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EPG

LEADERSHIP,
INSTITUTIONS &
ENFORCEMENT
Anti-Corruption Agencies
in Serbia, Croatia and Macedonia
SLOBODAN TOMIĆ
 Executive Politics and Governance

Series Editors
Martin Lodge
London School of Economics and Political Science
London, UK

Kai Wegrich
Hertie School of Governance
Berlin, Germany
The Executive Politics and Governance series focuses on central govern-
ment, its organisation and its instruments. It is particularly concerned with
how the changing conditions of contemporary governing affect perennial
questions in political science and public administration. Executive Politics
and Governance is therefore centrally interested in questions such as how
politics interacts with bureaucracies, how issues rise and fall on political
agendas, and how public organisations and services are designed and oper-
ated. This book series encourages a closer engagement with the role of
politics in shaping executive structures, and how administration shapes
politics and policy-making. In addition, this series also wishes to engage
with the scholarship that focuses on the organisational aspects of politics,
such as government formation and legislative institutions. The series wel-
comes high quality research-led monographs with comparative appeal.
Edited volumes that provide in-depth analysis and critical insights into the
field of Executive Politics and Governance are also encouraged. Editorial
Board Philippe Bezes, CNRS-CERSA, Paris, France; Jennifer N. Brass,
Indiana University Bloomington, USA; Sharon Gilad, Hebrew University
Jerusalem, Israel; Will Jennings, University of Southampton, UK; David
E. Lewis, Vanderbilt University, USA; Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling,
University of Nottingham, UK; Salvador Parrado, UNED, Madrid, Spain;
Nick Sitter, Central European University, Hungary; Kutsal Yesilkagit,
University of Utrecht, the Netherlands

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14980
 Slobodan Tomić

Leadership,
Institutions and
Enforcement
Anti-Corruption Agencies in Serbia, Croatia and
Macedonia
Slobodan Tomić
University College Dublin
Dublin, Ireland

Executive Politics and Governance

ISBN 978-3-319-97582-5    ISBN 978-3-319-97583-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97583-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018954828

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To my father Stevo, who rests in peace.
 Acknowledgments

This book builds on my doctoral thesis, defended in 2016 at the London

School of Economics and Political Science (LSE, Department of
Government). I am grateful to my PhD mentor, Dr. Martin Lodge (LSE),
and my PhD advisor, Dr. Christel Koop (King’s College London), for
their insightful guidance and support. Working with Martin and Christel
was a true privilege and the value of their mentorship extends far beyond
the doctoral research.
I would also like to thank my thesis examiners, Dr. Jan Meyer-Sahling
(University of Nottingham) and Dr. Colin Provost (UCL), for their time
and effort. Their feedback has been valuable for my recent revision of the
thesis while writing this book.
I am grateful to the interviewees – from the observed anticorruption
agencies, local NGOs, research and journalist communities, and interna-
tional organisations – for their time and good will to talk about topics
related to this research. The fieldworks in Zagreb, Belgrade and Skopje
were truly exciting experiences and good learning opportunities.
My thanks also go to the fellows from the 4.1 room in the LSE
Department of Government – Marta Wojciechowska, Robert van Geffen,
Ellie Knot, Kenneth Bunker, Gisela Calderon-Gongora, Ed Poole, Pon
Souvannaseng, Randi Solhjell and many others. We shared the suffering
and joy of PhD studies, including that weird experience of staring at a note
stuck on the glassdoor of our PhD room reading: “Don’t Feed the
Animals!”.

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My friends Daniel Wang, Stefan Paduraru and Uglješa Grušić were a

great company and source of support during those several years of research,
at LSE and beyond. In the later stages of the research, I had the privilege
of meeting Branislav Radeljić, Marko Milanović and Marija Zurnić – peo-
ple whose wit and advise made my life during the notorious ‘PhD end
game’ as bearable as possible. I am also grateful to Marko Vojinović, Milan
Dinić, Ognjen Dragičević, Aleksandar Jovančić and Mile Prodanović, for
their help and assistance prior to and during the doctoral studies. Before
this research commenced, Professor Dušan Pavlović, from the University
of Belgrade, had nudged me towards studying institutionalism and helped
my efforts to come to, and stay at, LSE, for which I will always be grateful
to him.
Special thanks go to my friend Raša Cerović, a remarkable person that
one can rely on during the most difficult times. A great connoisseur of
sports, Raša was a perfect company during the doctoral studies to rest my
head listening about sports of all kinds. Raša particularly made my days
during the 2012 London Olympics, with his meticulous commentary on
swimming, handball, basketball, and field hockey. It is a great pity that
Raša is not a Partizan fan.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my wife Ivana and her family
for their encouragement. My mother Živojka deserves admiration for the
sacrifices she has made during all those years since my departure from
Belgrade. Sadly, I cannot hand over a copy of this book to my father Stevo,
as he has not lived long enough to see this book in print. Yet, I am partly
consoled by the fact that he was truly exhilarated to see the doctoral thesis
defended.
As a final note, one part of the analysis presented in this book was used
for an article titled ‘Legal independence vs. leaders’ reputation: Exploring
drivers of ethics commissions’ conduct in new democracies’, which is pub-
lished in the journal Public Administration (DOI: https://doi.
org/10.1111/padm.12411).

