164.  The Second Quarrel.

Shortly afterward, a much more serious quarrel broke out between the King and the Archbishop.  Under the law made by William the Conqueror, the Church had the right to try in its own courts all offenses committed by monks and priests (S118).  This privilege, in time, led to great abuses, since even in cases of the commission of the gravest crimes the Church had no direct power to inflict the penalty of death.  On the contrary, the heaviest sentence it could give was imprisonment in a monastery, with degradation from the clerical office; while in less serious cases the offenders generally got off with fasting and flogging.

On this account some criminals who deserved to be hanged escaped with a comparatively slight penalty.  Such a case now occurred.  In one instance a priest had committed an unprovoked murder.  Henry commanded him to be brought before the Kings’ court; Becket interfered, and ordered the case to be tried by the bishop of the diocese.  The bishop simply sentenced the murderer to lose his place for two years.

165.  The Constitutions of Clarendon, 1164.

The King determined that such flagrant disregard of justice should no longer go on.  He called a council of his chief men at Clarendon, near Salisbury, in Wiltshire, and laid the case before them.  He demanded that in future the state or civil courts should be supreme, and that in every instance their judges should decide whether a criminal should be tried by the common law of the land or handed over to the Church courts.

He furthermore required that the clergy should be held strictly responsible to the Crown, so that in case of dispute the final appeal should be neither to the Archbishop nor to the Pope, but to himself.  In this respect he went even farther than William the Conqueror had done (S118).  After protracted debate the council, composed of a committee of bishops and barons, passed the measures which the King demanded.  The new laws were entitled the Constitutions of Clarendon.  They consisted of sixteen articles which clearly defined the powers and jurisdiction of the King’s courts and the Church courts.  Their great object was to secure a more uniform administration of justice for all classes of men. (See the Constitutional Summary in the Appendix, pp. viii and xxxii.)

Becket, though bitterly oppsed to the new laws, finally assented, and swore to obey them.  Afterward, feeling that he had conceded too much, he retracted his oath and refused to be bound by the Constitutions.  The other Church dignitaries became alarmed at the prospect, and left Becket to settle with the King as best he might.  Henceforth it was a battle between the King and the Archbishop, and each resolved that he would never give up until he had won the final victory (S170).

166.  The King enforces the New Laws; Becket leaves the Country.

Henry at once proceeded to put the Constitutions of Clarendon into execution without fear or favor.  A champion of the Church of that day says, “Then was seen the mournful spectacle of priests and deacons who had committed murder, manslaughter, robbery, theft, and other crimes, carried in carts before the comissioners and punished as thogh they were ordinary men."[1]