and in the preface we see indications of the growing tendency to blend clergy and laity in the decisions of such questions.

The preface reads thus :-'I, Ina, by God's grace king of the West Saxons, with the counsel and with the teaching of Cenred my father, and of Hedde my bishop, and of Eorcenwald my bishop, and with all my ealdormen, and the most distinguished Witan of my people, and also with a large assembly of God's servants, have been considering of the health of our souls, and of the stability of our realm; so that just laws and just kingly dooms might be settled and established throughout our folk,' . . . and then follow the laws, of the rule of God's servants, of children (as to baptism), of working on Sunday, of Church scots, or payments.

Here, for the first time, are King, Witan, and clergy jointly decreeing laws for the discipline of the Church. Church and State have almost become blended, looked upon as one thing with two aspects. Similar are the laws of Wihtred, king of Kent, enacted at a Witan held at Berghamstede in 696. And when the Pope granted a privilege to the twin-monastery of Wearmouth and Jarrow, it was confirmed in the Northumbrian Witan, held in 701.

Particulars of other Witenagemots of Mercia, Northumbria, Kent, and Wessex may be read in the pages of Haddan and Stubbs's Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents; everywhere it is the same, King, Witan, and clergy conjointly making the laws for the regulation of both temporal and spiritual life.

We may say then that down to the time of King Alfred there was a co-ordinate jurisdiction of Church and State, each in its own sphere, the King being recognised as the common head.

If appeals to Rome were made, they still had to be allowed by King and Witan, and no decisions from Rome were accepted, except with the consent of these powers.

From the time of Alfred, when the King's power gradually became great on account of the necessity for a strong guiding hand in the struggle with the Norsemen, we find that the Church also was glad to acknowledge royal favour and protection, and the duty of obedience to the civil power was more definitely taught.

The coronation of the King became a very solemn religious rite, and he was invested with a quasi - sacerdotal character, being no longer regarded as merely the chief of the army and the nation, but as the divinely ordained protector of

Church and State. An oath was demanded from him that he would govern righteously, protect God, Church, and People, and rule with justice and mercy. He was anointed, invested with robes bearing a similarity to those of the Church's ministers, and made to sign a record which was solemnly laid upon the altar.

The protective power over the Church thus gained by the King was of great advantage to the Church, for the kings immediately following Alfred gave proof of their care for the Church's welfare. Thus Ethelwulf, by the donation of 855, makes a grant of tithe to the Church, and in return the bishops ordain special prayers to be offered for the King.

Again in 927 King Athelstan issued a tithe ordinance, ordering tithes to be paid of the livestock and of the year's earthly fruits, first from the King's own property, then from that of the bishops; and the bishops and reeves are to command the same to all who ought to obey them. He orders also that the reeves shall see that 'church-scots' and 'soul-scots,' and 'plough-alms' shall be duly paid at the proper places.1

At the same time the freedom of the Church

1 Gee and Hardy, Documents illustrative of Church History, x. and xi.

was carefully guarded, and anything like the Erastianism which prevailed in the Byzantine Empire was prevented by the continual assertion of the independence of the spiritual power.

Thus Archbishop Odo in his Constitutions, issued in 943, charges and commands that the holy Church of God be not attacked by any violence of wicked men; that no taxes shall be imposed on the Church, because the sons of the Church are free from tribute in every country. For Ambrose says that 'The Catholic Church is free from all royal taxation.' Kings and nobles must obey the bishops, be humble, have good counsellors, and be protectors of strangers, orphans, and widows; for it is especially necessary for such men, placed in high estate, to keep the commandments of Christ.1

In the appointment of bishops, although they were nominally elected by clergy and people, yet the King often appointed, with the advice of the Witan, or he nominated a person to be elected.

Oswy of Northumbria, and Egbert of Kent, even before this period, had selected Wighard for consecration, with the choice and assent of the English Church.'

Offa, king of Mercia, had appointed archbishops 1 Gee and Hardy, Documents illustrative of Church History, xii.

whilst master of Kent. From the time of Alfred to that of Ethelred the Unready the bishops and archbishops were commonly chosen by the King, and nominated to the chapters or convents for election.

After the Danish invasion the appointment by the King became the regular method. Edward the Confessor appointed Robert of Jumièges to Canterbury in spite of the fact that the Chapter had chosen Elfric. In the assemblies of the period bishops had their seats in the Witan, side by side with secular members, and in the shiremote they sat with the ealdorman.

The Witenagemots of the ninth and tenth centuries made laws both for civil and ecclesiastical purposes, and the Church gradually ceased to hold its own separate assemblies. The union between Church and State was so close that their action in legislation cannot be separated.'1 Also in the matter of justice to clerical persons, there were during this period no separate ecclesiastical courts. The clergy were tried for civil offences in the same courts as laymen, and for offences purely ecclesiastical the bishop administered Church discipline.

The long contests with the Norsemen, ending

1 Hunt, History of the Church from 597 to 1066, p. 317.