Dublin
November 2018
 Contents

Part I   1

1 Introduction  3

2 Theory and Methods 27

Part II Empirical Cases  53

3 Serbia (Case Study 1): Anticorruption Council (Council) 57

4 Serbia (Case Studies 2 and 3): The Republican Committee

for Resolution of Conflict of Interest (Committee), and the
Anticorruption Agency (Agency) 85

5 Macedonia (Case Study 4): State Commission for

Prevention of Corruption (SCPC)121

6 Croatia (Case Study 5): Bureau for the Suppression of

Organised Crime and Corruption (USKOK)155

ix
x Contents

Part III Comparative Analysis and Conclusions 183

7 Comparative Analysis185

8 Conclusion199

Appendix A213

Appendix B227

Appendix C235

Index237
Fig. 1 Southeast Europe region: (also called Western Balkans). The map is taken
from the website of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
(http://www.icty.org/en/about/what-former-yugoslavia).

xi
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 The four enforcement styles of ACAs – a 2 × 2 grid based on

the dimensions of ‘zealotry’ and ‘stringency’ 40
Fig. 3.1 Annual budgets of the Council (2001–2012), in EUR. (Source:
Annual Reports of the Council (2001–2012) and the Ministry
of Finance (www.mfin.gov.rs))60
Fig. 3.2 Rhetorical patterns of the Council (2002–2012) 73
Fig. 4.1 Annual budgets of the Committee (in EUR). (Source: Annual
Reports (2005–2009)) 90
Fig. 4.2 Rhetorical patterns of the Committee (2005–2009) 98
Fig. 4.3 Annual budgets of the Agency (2010–2013), in EUR. (Source:
Annual Reports (2010–2013)) 105
Fig. 4.4 Rhetorical patterns of the Agency (both the Director and Board
included) (2010–2012) 112
Fig. 4.5 Rhetorical patterns of the Board (left) and Agency Director
(right)113
Fig. 5.1 SCPC budgets between 2003 and 2012. (Source: The website
of SCPC (www.mksk.org.mk))127
Fig. 5.2 Rhetorical patterns of SCPC (the thinner lines represent the
shifts from the first to the second board and from the second to
the third board, i.e. the shifts from year 2006 to 2007, and
from year 2011 to 2012) 143
Fig. 6.1 USKOK budgets, in € millions (2001–2012). (Source: Ministry
of Finance of the Republic of Croatia, annual budgets) 167
Fig. 6.2 Rhetorical patterns of USKOK (the dashed lines represent the
time of the main leadership change – the arrival of Mr. Cvitan as
new USKOK Director, in 2005) 176

xiii
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 Constellation of the variables across the five ACAs 42

Table 3.1 The enforcement style in the Council’s investigations
(2003–2012)71
Table 4.1 The enforcement styles in the Committee’s investigations
(2005–2009)94
Table 4.2 The enforcement style in the Agency’s investigations
(2010–2012)111
Table 5.1 The enforcement style in SCPC’s investigations (2003–2012) 141
Table 6.1 Legislation relevant for USKOK’s work 159
Table 6.2 Overview of the evolution of USKOK’s powers (2002–2013) 164
Table 6.3 The enforcement style in USKOK’s investigations (2002–2012) 174
Table 7.1 Comparative review of the findings from Chaps. 3, 4, 5 and 6186
Table 7.2 A comparative review of the average number of ACAs’
statements per month (standard deviation stated in brackets,
for monthly aggregates) 188

xv
PART I
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Topic and Main Arguments

