probably just, as Rokesbeare seems to have had impudence enough for anything. He made an appeal to the Primate's Court. The grounds of the appeal were that he had not been admonished or cited to appear before the Bishop before excommunication; but, as it were, had been excommunicated straight off. The sentence had fallen upon him like a bolt from the blue. The Court of Arches, representing the Archbishop, ordered Ralph either to do justice to Rokesbeare, or to appear before the Primate within a mentioned time. We do not know the precise result of this order. The bishops had permanent counsel to represent them in the Court of Arches, and by that means Ralph may have been able to satisfy the Court, or he may have been ordered to issue a fresh excommunication in due form. This appeal to the Court of Canterbury in any case meant delay, and made it impossible for Ralph to take practical steps to enforce obedience. In the meantime, Rokespeare ridiculed the excommunication, laughed at his Bishop, and continued to officiate in his church. From what transpired afterwards, he appears to have had the support of his congregation. The mediaval churchman could not, as a rule, count love of the bishops among his virtues.

Bishop Ralph felt at last, and probably after expensive litigation, in a position to act decisively. He was determined to bring Rokesbeare to book. He wrote a letter to the Rural Dean of Taunton, in which deanery Kingston was and is. The letter contained definite instructions. The Dean was to sequestrate the benefice, turn Rokesbeare out of his vicarage, and get rid of him. He was also to go to Kingston Church and there, in the presence of the congregation, excommunicate the Vicar. The day of public excommunication arrived. All was to be done with the utmost regard to form. The Rural Dean accordingly rode over to Kingston accompanied by a notary and others. The party entered the church. They may have been surprised to find about two hundred people present. They certainly did not realise that among them were many stout partisans ready to defend their Vicar. No resistance seems to have been made to the delivery of the excommunication. Rokesbeare was present and had to listen to the pungent words of the

sentence. Also there was a warning to the parishioners. They were henceforward to pay Rokesbeare neither tithes nor offerings. The culprit, however, treated the sentence with the utmost derision. He scoffed and jeered. It was now his turn to win a temporary triumph. The Rural Dean and his friends were congratulating themselves that they had got to the end of an unpleasant business and were proceeding to leave the church, when they were forcibly prevented, and had no means to resist. Rokesbeare intended to show them that, in his view and that of his friends, the excommunication was merely a solemn farce, and that he meant to minister in his church as usual. He put on his vestments and proceeded to celebrate Mass: and to his performance of this service the Rural Dean and his followers were compelled to listen. Nor was that all. The Vicar also administered the Eucharist to those parishioners who presented themselves. Not until this rite was ended, could the prisoners depart.

If Rokesbeare really supposed that he would ultimately triumph through such conduct, he was certainly mistaken. The Bishop issued instructions that the sentence of excommunication should again be read in Kingston Church. It was also to be read in the neighbouring churches, and pronounced during the celebration of Mass, the time when the attendance would be the largest. No one was to pay Rokesbeare his customary dues. No Catholic was to have anything to do with him. He was a renegade priest who had despised the authority of the Keys. A citation would soon reach him. He would have to appear before the Bishop, where perhaps he would be able to show why he should not be dealt with according to law. Whether Rokesbeare faced that ordeal or not we do not know. If he did so, it was only to be told that he must be confined within the Bishop's prison at Wells. If not, then he was probably arrested by the Bishop's officers, taken to Wells and there confined. It must have been after his release from prison, where he was not likely to have found writing materials or means of communication with the outer world, that he again appealed to the Court of Arches. He had a long tale to tell of robbery and wrongful imprisonment. The Court, as before, ordered that full justice should be done Vol. 251.-No. 497.

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to him. This order meant in the end long and expensive litigation between the Bishop and Rokesbeare, in which the Bishop's view prevailed. Rokesbeare was ordered to pay the large sum of two hundred pounds, equal probably to about six thousand pounds of our present currency. Such was the end of a long-drawn quarrel. It was enough, perhaps, to make Bishop Ralph regret that he had expended so much money at the Roman Court to procure his appointment to the See. As for Rokesbeare, after those ten years of turmoil he vanishes from history.

