A council at Tivoli in the Soisonnais, A.D. 909, presided over by twelve bishops, promulgated a Canon requiring the oath of seven persons to convict a priest with having lived with a woman; if their oath failed of clearing him he was allowed to justify himself upon his sole oath. Under Canon Law a woman could not bring an accusation unless prosecuted for an injury done to herself. It is less than thirty years since this law was extant in Scotland; and as late as 1878, that through the influence of Signor Morelli, the Italian Parliament repealed the old restriction existant in that country regarding woman’s testimony. Under Canon Law a woman could not be witness in ecclesiastical or criminal suits, nor attest a will.188 To cast doubts upon a person’s word is indicative of the most supreme contempt, importing discredit to the whole character. That a woman was not allowed to attest a will, nor become a witness in ecclesiastical suits, implied great degradation and is a very strong proof of the low esteem in which woman was held both by State and Church. That a priest could clear himself upon his own unsubstantiated oath is equally significative of the respect in which this office was held, as well as showing the degree in which all law was made to shield man and degrade woman. When we find the oath of seven women required to nullify that of one layman, we need no stronger testimony as to woman’s inequality before the law. Canonists laid down the law for all matters of a temporal nature whether civil or criminal. The buying and selling of lands; leasing, mortgaging, contracts; the descent of inheritance; the prosecution and punishment of murder; theft; detection of thieves; frauds; those and many other objects of temporal jurisdiction were provided for by Canon Law. It was intended that the clergy should come entirely under its action, governed as a distinct people from the laity. The principal efforts of the Canon Law towards which all its enactments tended, was the subordination of woman189 and the elevation of the hierarchy. To secure these two ends the church did not hesitate at forgery. For many hundred years a collection of Decretals, or what were claimed as decrees of the early popes, carried great authority, although later investigation has proven them forgeries.190 Civil as well as ecclesiastical laws were forged in the interest of the priesthood; a noted instance, was the once famous law of Constantine which endowed bishops with unlimited power, giving them jurisdiction in all kinds of causes. This law declared that whatever is determined by the judgment of bishops shall always be held as sacred and venerable, and that in all kinds of causes whether they are tried according to the pastoral or civil law that it is law to be forever observed by all.
The famous Seldon known as the “Light of England,” declares it to have been “a prodigious and monstrous jurisdiction” assumed by the priestly order, by means of falsehood and forgery.191 The two classes of temporal affairs that Spiritual Courts especially endeavored to appropriate, were marriages, and wills, with everything bearing upon them. In these the greatest oppression fell upon women.192 Canon Law gradually acquired enormous power through the control it gained over wills, the guardianship of orphans, marriage, and divorce.193 As soon as ecclesiastical courts were divided from the temporal in England,194 a new set of principles and maxims began to prevail. This was one of the first effects of the Conquest, but in 1272, Robert Kilmandy, Dean of Canterbury, gave directions for the restoration and observation of the ancient and neglected laws of Ecclesiastical Courts; of these the Court of Arches was one of the most ancient. It is almost impossible to fix the date of ecclesiastical rule, unless indeed we go back to the very foundation of the church. As noted, the early Saxons were largely governed by their priests. In 615, at the Paris synod, the clergy were given authority in matters theretofore under civil power, while in England we find priestly power to have been great during the fourth and fifth centuries. Bracton sets the one hundred and fifty years between the middle of the twelfth and end of the thirteenth centuries as the period when this power took its greatest strides. At this time it touched upon wills, inheritance, bequests, the legitimacy of children, the marriage relation, and all family concerns, having broken over many securities of the common law. This period covers the establishment of celibacy with the trains of evils noted in the preceding chapter, when the marriage of priests was declared invalid, their wives branded as immoral persons, and stain of illegitimacy thrown upon their children. Despite the guarantees of the Runnymede Charter, and the religious rebellion of the Eighth Henry, despite the vigor of Elizabeth who bent both priest and prelate to her fiery will, the influence of this period moved down in line with the Reformation, and to the injury of woman, successfully incorporated its worst features into the common law; the new church, social and family life all partaking of this injustice. A great number of canons were enacted after the reformation. These, together with the foreign canons which had been adopted, were held as part of the law of England.195 The Episcopal church appropriated numerous canons extant at the time of the reformation, several of these having been created for the purpose of sustaining the church at a period when the temporal power threatened encroachment. The archdeacon of Surrey prepared a voluminous work upon this subject known as the Jurus,196 proving that these canons, decrees, etc., when falling into disuse had been established by act of Parliament, as part of the law of England. The preface of his work declared that it had been prepared purely for the service of the clergy, and in support of the rights and privileges of the Church. Thus we have direct proof of the adoption of papal decrees as part of the government of the Protestant Episcopal church, – the Anglican – and also as part of English law.
An act of Parliament at this age was regarded as synonymous with a law of God. The Bible and the English government were upon the same plane, each to be implicitly obeyed.197 Canon Law thus firmly established by act of Parliament, the union of Church and State complete, England lost much of that civil freedom whose origin can be traced to the wise legislation and love of freedom inhering in two British queens, Martia and Boadicea. Suffering from cruel wrong, the latter rose in revolt against the Romans. Riding among the squadrons of her army she thus addressed them:
It will not be the first time, Britons, that you have been victorious under the conduct of your queen. I come not here as one of royal blood, to fight for empire or riches, but as one of the common people to avenge the loss of their liberty, the wrongs of myself and my children. If you Britons will but consider the motives of our war, you will resolve to conquer or die. Is it not much better to fall in the defense of liberty than to be exposed to the outrages of the Romans? Such at least is my resolution, you may if you please live and be slaves.
But many historians date the entire subordination of the common law to ecclesiasticism, to the reign of Stephen, who ascended to the throne 1135, the fourth of the Anglo-Norman kings. In order to keep the ranks of the church full, the bearing of children was enforced upon women as a religious duty. No condition of health or distaste for motherhood was admitted as exemption. Alike from the altar, the confessional, and at the marital ceremony,198 was this duty taught, nor has such instruction even under the light of physiology and new regard for personal rights, yet ceased.199 No less is the unresisting subjection of women in this relation indirectly or directly enforced by the Protestant and the Greek churches as the law of the Bible and God. “Increase and multiply”200 has been the first commandment for woman, held as far more binding upon her than the “Ten Words” of Mount Sinai. Proof exists in abundance of a character impossible to present in this work.
Under the general absence of learning and the equally general reverence for whatever emanated from the church, minor ecclesiastics found it in their power to promulgate doctrines to suit every new set