This book investigates the impact of organisational factors and leadership
on the enforcement patterns of five anticorruption agencies (ACAs) from
three Southeast European countries – Serbia, Croatia and Macedonia.1
The analysis covers the first decade of their transition reforms (from 2001
to 2012), which unfolded under EU oversight.
ACAs play an important role in advancing horizontal accountability
(Schedler 1999), but they often struggle to sustain autonomous conduct
because it contravenes office-holders’ interests. This is particularly prob-
lematic in the new, post-communist European democracies, where the
widespread patronage and informal networks (Mungiu-Pippidi 2005;
Volintiru 2015) give politicians strong clout over the civil service. One key
concern in such settings therefore is how to empower ACAs, as well as
other oversight bodies, for autonomous conduct.
The recipe that international donors and reform assisters across the
post-communist world promoted was the conventional one: to grant the
newly created ACAs structural insulation from government. The lesser the
statutory power of a government to shape an agency’s personnel, budget

1
The official country name in the observed period was Former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia (FYRM), but for the purposes of brevity the name Macedonia is used. This shall
not imply any position as regards the dispute between FYRM and Greece regarding the name
of the Greece’s northern region of Macedonia.

© The Author(s) 2019 3

S. Tomić, Leadership, Institutions and Enforcement, Executive
Politics and Governance,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97583-2_1
4 S. TOMIĆ

and policy, the less reluctant will the agency be to confront the govern-
ment, the thinking goes. Post-communist democracies have widely
embraced this maxim, placing their newly created ACAs outside the gov-
ernmental hierarchy.
The logic of structural insulation has its roots in neo-institutional theory
and the principal-agent framework (Williamson 1975; Jensen and Meckling
1976; Moe 1984, 1990; Shepsle and Weingast 1987; McCubbins et al.
1987; Horn 1995). This paradigm stresses the hierarchical nature of the
relationship between politicians and bureaucratic appointees. Its key con-
cern is how a political principal will counter a bureaucratic agent’s ‘drift’
from the preferred course of action during the implementation of the dele-
gated policy. Principals control their agents through statutory means, includ-
ing ex-ante instruments such as budgeting, nomination, and appointment
powers, and as ex-post instruments such as removal of agency staff, review
of agent’s reports, and others (McCubbins and Schwartz 1984; McCubbins
1985; McCubbins et al. 1987, 1989; Balla 1998). Thus, an agent’s auton-
omy is seen as inversely proportional to the principal’s statutory powers.
This book, however, argues that in transitional settings, structural insu-
lation from government will hardly determine agencies’ de facto auton-
omy. The book makes two points in this regard. First, even when lacking
a ‘safe structural distance’ from the political principal, agencies might
achieve autonomy through their leaders’ reputational management. As the
reputational school argues (Carpenter 2001, 2014; Maor 2014; Waeraas
and Maor 2014; Busuioc and Lodge 2016, 2017), crafty reputational
management that enhances an agency’s legitimacy can help pre-empt gov-
ernmental statutory reprisals. In transitional democracies, possibilities for
anticorruption actors to exploit reputational symbols are significant, both
among domestic audiences and international overseers. For instance, anti-
corruption actors can cultivate support by pursuing combative appear-
ances, which will likely resonate with the electorate, due to the strong
resentment towards corruption. Also, foreign overseers, who often value
combative watchdogs as domestic agents of change, can draw on the con-
ditionality power to pre-empt governmental intervention against such
watchdogs. Therefore, the presence of these two contextual factors in
transitional countries – strong resentment towards corruption and the
presence of foreign ‘watchers’ – provides a conducive environment for
ACAs to conduct ‘reputational politics’ and thus achieve levels of de facto
autonomy than are greater than the insulation theory predicts.
The second point made here in challenging the ‘structural paradigm’
is that those agency leaders that enjoy organisational insulation from
 INTRODUCTION 5

