Archbishop of Reims

“ The archbishops formerly held many Councils and Synods there, but lived there only rarely. In the Middle Ages they preferred living in their fortified castle of Porte Mars (see p. 6) . In the 17th and 18th centuries they lived mostly outside Rheims.
After visiting the ruins of the Archbishop's Palace return to the Place du Parvis. Take the Rue Libergier, opposite the Cathedral, turning into the first street on the right (Rue Chanzy) . The Museum is soon reached (see Itinerary, p. 61) . ”

“ In every gathering of the Church and of the people, in every synod, in every gemót, the Archbishop of Canterbury held a place which had no equal or second, a place which was shared by no other bishop or earl or ætheling. If we reckon the King as the head of the assembly, the Archbishop is its first member. If we reckon the King as a power outside the assembly, the Archbishop is himself its head. His leadership of the nation. He is the personal counsellor of the King, the personal leader of the nation, in a way in which no other man in the realm could be said to be. ”

“ Transferred to Paris as almoner of the college of Henry IV., and honorary canon of Notre Dame, he became the close friend of Archbishop Affre and of his successor Archbishop Sibour. He was appointed bishop of Nancy in 1859, and in January 1863 was raised to the archbishopric of Paris. The archbishop was a strenuous upholder of episcopal independence in the Gallican sense, and involved himself in a controversy with Rome by his endeavours to suppress the jurisdiction of the Jesuits and other religious orders within his diocese. ”

“ This grievous error, which has the necessary effect of repelling and ultimately offending and alienating the whole body of the inferior clergy, a body who constitute the active strength of the Establishment, we must hope to see henceforth totally changed. In the higher view of the case, an Archbishop of Canterbury possesses every advantage for giving an honourable and meritorious popularity to the Church. ”

“ The clergyman, as soon as he is appointed, comes into possession of it in his own right; and he is not appointed by the people, but by some nobleman or high officer of state, who has inherited the right to appoint the clergyman of that particular parish. There are bishops, also, who have very large revenues, likewise independent; and over these bishops is one great dignitary, who presides in lofty state over the whole system. This officer is called the Archbishop of Canterbury. There is one other archbishop, called the Archbishop of York; but his realm is much more limited and less important. ”

“ The Archbishop, “who was present at all the sermons, and who for the first time since the violences of which he had been the victim after the Revolution of July, found himself in the presence of the crowd, was transported by a success which avenged him so nobly by associating him with the popularity of this new-born glory. One day, rising from his archiepiscopal throne before that immense audience, he bestowed on his young disciple the title of the new prophet.” ”

“ In that country, however, no one who is a bishop or abbot has even a semblance of temporal dominion, or possesses castles or musicians or bands of retainers, nor does any of them coin his own money, excepting only the Archbishop of Canterbury, as a mark of dignity and honour, which has been conferred on him on account of the death of Saint Thomas; he is, however, never concerned in matters of war, but is occupied only in the care of the churches. ”

“ An archbishop must first and foremost be a discreet and guarded man, expressing few opinions, and those not extreme ones. His chief virtue came to be, if not the purely negative one of offending no section by expressing the distinctive views of any other, yet that of swerving so little from the via media between Rome and Geneva that neither the Tractarian party, who began to be feared after 1837, nor the pronounced Low Churchmen could claim the Primate as disposed to favour their opinions. ”

“ He waxed bolder, and wrote to the archbishop a powerful paper, in reply to his excommunication, showing up the follies and falsehoods of the Romish Church.
It is worthy of being scattered over our own land. It professes to give a conversation between Paul and the archbishop. The former visits the cathedral, witnesses the performances, condemns the heathen idolatries, and learns, to his surprise, that he is finding fault with what some assert to be the most ancient Christian ordinances. ”

“ The archbishops in England have from time to time exercised a visitatorial power over their suffragans, in use till the time of Archbishop Laud. The archbishops of Ireland have immemorially visited their suffragans triennially: the Episcopal Visitation being there annual. (See Stephens’ Edition of the Book of Common Prayer, with notes, vol. i. pp. 26–30.)
Some learned men are of opinion, that an archbishop is a dignity as ancient as the apostles’ time, for there were primi episcopi then, though the name of archbishop was not known until some ages afterwards ”

“ It is an emotion, a mere spasm, whereas cheerfulness is a habit of mind, a whole philosophy of life. But the one quality does not necessarily exclude the other, and an occasional burst of sheer irresponsible merriment is good for anybody—even for an Archbishop—especially for an Archbishop. The trouble with an Archbishop is that his office tends to make him take himself too seriously. He forgets that he is one of us, and that is bad for him. He needs to give himself a violent reminder occasionally that his virtue is not an alien thing; but is rooted in very ordinary humanity. ”

“ The Bishop of Chartres, in a pastoral letter, attacks a late circular of the Archbishop of Paris, recommending the clergy to abstain from politics, and to yield obedience to the laws of their country. The bishop considers that when destructive principles are advanced, the clergy should be found ready to oppose their progress ”

“ Every other cathedral in France is a splendid chronicle, a record of changing times, changing endeavours, changing impulses. Men of varying personalities have wrought out their ideals, year after year, and the result is in each case a great sequence, a glorious approximation. Reims was begun in 1211, on the first anniversary of the burning of its predecessor, and it was finished, manifestly in accordance with an original and predetermined design, within fifty years. ”

“ The holy bishop Remi was a man of excellent wisdom and especially trained in rhetorical studies, and of such surpassing holiness that he equalled the miracles of Silvester. For there is extant a book of his life which tells that he raised a dead man. And so the king confessed all-powerful God in the Trinity, and was baptized in the name of the Father, Son and holy Spirit, and was anointed with the holy ointment with the sign of the cross of Christ. And of his army more than 3000 were baptized. ”