Haselborough, in the reign of Henry I, was noted as the residence of Wulfric, described by an historian as 'a celebrated saint, hermit and prophet.' Among those who thus sought his aid were Henry I and Stephen. To the former he predicted his death; to the latter his accession to the throne. Haselborough is also associated with the extraordinary case of Sir Alan de Ploknet, whose father had supported the cause of Henry III against Simon de Montfort. The King deprived William Marshall, as a partisan of Montfort and a rebel against himself, of the manor of Haselborough; and, as a reward for his services, bestowed it on Ploknet, whose son Alan eventually succeeded him and was knighted by Edward I. When the young man's mother died, it was found that she had directed by her will that she should be buried in Sherborne Minster. Sir Alan, however, failed to carry out the request; and we are told that he buried her 'in a more humble spot,' almost certainly in Haselborough Church. As his court dealt with the probate of wills, it is not surprising that Sir Alan's sin of omission came to the notice of Drokensford, then the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who at once instructed the Rural Dean of Crewkerne to bear a letter to the knight, in which he was rebuked and commanded to bury his mother in accordance with her last wishes. The Rural Dean was duly received by Sir Alan, who read the missive, and was goaded almost to madness by the peremptory command. In a fury, he seized the Rural Dean by the throat and left the reverend gentleman, to say the least of it, sorely ruffled and not even then at the end of his troubles. For armed retainers of the knight were in the room, and at his command, they fell upon the priest and beat

him unmercifully. He was then compelled to swallow the Bishop's letter and the wax with which it was sealed.

When the Bishop heard of the gross outrage committed on the person of his official messenger, he at once issued the greater excommunication. The effect was to rouse Sir Alan to even greater madness. Bent on spiting the Bishop, he not only failed to carry out his instructions, but actually removed from the grave and desecrated, by disembowelling, the body of his own mother. The Bishop therefore issued a second excommunication, and ordered him to appear at Wells before his Consistory Court there. Sir Alan by this time realised that he had gone far enough, and that unless he could appease the Bishop, he would incur the usual fate of an excommunicate. He therefore journeyed to Wells at the appointed time, and proceeded, so far as possible, to justify his conduct. In doing so, he added falsehood to his other serious offences. He had not believed, he declared, that the messenger really came from the Bishop. For that reason, he had had him beaten by his servants. He admitted that he had used threatening language. He had not, however, forced the Rural Dean to swallow the letter and the seal. This he had done in a panic, of his own accord. It will scarcely be believed that, in spite of all that, Sir Alan obtained absolution and was free of the excommunications, 'on condition of compensation,' which makes it appear that it was owing to his powerful position that he escaped the heavy penalties which should have been his punishment.

These instances show that under the system which they illustrate, justice was often not done. Offences against the privileges of the Church were treated with far greater severity than were gross breaches of the moral law. Yet, were a man rich and powerful enough, he might escape punishment, though he was not always able to do so. At its best, the ecclesiastical judicial system was 'a kind of wild justice'; at its worst, it was an instrument of terror and oppression. There can be no doubt that the penalty of excommunication, as practised in the Middle Ages, was resented by the people, and was one of the causes of the Reformation, for it tended to dissolve and deface the laws of charity and human society.' H. P. PALMER.

Art. 9.-THE RUSSIAN ICON.

1. The Russian Icon. By N. P. Kondakov. Translated by Ellis H. Minns. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927. 2. History of Russian Art. By Igor Grabar. Vol. VI. The Epoch before Peter. In Russian. Moscow:

Knebel.

3. Art Treasures in Soviet Russia. By Sir Martin Conway. Methuen, 1925.

4. Russian Sketches: The Sealed Angel. By Leescov. Translated by the Hon. Mrs Lionel Tollemache. Smith, Elder, 1913.

AN art which has behind it a continuous if changing tradition of eight centuries; an art which for all that time has been endeavouring to satisfy a definite public demand, not for art but for sound workmanship; an art which could only be shown while working under the strictest limitations, such is the art of the Russian Icon. It is, as all art should be, a by-product: not all Russian icons are beautiful or works of art their aim is to convey a recognisable representation and symbol of the person or event they commemorate. If, and when, the painter is competent, in such measure as his satisfaction with and pleasure in his work grows, the touch of art is seen upon it; not gained by taking thought for it, but by concentration on the task in hand.

The term 'Icon' means an image, and in its largest sense includes wall-paintings and metallic representations, great or small; but in its more usual sense it is used for painting on a wooden panel of a religious subject. The size of the ordinary icon has become more or less uniform for centuries; larger devotional icons are used for the iconostases, or altar-screens of the churches. The use of icons was introduced into Russia with Christianity by Vladimir on his marriage with Anna, daughter of the Emperor of Byzantium, at the end of the tenth century. Kiev in the South West, Novgorod in the North, were the two great civic centres of the early Russian power, and it was in these towns that religious painting first developed in the form of wall-painting fresco. Movable paintings seem to have been at first imported from Byzantium through the