government are nonetheless unprotected from non-institutional pres-

sures. In the East-European post-communist landscape, opportunities
for ­non-­institutional pressure are rife, given the strong role of informal
networks (Böröcz 2000; Grzymala-Busse 2010; Giordano and Hayoz
2013; Volintiru 2015; Mendelski 2015). The result of interventions into
agencies’ enforcement choices, which politicians make through these
channels is – reduced agencies’ de facto autonomy.
The book will show that neither low structural insulation from govern-
ment necessarily prevents high de facto autonomy of agencies, nor is high
organisational distance from government a sufficient factor for autono-
mous agency conduct. Instead of organisational distance, the book will
show that it is the role of agency leaders, particularly their reputational
management, that crucially shapes the de facto autonomy of ACAs.
The fact that the book demonstrates a weakness in the insulation thesis
does not mean that it dismisses the importance of institutional design. The
study will show that another aspect of agency design – the organisational
model – is an important factor that influences how agency leaders ponder
over their accountability, and, consequently, how they develop autonomy.
The book demonstrates that the organisational model shapes what reputa-
tional gains and losses an ACA will face when undertaking harsh enforce-
ment. The organisational model, which defines the formal ACA mission
and powers, shapes the audiences’ expectations on how responsible an
ACA is for the outcome of undertaken anticorruption actions.
The book will show that so called preventative ACAs – those that are in
charge of integrity tasks and that command non-prosecutorial powers
(Klemenčič and Stusek 2008; OECD 2013) – can undertake harsh forms of
enforcement even when their organisational factors such as structural insula-
tion, powers and resources, are weak. Preventative ACAs can enhance their
reputation regardless of whether their harsh enforcement actions accomplish
a successful outcome or not. For those actions that end as a policy success,
preventative ACAs can claim credit as the initiators, but also those actions that
end as a policy failure give preventative ACAs an opportunity to pin the blame
to the political and/or judicial establishment as the most responsible and
powerful actors in the field of anticorruption. Thus, in both scenarios – posi-
tive as well as negative epilogues of its initiatives – a preventative ACA can
reinforce its image of a zealous watchdog, without bearing the responsibility.
Unlike preventative ACAs, so called suppressive ACAs – those with
investigative mandates and prosecutorial powers (Klemenčič and Stusek
2008; OECD 2013) – need strong organisational factors to sustain a pat-
tern of harsh enforcement. Their suppressive mandate positions them as
6 S. TOMIĆ

the responsible actor for the policy outcomes, tying their reputation to the
success of their actions and to the wider state of corruption in the society.
Weak organisational factors, such as poor resources or weak powers within
the criminal procedure, will diminish their chances of a policy success, and
as such will deter their leaders from undertaking harsh enforcement,
because potential failures would increase the reputational cost. Suppressive
ACAs, the book argues, will therefore need strong organisational factors
to advance a pattern of harsh enforcement.
The findings about the role of structural insulation and organisational
model in fostering agency autonomy are relevant for re-thinking the pro-
cess of institution-building across transitional countries. So far, institution-­
building across transition countries has relied on the conventional recipe
of structural insulation, but the enforcement patterns of the established
regulators and watchdogs have not always lived up to the expectations of
autonomous conduct. The book’s findings suggest that, instead of trying
to ‘hardwire’ agency conduct through structural insulation, policy practi-
tioners need to prioritise recruiting ‘reputation-savvy’ leaders, with a view
of what reputational strategies are suitable for the given organisational
model.
These considerations are of no lesser relevance today than they were in
the early transitional days. In today’s era of democratic backsliding across
new democracies, both within the EU (Ágh 2013; Sedelmeier 2014;
Iusmen 2015) and outside the EU (Günay and Džihić 2016; Esen and
Gumuscu 2016), challenges to horizontal accountability abound. This
makes the question of how to foster autonomous conduct of public sector
‘watchers’ well-timed. In that regard, the findings that the book offers are
relevant for considerations of institutional re-design. As such, the book
might appeal to two groups of audiences: policy practitioners across tran-
sitional countries (international donors, reform assisters, domestic policy-­
makers) and delegation scholars.
It is worth underlining that although it explores the logic of ACAs’
enforcement, the book does not assess the state of corruption and how
successful ACAs have been. The reader will not find here discussion on
whether there is too much corruption, who is and why corrupt, or whether
the role of ACAs, as an institutional species, has been positive at all. There
is a vast literature which is better placed to offer answers to these questions
(Mauro 1995; Huther and Shah 2000; Schneider and Enste 2000; Shah
and Schacter 2004; Meagher 2005; de Sousa 2010; Mungiu-Pippidi 2015;
Rose-Ackerman and Palifka 2016; Mungiu-Pippidi and Dadašov 2017).
 INTRODUCTION 7

This book primarily seeks to explain why the observed ACAs behaved the
way they did and what were the factors that shaped their enforcement
trajectories.

Southeast European Transitions and

Anticorruption Reforms

Legacy, Context and EU Accession

To explore the enforcement logic of ACAs, the book looks at three
Southeast European countries – Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia. These
countries started democratisation in the early 2000s, with a decade long
delay compared to the former communist states from Central and Eastern
Europe (CEE). The former federal state of Yugoslavia (1945–1991), in
which the three countries comprised constituent republics, featured a
softer, ‘liberal form’ of communism (Flere and Klanjšek 2014), but after
the fall of the Berlin Wall the region plunged into major political instabili-
ties. These included inter-ethnic conflicts which followed the break-up of
the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, as well as authoritarian reign
during the decade of the 1990s, across almost all republics of the former
Yugoslavia (Boduszyński 2010).
With the overthrow of the authoritarian regimes in Croatia and Serbia,
in 2000, and the signing of the Ohrid agreement in Macedonia in 2001,
which ended the brief armed conflict between the Macedonian army and
Albanian militias, the three countries turned to an EU accession process.
In Croatia and Macedonia, a cross-party consensus on EU integration was
achieved early into the transition process (Levitsky and Way 2010: 90,
150). In Serbia, the question of EU integration remained deeply divisive
until the 2010s, but despite the strong nationalist opposition the country
did not reverse its pro-EU course (Zurnić 2019: 216). All three countries
nurtured in the 2000s close links to major Western powers (Levitsky and
Way 2010: 104–113), with an influential role of American and European
organisations, NGOs, experts, and media, in the state-building process
and public deliberations.
The first decade of the transitional reforms has, overall, brought limited
progress in the three states. Despite their record of almost flawless trans-
position of EU standards, the implementation of these standards has been
patchy in practice (Kmezić et al. 2014: 213–262; for civil service reforms,
8 S. TOMIĆ

