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424 MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
king usually got the man he asked for, and always one he could
accept, while the pope in return was left unhindered in his
other
spheres of provision and dispensation. The system was
not ideal; but it is hard to see that, given the mental and
spiritual climate ofRome and England in the fifteenth century,
any other method would have greatly
altered the character of
the
episcopate. There were no distinguished apostolic priests,
no saints or
theologians among the monks and friars who
could have dominated the religious scene and ousted the civil
servants.
The great and unpredictable advance in centralization, rex
fleeted in taxes and provision, had serious repercussions upon
English sentiment. The extent and precise character of anti^
papal feeling in the country will probably always remain a
debatable and debated question, it though would add greatly
to the clarity of discussions if care were taken to distinguish
between a recognition of the paramount spiritual authority of
the papacy which, despite the views of conciliarists, was never
questioned in practice, save by Wyclif and the Lollards, be'
fore the sixteenth century, and the acceptance of new and
questionable administrative principles and practices which,
though deriving from spiritual claims, were neither essential nor
irreversible consequences of them. Somewhat paradoxically,
it was while papal claims were still moderate, and while the
monarch, the long-lived Henry III, was most complaisant,
that the spirituality of the realm, symbolized by Grosseteste
and Matthew Paris, were most vocal in their protests. When,
in the age ofthe two first Edwards, the king and the magnates,
apprehensive of a loss of rights and wealth, revived in a more
modern form the theories of patronage and regalian rights
echoes ofthe proprietary regime, which had national and anti-
clerical undertones the bishops and regulars were less en-
thusiastic and the measures taken against the papal prerogative
did not have their official
approval. The king, with the support
of Parliament, secured
legislation in 1307 and again in
1351 (Statute of Provisors) against the implementing of re
scripts of provision, and in the Statute of Praemunire (1353,