ABSTRACT
England, in the year 1216, was in a peculiarly receptive condition. The whole country had lately gone through a period of considerable upheaval and distress. The Church had known no peace since the election of Stephen Langton to the see of Canterbury in 1207. During the years 1208 till 1213 the country had lain under an interdict, and all ecclesiastical properties spiritual and temporal had been seized into the king’s hanas. ‘For six years Englishmen had had all around them a Church which did not function, closed buildings, unused cemeteries, silent bells, disconsolate dignitaries, and parsons whose only duties were the baptism of infants in private houses or the celebration of mass for the dying.’ 1 One bishop alone remained in England, Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester. The sees of Lichfield, Exeter, Chichester, Durham, York, and Worcester (after 1212) had been vacant; the Bishop of Norwich was in Ireland and the rest had fled to the Continent. With John’s submission peace had not come, for the revolt of the barons followed and the invasion of the kingdom by Louis of France. Not until after the death of John in 1216 and the withdrawal of the French prince was the Church able to consider the question of reorganization.
