THE INTERDICT OF INNOCENT III
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Sm,—The Rev. Thomas M. Parker criticized my picture of the woe laid upon England by this Interdict, and asked for my authority. I gave it—a translation by the late Dr. Sebastian Evans of a Latin document, the only known one which gives the text of the edict in detail and in precise words. The authenticity of this document having never (so far as I can discover) been seriously challenged, I assume it for the moment, to recur to it later.
Taking the Latin text as it stands, Mr. Parker asserts that in respect of the coffins on the churchyard walls I have been misled by a mistranslation. Well, the Latin says Iranseuntes possunt cammoveri, which Dr. Evans rendered " where passers-by may be moved at the sight thereof." Mr. Parker comments : " The crucial words at the sight thereof, which suggest that the bodies were left unburied are supplied by Dr. Evans and are repre- sented by nothing in the Latin . ."
Will Mr. Parker tell your readers how corpses thus exposed could have been other than unburied ? Or through which of their five senses other than sight the passers-by were to be " conunoved " ? But let us cut out Dr. Evans and restrict ourselves to the naked word commoveri. Its first meaning in Latin is "to be violently moved," and the English word " eonamoved," now obsolete, in Pope Innocent's time meant " to be violently agitated " (as the sea). I refer Mr. Parker to any Latin dictionary and the N.E.D., and if' he prefers this rendering, with the mass-suggestion of "frightful- ness " it implies, he can have it. Further, he niggles at the number of corpses likely to be thus exposed. He admits that the number of " clerks " (allowed leaden coffins) would be " numerous," but asks " How many of these would die in an average parish during a five-years' interdict ? " lie leaves out of reckoning (a) the evidence of our Church archi- tecture for the large rural population of those times, and (b) the high rate of mortality through toll of peLtilence and insanitary conditions of life. Leave these out of account, and yet Mr. Parker's plea resemb!es that of the Athenian damsel, that her baby was only a small one. Suppose three coffins only, or two, or even one, exhibited. Does Mr. Parker know so little of England as to imagine that the spectacle would not " commove " any " average " parish in our history ? [And why " average " ?] Put it as you will, the Interdict was either meaningless or a calculated stroke at a political foe by use of " frightfulness " upon innocent people.
" Mr. Parker's arguments upon the text I must therefore set aside as trivial. But being no polemical writer, I admit the real crux to stand upon the authenticity of the MS. from which Dr. Evans translated. Has this ever been effectively or even positively challenged ? If so, by whom ? I have searched and engaged friends to search, for traces of sonic other copy of the Interdict with its terms laid down in detail and in precise words. Such a document must have existed ; must have been widely published at the time ; and would be of quite superlative importance in any story of the Papacy's dealings with England. Yet it seems to be one of the most elusive memoranda in the world. I suggest that Mr. Parker, who must command more influence than I, should enquire of the .Vatican, and if a record there should confute the text on which Dr. Evans depended, no one will be readier to acknowledge this than—Yours faithfully,
ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH.
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