The reader will probably feel some surprise to learn that they were
yet unknown; but a committee of inquiry was appointed, and the next
day Richard de Lucy and Joscelin de Baliol exhibited the sixteen
Constitutions of Clarendon. Three copies were made, each of which was
subscribed by the King, the prelates, and thirty-seven barons. Henry
then demanded that the bishops should affix their seals. After what
had passed, it was a trifle neither worth the asking nor the refusing.
The Primate replied that he had performed all that he had promised,
and that he would do nothing more. His conduct on this trying occasion
has been severely condemned for its duplicity. To me he appears more
deserving of pity than censure. His was not the tergiversation of one
who seeks to effect his object by fraud and deception: it was rather
the hesitation of a mind oscillating between the decision of his own
judgment and the opinions and apprehensions of others. His conviction
seems to have remained unchanged: he yielded to avoid the charge of
having by his obstinacy drawn destruction on the heads of his
fellow-bishops.

After the vehemence with which the recognition of the "customs" was
urged, and the importance which has been attached to them by modern
writers, the reader will naturally expect some account of the
Constitutions of Clarendon. I shall therefore mention the principal:

I. It was enacted that "the custody of every vacant archbishopric,
bishopric, abbey, and priory of royal foundation ought to be given and
its revenues paid to the king; and that the election of a new
incumbent ought to be made in consequence of the king's writ, by the
chief clergy of the church, assembled in the king's chapel, with the
assent of the king, and with the advice of such prelates as the king
may call to his assistance." The custom recited in the first part of
this constitution could not claim higher antiquity than the reign of
William Rufus, by whom it was introduced. It had, moreover, been
renounced after his death by all his successors, by Henry I, by
Stephen, and, lastly, by the present King himself. On what plea
therefore it could be now confirmed as an ancient custom it is
difficult to comprehend.

II. By the second and seventh articles it was provided that in almost
every suit, civil or criminal, in which each or either party was a
clergyman, the proceeding should commence before the king's justices,
who should determine whether the cause ought t