Welsh Journals

A QUESTION OF MONASTIC INDEPENDENCE: CALDEY ISLAND'S STATUS AS AN ECCLESIASTICAL PECULIAR IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY Rene Kollar Problems arising from ecclesiastical jurisdictional disputes have played an important part in the development of Christian theology. These issues, at times disruptive, usually revolved around privileges, notions of freedom, or claims of independence. British history can offer numerous examples of conflicts between the throne and church. Within ecclesiastical circles, however, the debates associated with the question of jurisdiction have also proved contentious. The relationship between religious orders or individual monasteries and the local bishop, for example, frequently became a heated and emotional subject. What rights did the bishop exercise over a religious house in his diocese? Could he interfere in the routine or daily life of a monastery? Was the monastery, by custom or tradition, free or exempt from episcopal oversight? Throughout the twentieth century, the Roman Catholic Church addressed the relationship between religious orders and the local bishop. "There are a few privileges enjoyed by certain exempt orders," a recent article in an American journal, The Jurist, pointed out, "but otherwise the concept itself is obsolete in today's canonical system." The Anglican Church also had to define the relationship between religious orders, which began to emerge during the late nineteenth century, and its bishops. And problems of jurisdiction could not be avoided. Abbot Aelred Carlyle desired to re-establish Benedictine monasticism within the Anglican Church, and he claimed that his abbey on Caldey Island enjoyed the rights and privileges of a monastic peculiar. Consequently he argued that his brotherhood was exempt from the supervision and jurisdiction of the local bishop.