[Sidenote:  Legal Reforms]

The report presented by bishops and barons formed the Constitutions of Clarendon, a code which in the bulk of its provisions simply re-enacted the system of the Conqueror.  Every election of bishop or abbot was to take place before royal officers, in the king’s chapel, and with the king’s assent.  The prelate-elect was bound to do homage to the king for his lands before consecration, and to hold his lands as a barony from the king, subject to all feudal burthens of taxation and attendance in the King’s Court.  No bishop might leave the realm without the royal permission.  No tenant in chief or royal servant might be excommunicated, or their land placed under interdict, but by the king’s assent.  What was new was the legislation respecting ecclesiastical jurisdiction.  The King’s Court was to decide whether a suit between clerk and layman, whose nature was disputed, belonged to the Church courts or the King’s.  A royal officer was to be present at all ecclesiastical proceedings in order to confine the Bishop’s court within its own due limits, and a clerk convicted there passed at once under the civil jurisdiction.  An appeal was left from the Archbishop’s court to the King’s Court for defect of justice, but none might appeal to the Papal court save with the king’s leave.  The privilege of sanctuary in churches and churchyards was repealed, so far as property and not persons was concerned.  After a passionate refusal the Primate was at last brought to give his assent to these Constitutions, but the assent was soon retracted, and Henry’s savage resentment threw the moral advantage of the position into his opponent’s hands.  Vexatious charges were brought against Thomas, and he was summoned to answer at a Council held in the autumn at Northampton.  All urged him to submit; his very life was said to be in peril from the king’s wrath.  But in the presence of danger the courage of the man rose to its full height.  Grasping his archiepiscopal cross he entered the royal court, forbade the nobles to condemn him, and appealed in the teeth of the Constitutions to the Papal See.  Shouts of “Traitor!” followed him as he withdrew.  The Primate turned fiercely at the word:  “Were I a knight,” he shouted back, “my sword should answer that foul taunt!” Once alone however, dread pressed more heavily; he fled in disguise at nightfall and reached France through Flanders.

Great as were the dangers it was to bring with it, the flight of Thomas left Henry free to carry on the reforms he had planned.  In spite of denunciations from Primate and Pope, the Constitutions regulated from this time the relations of the Church with the State.  Henry now turned to the actual organization of the realm.  His reign, it has been truly said, “initiated the rule of law” as distinct from the despotism, whether personal or tempered by routine, of the Norman sovereigns.  It was by successive “assizes” or codes issued with the sanction of the great councils of barons and prelates