see Meyer-Sahling 2012). Commonly cited reasons for this were weak
administrative capacity and the absence of political will to fully implement
reforms (Noutcheva and Aydin-Düzgit 2012: 73). One of the greatest
challenges has been to reform the politicised and inefficient judiciary
(Mendelski 2015), which has constituted a major obstacle to building a
functional rule of law in the region.
It will also turn out after the first decade of the transitional reforms that
the trajectory of democratisation in the three countries is not necessarily
irreversible (Csaky 2016). Between 2010 and 2016, Macedonia under-
went a democratic backsliding, with increasing reports of suppression of
the free media and violations of the democratic process (Freedom House
2016); more recently, Serbia experienced a similarly deteriorating state of
democracy, particularly after 2012 (Huszka 2018). The two countries
have retained the ‘facade’ of democracy, with formally present party plu-
ralism and elections, however substantively they have made a step back
towards competitive authoritarianism (Bieber 2018). Western partners
and the EU have shown tolerance towards these authoritarian tendencies,
prompting observers to accuse them of fostering ‘stabilocracy’ – a trend in
which autocrats are legitimised by the Western international community
because they are able to ‘appease’ the right wing of the political spectrum
and thus prevent a build-up of inter-ethnic and inter-state tensions in the
conflict-prone region (BiEPAG 2017).
At the time of writing, Croatia was the only of the three countries that
has joined the EU (in 2013). As such, it has featured a more democratic
outlook, though not without objections to its democratic process (Maldini
2016). Macedonia and Serbia are still facing uncertain prospects for join-
ing the EU, even though they were granted the candidate status, in 2005
and 2012, respectively. The ‘enlargement fatigue’ within the EU and the
lack of major progress in the rule of law in these countries have featured as
the key obstacles for their accession into the EU. Serbia and Macedonia
also have their respective statehood and border issues to resolve as well.2
Year 2025 had been speculated as the next enlargement date, but recently
several key European leaders described this expectation as unrealistic
(Meier 2017).

2
For instance, the Serbian dispute over the status of its southern province Kosovo &
Metohija which declared independence in 2008, and the Macedonian-Greek dispute over
the toponym ‘Macedonia’.
 INTRODUCTION 9

Anticorruption Reforms in the Three Countries

At the outset of the transitional reforms, all three countries faced a legacy
of endemic corruption (Shentov et al. 2014: 13–20; Vachudova 2009:
49). They inherited from the old Yugoslavia a politicised public sector and
widespread party patronage, further compounded by the authoritarian
reign in the 1990s. These factors have weakened the institutional frame-
work for combating corruption. All three countries therefore entered the
transition reforms in the 2000s with a dysfunctional, almost non-existent,
anti-corrupt framework.
Against this background, the fight against corruption was paramount
for a successful transition towards a market-based economy which would
be based on a functioning rule of law. Soon after the launch of the reforms,
all three countries integrated themselves into major international anticor-
ruption initiatives. All three states joined GRECO (the Group of Countries
against Corruption of the Council of Europe) early in the transitional
process.3 GRECO was a particularly important facilitator in the coming
years for harmonisation with international standards. As part of this pro-
cess, the three countries adopted a range of integrity regulations, such as
those tackling conflict of interest, and many other measures aimed at
reducing abuse of public office.
The start of transitional reforms in the three countries was marked by
high expectations of the fight against corruption (Shentov et al. 2014).
The high optimism was spurred by the promise of externally imposed
standards and institutions as ‘quick fixes’ to the problem of corruption.
One of the first steps in strengthening the anticorruption framework in
the three countries was to create an ACA – a specialised anticorruption
agency, at the time a widely popularised species across non-developed
countries (de Sousa 2010). Croatia set up its Bureau for Suppression of
Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) in 2001, as a specialised
ACA under the State Attorney Office; several months later Serbia cre-
ated an Anticorruption Council (Council), as an advisory body for anti-
corruption policy (a few years later, in 2004, Serbia will create another
ACA – a Committee for Resolution of Conflict of Interest, to enforce
newly adopted regulations on conflict of interest); and, Macedonia

