but, if it were ever said that they had committed more than a hundred
homicides within the last ten years, we may qualify our belief of the
assertion, by recollecting the warmth of the two parties, and the
exaggeration to which contests naturally give birth.

In the time of Theobald, Philip de Brois, a canon of Bedford, had been
arraigned before his bishop, convic