OLOVIO
69
CLOVIO
nate in their malice should be punished by sentence of
excommunication. The council then drew up thirty-
one canons dealinc; mostly with matters of ecclesias-
tical discipline ancl liturgy.
The thirteenth and fifteenth canons are note- worthy as showing the close union of the Anglo-Saxon Church with the Holy See. The thirteenth canon is: "That all the most sacred Festivals of Our Lord made Man, in all things pertaining to the same, viz.: in the Office of Baptism, the celebration of Masses, in the method of chanting, shall be celebrated in one and the same way, namely, according to the sample which we have received in writing from the Roman ("hiuch. And also, throughout the coiuse of the whole year, the festivals of the Saints are to be kept on one and the same day, with their proper psalmody and chant, according to the MartjTology of the same Roman Church." The fifteenth canon adds that in the seven horn's of the daily and nightly Office the clergy " must not dare to sing or read anything not sanctioned by the general use, but only that which comes down by authority of Holy Scripture, and which the mage of the Roman Church allows". The sixteenth canon in like manner requires that the litanies and rogations are to be observed by the clergy and people with great reverence " according to the rite of the Roman Church". The feasts of St. Gregory and of St. Augustine, "who was sent to the English people by our said Pope and father St. Gregory", were to be solemnly celebrated. The clergy and monks were to live so as to be always prepared to receive worthily the most holy Body and Blood of the Lord, and the laity were to be exhorted to the practice of frequent Communion (Canons xxii, xxiii). Persons who did not know Latin were to join in the psalmody by intention, and were to be taught to say, in the Saxon tongue, prayers for the living or for the repose of the souls of the dead (Can. xxvii). Neit her clergj' nor monks were in future to be allowed to live in the hoiLses of the people (Can. xxix), nor were they to adopt or imitate the dress which is worn by the laity (Can. xxviii).
(3) The record of the Council of Clovesho in 794 consists merely in a charter by which Offa, King of Mercia, made a grant of land for pious purposes. The charter states that it has been drawn up "in the general sj'nodal Coimcil in the most celebrated place called Clofeshoas". At or about the time when the papal legates presided at the Council of Chelsea in 787, Offa had obtained from Pope Adrian I that Lichfield should be created an archbishopric and that the Mercian sees .should be subjected to its jurisdiction and withdrawn from that of Canterbury. Conse- quently at this Council of Clovesho in 794, Higbert of Lichfield, to whom the pope had sent the pall, signs as an archbi.shop.
(4) A council was held at Clovesho in 798 by Arch- bishop Ethelheard with Kenulph, King of Mercia, at which the bishops and abbots and chief men of the province were present. Its proceedings are related in a document by Archbishop Ethelheard (Lambeth MS. 1212, p. .312; Haddan and Stubbs, HI, 512). He states that his first care was to examine diligently "in what way the Catholic Faith was held and how the CTiristian religion wa.s practised amongst them". To this inquiry, "they all replied with one voice: 'Be it known to your Paternity, that even as it wa,s for- merly delivered to vis liy the Holy Roman and Apostolic See, by the mission of the most Ble.s.sed Pope firegory, so do we believe, and what we believe, we in all sin- cerity do our best to put into practice."' The rest of the time of the council was devoted to questions of church property, and an agreement of exchange of certain lands between the archbishop and the Abbess Cynedritha.
(.5) The Council of Clovesho in 80.3 is one of the most remarkable of the series, as its .Vets contain the dec- laration of the restitution of the Mercian sees to the
province of Canterbury by the authority of Pope Leo
in. In 798 King Kenulph of Mercia addressed to
the pope a long letter, written as he says "with great
affection and himaility", representing the disadvan-
tages of the new archbishopric which had been erected
at Lichfield some sixteen years previously by Pope
Adrian, at the prayer of King Offa. King Kenulph
in this letter (Haddan and Stubbs, III, 521) submits
the whole case to the pope, asking his blessing and
saying: " I love you as one who is my father, and I em-
brace you with the whole strength of my obedience",
and promising to abide in all things by his decision.
" I judge it fitting to bend humbly the ear of our obe-
dience to your holy commands, and to fulfil with all
our strength whatever may seem to your Holiness that
we ought to do." Ethelheard, Archbishop of Canter-
bury, went himself to Rome, and pleaded for the resti-
tution of the sees. In 802 Pope Leo III granted the
petition of the king and the archbishop, and issued to
the latter a Bull in which by the authority of Blessed
Peter he restored to him the full jurisdiction enjoyed
by his predecessors. The pope communicated this
judgment in a letter to King Kenulph (Haddan and
Stubbs, III, 538). This decision was duly proclaimed
in the Council of Clovesho held in the following year.
Archbishop Ethelheard declared to the synod that
"by the co-operation of God and of the Apostolic
Lord, the Pope Leo ", he and his fellow-bishops imani-
mously ratified the rights of the See of Canterbury,
and that an archbishopric should never more be
founded at Lichfield, and that the grant of the pallium
made by Pope Adrian, should, " with the consent and
permission of the Apostolic Lord Pope Adrian, be
considered as null, having been obtained surrepti-
tiously and b}' evil suggestion". Higbert, the Arch-
bishop of Lichfield, submitted to the papal judgment,
and retired into a monastery, and the Mercian sees re-
turned to the jurisdiction of Canterbury.
(6-7) In 824 and again in 825 synods were held at Clovesho, " Beornwulf , King of Mercia, presiding and the Venerable Archbi.shop Wulfred ruling and con- trolling the Synod", according to the record of the first, and " Wulfred the Archbishop presiding, and also Beornwulf, King of Mercia", according to the second. The first assembly was occupied in deciding a suit concerning an inheritance, and the second in termina- ting a dispute between the archbishop and the Abbess Cwenthrytha (Haddan and Stubbs, III, 593, 596).
It is evident from the records that the coimcils held at Clovesho and those generally of the Anglo-Saxon period were mixed assemblies at which not only the bishops and abbots, but the kings of Mercia and the chief men of the kingdom were present. They had thus the character not only of a church synod but of the W itenfige77iot or assembly fairly representative of the Church and realm. Tlie affairs of the Church were decided by the bLshops presided over by the arch- bLshop, while the king, presiding over his chiefs, gave to their decisions the co-operation and acceptance of the State. Both parties signed the decrees, but there is no evidence of any ingerence of the lay power in the spiritual legislation or judgments of the Church. ^^^lile it must be remembered that at this period the country was not yet united into one kingdom, the councils of Clovesho, as far as we may judge from their signatures, represented the primatial See of Canterbury and the whole English Church south of the Humber.
Kemblk. Codex IHptomatictis Mvi Saxonici (London, 1839-^ 48): Thokpk eil.. The Anolo-Saxon Chronicle (London. 1861); Bede, Hisloria Eccl. Genlis Anglorum, ed. Pldmmer (Oxford, 1896); W1LKIN8, Concilia Mairnie Brilanniir (London. 1737); Haddan and Stltbbs, Councils and Ecclfniaslical Documents (Oxford, 1869-78): Spei.man, Concilia, decrrla, etc., in re ecdesiarum orbis Britannici (London, 1639-64).
J. Moves.
Clovio, tJioHoio (knovvTi as Giulio), a famou? Italian miniaturist, called by Vasari "the unique"