3
Croatia and Macedonia joined GRECO in 2000; Serbia in 2003. See: https://www.coe.
int/en/web/greco/evaluations
10 S. TOMIĆ

also followed suit by creating in 2002 a State Commission for Prevention

of Corruption (SCPC), as a specialised, preventative ACA. Later in the
transition process, the three countries adopted further corruption-related
legislation and established a number of other independent integrity bodies
such as ombudsmen, state audit offices, commissioners for information of
public interest, and a range of other economic and social regulators as part
of the ongoing agencification (Aleksić and Radulović 2013; Koprić and
Musa 2011).
Throughout the transition, however, progress in the fight against cor-
ruption turned out slow and patchy. While the legislation and institutional
framework have seen substantial improvement, the policy enforcement
produced little success in cracking down on corruption (Shentov et al.
2014: 12–17). One important hindrance to the work of anticorruption
bodies was a lack of political will to curb corruption. Many anticorruption
bodies operated under-resourced, and the anticorruption framework also
underwent frequent changes which produced rule instability, plaguing the
work of the judicial and prosecutorial bodies. Whereas in some areas the
jurisdictions of anticorruption actors overlapped, in other aspects the anti-
corruption infrastructure lacked structures for coordination (ibid.: 14).
The judiciary has been inefficient, operating without adequate checks to
ensure its accountability (ibid.: 14–15). Additionally, the transition itself
carried new potential for corruption, for instance in relation to the large-
scale privatisation of state enterprises.
Because of the insufficient progress in the fight against corruption and
the emergence of new corruption scandals, the trust in political institu-
tions soon slumped across the region, amounting to levels far below the
average level in the EU (Shentov et al. 2014: 26). For instance, in 2014,
almost 60% of respondents in Serbia and Macedonia expressed belief that
corruption cannot be substantively reduced (ibid.: 18). The most dis-
trusted institutions in Serbia and Macedonia were the government, minis-
tries, parliament, local authorities, as well as the judiciary (Shentov et al.
2014). Most vulnerable areas to corruption in the three countries include
public procurements, large-scale public projects, running of state enter-
prises by party appointees, and in general all regulatory tasks where public
officials enjoy discretion in deciding about others’ rights and duties (ibid.).
While this sense of disappointment has swept the whole region of SEE,
Croatia nonetheless achieved more success than Serbia and Macedonia in
fighting corruption and in maintaining public trust. Not only did it wage
 INTRODUCTION 11

a crackdown on high-level political corruption in the late 2000s, which

resulted in the prosecution of its former Prime Minister Sanader and other
top-level officials, it has also seen lower levels of corruption-related victi-
misation. In 2014, only 4.4% of respondents in Croatia said that they were
explicitly asked to corrupt a public official, which is by far the best score in
the SEE region. In Serbia and Macedonia, about 17.5% and 14.2% respon-
dents have reported experiencing direct demands to engage in corruption
(ibid.: 32).
Having laid out the context in which the five studied ACAs operated,
we can now turn to the wider implications of the book’s findings. The fol-
lowing section discusses the book’s contribution to several strands in the
literature.

Wider Implications
While the book focuses on a set of specific Southeast European countries,
the study implications extend beyond the analysis of the region of SEE,
and beyond the analysis of ACAs as an institutional species. Book’s contri-
butions relate to four strands in the literature: (1) the delegation litera-
ture, in which arm’s length bodies and the question of bureaucratic
autonomy occupy a central place; (2) the specialist literature on ACAs; (3)
the regulation literature, particularly the study of enforcement style; and
(4) the literature on transitional reforms in new democracies.

Delegation Literature
Political control over bureaucracy, and the related question of bureau-
cratic autonomy, have long been central questions in the study of delega-
tion. The conventional approach to study these issues has been through
the principal-agent paradigm, which implies that high structural insulation
from government fosters autonomous agency conduct. This higher auton-
omy shall also translate into enhanced policy outcomes, because at the
heart of policy choices will arguably be credibility (Majone 1994, 1997),
time-consistency (Gilardi 2002) and expertise (Vibert 2007). These quali-
ties stand in contrast to the politically manipulated decisions made by
institutions subsumed under the governmental hierarchy. A number of
studies found empirical support for this ‘structural’ hypothesis, across
various policy sectors (Cukierman et al. 1992; Hayo and Voigt 2007;
Hanretty and Koop 2013; Egeberg and Trondal 2009; Rauh 2015;
12 S. TOMIĆ

