Principles of western civilisation

vir LHE GREAT ANTINOMY. FIRST STAGE 275

of the ideal towards which they tend in political affairs is in sight. The claim underlying that ideal is, at times, clearly expressed in words. It is, as the King of Munster in Ireland is informed, that ‘all sovereigns are subjects of St. Peter, and that all the world owes allegiance to him and to his vicar.” * In the thirteenth century the Latin rulers in the East are subject to the Pope; Aragon, Hungary, and England are fiefs of Rome; King John of England, in words of his own Act, freely conceding “the whole kingdom of England and the whole kingdom of Ireland with all their rights and appurtenances . . . . and now receiving and holding them, as it were, a vassal from God and the Roman Church.” ?

It sometimes happens that, through the detached stand-point of English historians, the dispute between John and the Pope is spoken of as if it

1} Adam’s Civilisation during the Middle Ages, c. x.

* Volentes nos ipsos humiliare pro Ilo Qui Se pro nobis humiliavit usque ad mortem, gratia Sancti Spiritus inspirante, non vi inducti nec timore coacti, sed nostra bona spontaneaque voluntate ac communi consilio baronum nostrorum, offerimus et libere concedimus Deo et sanctis apostolis Ejus Petro et Paulo et sanctae Romanae ecclesiae matri nostrae, ac domino nostro papae Innocentio ejusque catholicis successoribus, totum regnum Angliae et totum regnum Hiberniae, cum omni jure et pertinentiis suis, pro remissione peccatorum nostrorum et totius generis nostri tam pro vivis quam defunctis; et amodo illa a Deo et ecclesia Romana tanquam feodatarius recipientes et tenentes, in praesentia prudentis viri Pandulfi, domini papae subdiaconi et familiaris, fidelitatem exinde praedicto domino nostro papae Innocentio, ejusque catholicis successoribus et ecclesiae Romanae, secundum subscriptam formam facimus et juramus, et homagium ligium in praesentia domini papae, si coram eo esse poterimus, eidem faciemus ; successores et haeredes nostros de uxore nostra in perpetuum obligantes, ut simili modo summo pontifici qui pro tempore fuerit, et ecclesiae Romanae, sine contradictione debeant fidelitatem praestare et homagium recognoscere: From the Act of Submission made by John to Pandulf at Dover on the 15th May 1213, and renewed to Nicolas, Bishop of Tusculum, at London on 3rd October, with a golden dzd/la, and with the actual performance of liege homage here promised to the Pope.Stubb’s Select Charters (John).