The privilege Caritatis Bonum (JL 6831), addressed to Archbishop Tliurstan of York and his successors, was issued on 11 March 1120. By this privilege, Pope Calixtus 11 forbade the archbishops of Canterbury to demand a profession of obedience from the archbishops of York and the archbishops ol York to make any such profession. The object ol this paper is to consider the importance of the privilege and to examine (and reject) suggestions that the known text was forged or interpolated; in the course of this examination we shall consider an abbreviated text in a Rouen manuscript, which has been treated as a separate document of an earlier date. We shall also consider the brief account given twice over by Hugh the Chantor in slightly different terms, of the scene at the papal court when the privilege was brought before the pope for subscription, both because such accounts are rare, and because this account throws some light on the curious fact that one of the cardinals who subscribed was not at the curia at the appropriate time. No attempt will be made to tell yet again the story of the conflict between the two English archbishops, but it will be necessary to examine in detail some of the evidence relating to events in the winter of 1119-20. Some small amount of repetition has been unavoidable, as different aspects of the matter are considered in turn.

The text with which this study is concerned is not the text of the canons of the council of Westminster of 1175. It is the text printed long ago by Wilkins from the single manuscript source, Cotton Claudius A IV folios 191v–92, where it has the heading Concilium Ricardi Cantuariensis archiepiscopi. Wilkins gave it the heading Canones condlii . . . and assigned it to 1173, an impossible date, since Richard was not then archbishop. This part of Claudius A IV is a decretal collection, put together from various sources not before, and probably not long after, 1185. Our text, copied as one item in the collection, consists of thirty-seven imperative propositions, all quite short and almost all negative; they all condemn something or forbid something: ‘Christians shall not be usurers’, ‘Lepers shall not in future live among the healthy’, and so on. There is little sign of any attempt at arrangement; related topics may appear more or less widely separated.