Verhoest et al. 2012; Koop and Hanretty 2018). This book, however,
finds evidence to the contrary, joining the small but growing ‘sceptical
strand’ in the delegation literature which challenges the ‘insulation para-
digm’ (Maggetti 2007; Guidi 2015; Ennser-Jedenastik 2015).
The insulation hypothesis is explored here in a new sector – anticorrup-
tion, and within an under-researched geographical setting – new democra-
cies. Prior studies that explore the effect of structural insulation on agency
autonomy focused mainly on the United States and Western Europe, but
new democracies have received limited attention (see, however Boylan
2001; Levi-Faur 2003; Jordana and Levi-Faur 2005; Dubash and Morgan
2013; Araral 2014; Teodoro and Pitcher 2017). Non-developed countries
are interesting cases to test the insulation hypothesis, because their two
contextual specifics that are mentioned above – informal networks and
external conditionality – are ‘pulling’ towards the opposite ends of the de
facto autonomy.
To explain the observed patterns of enforcement among the five ACAs,
the book will contrast the agency insulation theory to the rising reputa-
tional theory of regulators’ enforcement. The reputational school, which
challenges the ‘structural view’ of bureaucratic autonomy, argues that
agencies with low legal independence still can advance autonomous con-
duct. If their leaders use reputational management to forge societal coali-
tions of support, the reputational school argues, they can increase the cost
of a potential political reprisal and thus pre-empt statutory interventions.
According to the reputational school, the key forum for agents’ account-­
giving is not their principal, but the watching audiences (Carpenter 2001,
2014; Busuioc and Lodge 2016, 2017), whose backlash the political prin-
cipal is weary of.
This book adds to the empirical body of evidence which tests the repu-
tational argument. While the reputational school articulated thoroughly
the theoretical argument (Carpenter and Krause 2014; Busuioc and Lodge
2016, 2017), the empirical segment requires further studies, particularly
from those under-examined policy sectors. This book contributes with its
account of how reputational concerns shape accountability practices of
agencies in the field of anticorruption, and how their crafty reputational
management can compensate for the lack of legal independence.
The book also contributes to the reputational school with its examina-
tion of the link between organisational model and agency autonomy.
Studies that examine how the nature of agencies’ mandate (i.e. organisa-
tional model) impacts on their presentational strategies have been scarce,
 INTRODUCTION 13

and they have explored this issue mainly in the field of market competition
(Yeung 2009; Kovacic 2014). This study extends this inquiry to the sector
of anticorruption, by examining the impact of organisational model on
reputational strategies and on the associated exercise of audience-driven
accountability of ACAs.

ACA Literature
The sizeable ACA literature takes mainly a policy-impact perspective. Most
of the extant discussion on ACAs has been about the factors that contrib-
ute and detract from their success (Pope and Vogl 2000; Doig et al. 2007;
De Sousa 2010, de Speville 2008), and whether ACAs represent efficient
anticorruption actors in the first place (Quah 2003, 2010; Mungiu-Pippidi
and Dadašov 2017). The standard way of thinking in these works is that
structural insulation from government, i.e. statutory/legal/formal
independence,4 is an important prerequisite for autonomous conduct of
ACAs, and hence for their positive contribution to the fight against cor-
ruption. This assumption owes itself to conventional reasoning, anecdotal
evidence, or inductive observations from single cases. The present book,
however, subjects the above thinking to a more systemic empirical exami-
nation, whose results, as will be presented later, challenge the received
wisdom that structural insulation is a key facilitator of autonomous
conduct.
This study also adds to the process-focused inquiry in the ACA litera-
ture. While the majority of works on ACAs prioritise the question of policy
outcomes in anticorruption, research into ACAs’ enforcement trajecto-
ries – and the determinants of these trajectories – is still in infancy. The
process of policy enforcement warrants more exploration; it is a stage that
precedes policy impact (Johnsøn 2016) and, as such, it is an inevitable ele-
ment in forming the full picture of ACAs’ institutional life.
The several studies that exist in this process-focused inquiry investigate
ACAs’ cycles and enforcement trajectories, by employing the usual quali-
tative method of process-tracing (Batory 2012; Kuris 2015a). The con-
ceptual framework that is deployed here brings greater comparative

