Читать книгу A Concise History of the Common Law - Theodore F. T. Plucknett - Страница 25

John’s troubles opened with Innocent III’s refusal to permit his candidate to become Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope substituting his own much better choice, Stephen Langton.¹ The Great Interdict followed, to which John replied by confiscating Church property. The political thought on both sides of the struggle is clear. John regarded bishops as higher civil servants, and looked back to the old days when Church and State in England were mingled, the papacy weak, and the Church subservient to the Crown. Hence he was able to strike the attitude of a patriot against foreign meddling. Langton started by assuming the separate sphere of Church and State, attacked the shifty details of John’s recent conduct, and proclaimed that John’s vassals were not bound to him after he himself had broken faith with the King of Kings, arguing “as an exponent of feudal custom in the light of those high principles of law to which all human law should conform”.² The conflict was thus one of fundamental principle. John poured out money in Europe to buy support, and built up an imposing coalition against the Pope’s ally, King Philip Augustus of France. Then, in his customary sudden manner, he abandoned all his plans, submitted to Rome and did homage to the Pope’s legate. The next year his allies were ruined in one of the most important battles of the middle ages (Bouvines, 1214). It was now time to reckon with the discontent aroused by the reckless oppression to which John had resorted during the Interdict. Archbishop Langton undertook to force the King to make amends, and produced the old Charter of Henry I as the basis of what was normal and just, adding a long list of more recent grievances. London opened its gates to the barons, and soon after the fifteenth day of June, 1215, John had to put his seal to the Great Charter.³