holy orders, the jobs most readily available were ecclesiastical benefices
without cure of souls. Thus Cardinal Adam Easton. OSB, Was (among other things) Archdeacon of Shetland, Provost of Beverley, and Precentor of Lisbon Cathedral. It seems to us highly Unsuitable : but then, as Beachcomber would say, 'We are not living in the Middle Ages,' when this system of diverting ecclesias- tical benefices for the higher purposes of Church and State were taken for granted.
During the Middle Ages, the Church was exploited to finance secular administrators. disguised for the convenience of the government as spiritual men. But not all bishops were civil ser- vants. Mr. Pantin's analysis of the social structure of the episcopate is clear-cut and intriguing. In the late eleventh century, the monks and the royal clerks had divided the bishoprics between them. In the thirteenth century, the monastic clement dwindled and the two largest groups were the civil servants and the scholars. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the scholar bishops (typified by Archbishop Winchelsey) are most notable, though the civil ser- vants are much in evidence: in the mid-century, the civil servants (typified by Wykcham) predominate, and the scholars arc edged Out to lesser or more distant sees like Rochester or Chichester or Armagh : at the end of the century, the aristocrats (typified by Arundel) arc prominent, for 'whereas in the reign of Edward III bishoprics had been given as administrative salaries or rewards, in the reign of Richard II we find them given as political rewards or retainers'; with the result that the increasing vindictiveness of Politics led to something of a spoils system in the higher offices of the Church.
Of the three sections of Mr Pantin's book, this (which also explains Papal Provisions and Anglo-Papal relations) is the most coherent and consecutive. The other sections treat more scrappily, 11 cough with equal learning, of Intellectual Life and Controversy. ;rid of Religious Literature. including the manuals of instruction 11; '31. parish priests, which, from the °otitis Sacerdotis to Mirk's restiall, were an attempt to supplement the very haphazard train- rtg of the secular clergy in an age when there was nothing com- it)Parable with the seminaries of the post-Tridentine Church of Rome °Me or of the post-Tractariati Church of England. Some parish Priests had studied at the universities: but the university did not Perform the functions of a seminary, and its studies were organised r. c'h a different basis.
This was still the case when, in 1845, Samuel Wilberforce was
13ro)cel. In 1854, he founded Cuddesdon College for the training Promoted to the bishopric of Oxford on the advice of Sir Robert Of ordinands. The somewhat unusual combination of single-
mindedness and tact which enabled him to disarm the prejudices or !, the Oxford dons was insufficient to disarm the apprehensions
": a public, clerical and lay, that was profoundly suspicious of °nYthing that savoured of the Oxford Movement. No doubt it was s: i11 -advised for Wilberforce to describe his theological college as a no sej»inary': but it was downright silly of the visiting clergy at the i first annual festival (June, 1855) to be scandalised because two he .vergers carried poles in prodession with small gilt crosses on top. Si- The Troubles of 1858-59 were a more formidable matter.
ut It is a mistake to suppose that the story of a theological college c"necessaril a matter of purely domestic interest. The Rev. Owen tch Y li.guNick s The Founding of Cuddesdon is in fact a contribution 7e- 1;'1. Primary importance to the history of the English Church in the 'nineteenth century. The short Epilogue (1873-1954) is, admittedly, „,1- interest chiefly to Cuddesdon men. But the main narrative, bril-
nt written, and spiced with a dry academic wit, brings into ? ,
C. in focus the problems that confronted the Catholic revival 3V1 Ili the Church of England in the critical decades 1854-73. The 'ch `4r(onatis persono include Wilberforce, Liddon, Bur on, King, as nd ‘,,c Anglican as the less familiar Pott and Swinny and such celebrated ar "nglican eccentrics as Golightly and F. G. Lee. The drama has a Etre ug clerical interest—indeed, it may be said that seldom can so di- lily clergymen have behaved so well in such trying circumstances rn- the unfolding of it is so poignant and so edifying that The
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