“ How can he, a man of learning, a priest, advanced in years, on the brink of eternity, prefer to put himself under the pastoral crook and the jurisdiction of the Jansenist Archbishop of Utrecht, or of a schismatic Armenian bishop, and fraternize with the Anglican bishops of Lincoln, Ely, and Maryland, [pg 494] rather than remain an humble priest, but proud of that Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church whose admirable unity bursts forth in the midst of the vast persecution which is being begun and prepared for her, and of which the Provost of Munich consents to be the guilty instrument? ”

“ The main body of the clergy are good, holy men. The Archbishop is a man who would be an honor to any church in any country. He is a man of eminent learning and great sanctity. He is one of the kindest and most charitable men I ever met. ”

“ A man of large views and an all-round lover of such freedom as American citizenship carries, the Archbishop stands in the United States for all the causes and ideals that elevate a nation. His Grace has always taken a firm stand as an advocate of total abstinence. ”

“ But daily we hear of the demands of the clergy, made in the interests of their church. Since the last Œcumenical Council has proclaimed the new dogma of Papal infallibility, the bishops want to discharge all teachers and professors, both at the theological seminaries and universities, who are unwilling to subscribe to this new tenet of the Roman Church. The Archbishop of Gnesen and Posen even asked for the names of all those men who at the last election of members for the German Parliament did not vote for those men he had proposed as candidates. ”

“ He had been elected Archbishop by desire of the King and against the feeling of the Priory, and they thought he should, in consequence, have been [Pg 56] more complaisant to Royal demands. They were not a little jealous of the man set to rule over them, and moreover, could not at once perceive the martyr and the saint in the dignitary thus at last struck down in that long struggle. They were horror-stricken at the sacrilege of it, but did not burst into grief and lamentations for the individual until that happened which put a very different complexion upon the dead Archbishop's character. ”

“ These things are of the simplest facility to any man whose heart is in the right place; and if, instead of locking himself up with two or three dreary effigies of man, in the shape of chaplains, and freezing all the soul within him by a rigid and repulsive routine, he shall “do as he would be done unto” if he had remained a country curate, an Archbishop of Canterbury might be the most beloved, popular, and for all the best purposes, the most influential man in the kingdom. ”

“ But, on whatever principle chosen, the bishop, once duly consecrated and enthroned, was a formidable person, and surrounded by a dignity scarcely less than royal. "Nobody likes our bishop," says Parson Lingon in Felix Holt. "He's all Greek and greediness, and too proud to dine with his own father." People still living can remember the days when the Archbishop of Canterbury was preceded by servants bearing flambeaux when he walked across from Lambeth Chapel to what were called "Mrs. Howley's Lodgings." ”

“ It is a period in which everything is upside down and wrong end to. In that strange age we find a famous archbishop, one of the world's noblest orators, a man of the most spotless integrity and the most saintly life, publicly preaching in the foremost pulpit of Christendom doctrines of property, the implications of which, the most hardened criminal would scarcely venture to breathe to a gang of thieves. ”

“ The number of the bishoprics was to be increased to fifteen; they were to be freed from all foreign control, and to be organised under three archbishoprics—Mechlin, Cambray, and Utrecht, of which Mechlin, with Granvelle as its archbishop, was to enjoy the primacy; the requisite revenues were to be supplied from the abbey lands within each diocese, and the abbeys to be placed under priors dependent on the bishops: each bishop was to appoint nine additional prebendaries, two of whom were to be Inquisitors and to assist him in the work of rooting out heresy. ”

“ Remi.
The Consecration of the Kings of France
In the 12th century, Popes and Kings formally acknowledged the right of the Archbishop of Rheims to consecrate and crown the kings of France. As a matter of fact, until the Revolution, all the kings, except Louis IV. and Henri IV., were consecrated at Rheims.
The ceremony of consecration filled the Cathedral with a great crowd of people. Apart from the peers, numerous prelates, dignitaries of the Kingdom, the Court, the Chapter of the Cathedral and the populace crowded in. Staging was erected for the public in the transept ends and along the choir. ”

“ A bishop is himself subject to authority. His immediate superior is the archbishop. An archbishop has a sphere of immediate jurisdiction, like any other bishop, but he also rules a number of subject bishops. Of these there must be at least three; but an archbishop is not permitted to have more than twenty subject bishops—an important point, as we shall see. Above the archbishop is the primate. It is the special privilege of the primate to ordain and crown the king. ”

“ The Englishman thinks he degrades himself when he kisses the pope’s toe; the Greek licks the very dust on which the archbishop walks. I say nothing of the archbishop’s privilege of signing his name with red ink, and of wearing the purple, so often mentioned by other travellers; or of his having two janissaries at his gate, which latter distinction is a concession made to him by the Turkish government, as head of the only recognized Christian church. Eastern enjoyment, or a priest’s idleness, was exemplified in the mode in which the archbishop washed his hands after dinner. ”

“ An ecclesiastical procession has met him at the door of the Cathedral of Rheims, and the archbishop, in albe, cope, and mitre, is sprinkling him with holy water; the clerk bearing the holy-water pot, and the cross-bearer, and the thurifer swinging his censer, are immediately behind him. Then come a group of canons. One is clearly shown, and easily recognized by the peculiar horned hood with its fringe of “clocks.” ”

“ Not content with his residence at Châtillon, he repaired to Bologna in Italy, where he studied the civil and canon law. On his return to France he became the secretary of two successive Archbishops of Rheims, the latter of whom, by the name of William,—a descendant by his grandmother from William the Conqueror,—occupied this place of power from 1176 to 1201. The secretary enjoyed the favor of the Archbishop, who seems to have been fond of letters. It was during this period that he composed, or at least finished, his poem. ”