Roman canon law in the Church of England Author:Frederic William Maitland Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. WILLIAM OF DROGHEDA AND THE UNIVERSAL ORDINARY Let us change our point of view. The medieval church was a state. Convenience may forbid us to call it a s... more »tate very often, but we ought to do so from time to time, for we could frame no acceptable definition of a state which would not comprehend the church. What has it not that a state should have ? It has laws, lawgivers, law courts, lawyers. It uses physical force to compel men to obey its laws. It keeps prisons. In the thirteenth century, though with squeamish phrases, it pronounces sentence of death. It is no voluntary society. If people are not born into it, they are baptized into it when they cannot help themselves. If they attempt to leave it, they are guilty of the crimen laesae maiestatis, and are likely to be burnt. It is supported by involuntary contributions, by tithe and tax. That men believe it to have a supernatural origin does not alter the case. Kings have reigned by divine right, and republics have been founded in the name of God-given liberty. When the medieval church is regarded as a political organism, as a state, it becomes very interesting. As a whole the constitution of this state may be unique, but there is hardly a feature in it for which we may not find analogies elsewhere. At various points it becomes a model for the constitutions of other and secular states, while itself reproduces many traits of the ancient Romanempire. Also the canonists, since they have had Justinian's books before them, have been fostering this resemblance, and applying to the pope whatever has been said of the princeps. But the question which will be always in the minds of students of constitutions when they read ecclesiastical history will be the question whether there is to be federalism. The vast extent of the territo...« less