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Viewed from one angle, that power appears to have been modified; but from another point of view, we can see that what was formerly an imperial system of centralized ecclesiastical control simply ended now in nationally centralized systems perpetuating the same principles.
Since the Conqueror's days no Pope might be recognized as Apostolic Pope save at the king's command; no legate might land or use any power in England without the king's consent; no ecclesiastical senate could decree laws which were not authorized by the king, or could judge his servants against his will.
"With such an assembly," says Leland, "it is little wonder that, in despite of clamor and opposition, in a session of a few weeks, the whole ecclesiastical system of Queen Mary was entirely reversed." It is needless to remark that the people had nothing whatever to do with this reversal; it merely looked on, or was already organizing for resistance.
We must be careful to discriminate between the Conception, so styled by ecclesiastical authority, and that singular and mystical representation which is sometimes called the "Predestination of Mary," and sometimes the "Litanies of the Virgin."
It was impossible to lock these beneficent beings up, for the whole scope of their existence lay in the outer world; but every day, as it developed their ecclesiastical position, made even their admirers recognise the wise discretion of the middle ages. Long before the Ritualists themselves, they, with a feminine instinct, had discerned the value of costume.
Anselm's desire to visit Rome apparently arose from the general condition of things in the kingdom, from his inability to hold synods, to get important ecclesiastical offices filled, or to reform the evils of government and morals which prevailed under William.
It gave me little pleasure to connect the personality of Keble with the place, patient, sweet-natured, mystical, serviceable as he was. It seems hard to breathe in the austere air of a mind like Keble's, where the wind of the spirit blows chill down the narrow path, fenced in by the high, uncompromising walls of ecclesiastical tradition on the one hand, and stern Puritanism on the other.
I cannot find the date of the earliest picture of the Immaculate Conception; but the first writer on the art who makes allusion to the subject, and lays down specific rules from ecclesiastical authority for its proper treatment, is the Spaniard Pacheco, who must have been about forty years of age when the bull was published at Seville in 1618.
But where is it? Bring it into court! Put Shakespeare's or Dante's creed into articles, and send IT up for trial by the Ecclesiastical Courts!
Although there used to come to the bench under her window the son of Rabelais, who had seven boats on the Loire, Jehan's eldest, Marchandeau the tailor, and Peccard the ecclesiastical goldsmith, she made fun of them all, because she wished to be taken to church before burthening herself with a man, which proves that she was an honest woman until she was wheedled out of her virtue.
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