Anselm's argument.
The King's advocatio of the archbishopric.
- ship comes to an end, he calls on the incoming lord to
respect his acts. The legal question would seem to be whether the new doctrine which gave the King the temporary profits of the archbishopric gave him any right to turn its demesne lands into fiefs. Anselm's argument seems to be that anyhow the possessions of the archbishopric were practically lessened, as they undoubtedly were. Experience showed that such a lordship as the see would keep over the lands so granted out would be both hard to enforce and of little value if enforced.[1] Practically the grants were an alienation of the lands of the see. And to this Anselm could not consent. Open robbery from some quarter which owed no special duty to the archbishopric he might bear, and in such a case there would be more hope of gaining back what was lost by the help of the law.[2] But for the King, the advocate of the see, and for himself, its guardian, to come to an agreement whereby the see would be damaged, was a thing to which Anselm would never consent.[3] In this argument we hear the word advocate, the equivalent of the modern patron, in its elder sense. The advocatio, the advowson, of an ecclesiastical benefice carries with it, not only the right to name the incumbent of that benefice, but also the duty of acting as its protector.[4] For the King, the advocate of the see of Canterbury, to do anything against its rights was a
- ↑ See the instances collected in N. C. vol. v. Appendix G. The lands moreover would be yet harder to get back when they had been granted away on the new military tenures.
- ↑ Ep. iii. 24. "Si quis enim alius, ad quem ecclesiæ custodia non pertineret, hanc faceret ei violentiam, aut factam patienter sustineret, palam esset quia in futuro nihil dici posset cur res ecclesiæ ad eam redire non deberent."
- ↑ Ib. "Nunc autem cum et ipse rex advocatus ejus sit, et ego custos, quid dicetur in futuro nisi, quia rex fecit et archiepiscopus sustinendo confirmavit, ratum esse debet?"
- ↑ See N. C. vol. iii. p. 194; vol. v. p. 101.
