ABSTRACT

THE habit. of mind which saw symbols and sacraments everywhere, com bined with the habit of looking for authority and regulation in everything, gives a reason for the importance assigned to ceremony in the Middle Ages. Where every detail had "an inward meaning, and was prescribed by authority, it was dangerous to make outward alterations which might disturb the sequence of the spiritual meaning. As a sacrament might fail in effect if the ceremonial details were not duly performed, so an act of homage, an oath, or the transfer of a fief might be rendered invalid by omission or mistake in some point of the complete ceremonial, ordained and therefore sacred. No quality of the medireval mind is more worthy of study than its respect for words and names, definitions and regulations, because they were looked upon as the vesture of realities. The disputes between Gregory VII and William I, William Rufus and Anselm, Henry II and Becket, proceeded from a desire common to

Six hundred years ago, it made the difference of his holding, or not holding, God's authority for his place. An oath in a court of justice is now little more than a conventional prelude to giving evidence: in the middle ages an oath was· a tremendous reality: and if men of honour broke oaths, it was because they believed as much in the power of the Church to remit and absolve as in her power to impose penalties.