4
The literature uses interchangeably the terms ‘legal independence’, ‘statutory indepen-
dence, ‘formal independence’ and ‘de-jure independence’ as synonyms for high structural
insulation from government.
14 S. TOMIĆ

sophistication than the standard qualitative methods do, enabling cross-­

ACA and within-ACA comparisons focused on their individual actions as
the unit of analysis.
This book also contributes to the ‘ACA classification’ literature. So far,
all ACAs have been categorised into two main groups – preventative and
suppressive – with optional sub-classifications within the suppressive camp
(Klemenčič and Stusek 2008; OECD 2013). ‘ACA classification scholars’
have been mainly preoccupied with exploring the pros and cons of the two
ACA models (Dionisie and Checchi 2008; Kuris 2015b). The present
book highlights another issue related to the classification of ACAs, namely
to what extent the two models create different accountability constella-
tions and whether this has implications for their enforcement logics. Since
it finds major differences in account-giving strategies between the two
models, the book suggests a reconsideration of the current labels given to
the different ACA models. It might be more adequate to rename preventa-
tive ACAs into ethics commissions, as they are usually referred to in the
United States, leaving the label ‘anticorruption agencies’ only for suppres-
sive ACAs. This is not a mere terminological exercise – it has implications
for thinking about the institutional logic of these two types of ACAs.

Regulatory Enforcement Literature

The book adds a novel conceptual framework to the literature on regula-
tory enforcement style, applicable to ACAs as well as to other public sector
regulators. Since ACAs carry out the ‘regulation of government’ (Hood
et al. 1999), and since they are usually seen as regulatory agencies (Batory
2012: 640), they can be analysed with the concept of regulatory enforce-
ment style. The conceptual framework of enforcement style that is devel-
oped here captures two key dimensions in ACAs’ work – zealotry and
stringency. This framework builds on, and refines, prior frameworks of
enforcement style developed in the regulation literature (Bardach and
Kagan 1982; Hutter 1989; Gormley 1998; May and Winter 2000; May
and Wood 2003; McAllister 2010).
The study also helps to better understand the role of organisational and
non-organisational determinants of regulators’ enforcement style. The
goal of prior works has mainly been to capture/compare what regulators
do in practice, but surprisingly few accounts have endeavoured to explain
variations in enforcement styles (but, see, Winter and May 2001; May and
 INTRODUCTION 15

Wood 2003; McAllister 2010). Despite the early Kagan’s call (1989) to
advance an ‘explanatory’ agenda on regulatory enforcement, there have
been only sporadic efforts to date to illuminate the role of organisational
and ‘personal’ factors in shaping enforcement styles.

Study of Reforms in Southeast Europe and Transitional Regions

The findings are also relevant for the study of reforms in SEE, and in the
broader set of transitional regions and new democracies. Prior transition
literature has largely focused on the macro-level analysis of democratisa-
tion and governance reforms, mainly in the context of transformative
power of EU conditionality (Grabbe 2006; Haughton 2007; Börzel and
Hüllen 2011; Dimitrova 2010; Börzel 2011; Elbasani 2013; Georgescu
2015). While offering useful insights into the dynamic of domestic
democratisation, there is still little analysis of how within this environ-
ment of external EU oversight institutional leaders advance strategies to
interact with the government during the policy implementation stage.
Departing from the predominant focus on macro level, the present
book offers an institution-level analysis. It increases the extant, small body
of evidence on arm’s length agencies in the SEE region, by analysing the
enforcement trajectories and autonomy of five ACAs. Prior studies of
arm’s length agencies in the SEE region have focused on taking stock of
their proliferation (Musa and Koprić 2011; Koprić et al. 2012; Aleksić and
Radulović 2013), in the context of their public management reforms that
are externally induced. Yet, there is a lack of studies on agencies’ enforce-
ment trajectories, particularly where their autonomy might be challenged
by government’s confrontation.
It is known from the Europeanisation literature that the main challenge
for the former communist countries, whether in CEE or SEE, relates not
to the transposition of standards, but to the implementation of these stan-
dards (Falkner et al. 2007; Falkner and Treib 2008; for an opposite argu-
ment, see Steunenberg and Toshkov 2009). Yet, even though this problem
of poor implementation is widely diagnosed (Murgasova et al. 2015;
Shinar and Bratić 2010; Spehar 2012; Teqja 2014), for a better under-
standing of this phenomenon we need to open the ‘black box’ of enforce-
ment of institutions. The analysis of the five ACAs’ enforcement logics
yields contributions in that regard.
16 S. TOMIĆ

Plan of the Book

The rest of the book is structured as follows.
Chapter 2 discusses the theoretical framework employed in the book,
the comparative strategy, and the methods. The first part of Chap. 2 will
present two competing theories of bureaucratic autonomy – insulation
theory and reputational theory. It will also reflect on the resource-based
view, as the conventional way of considering institutional enforcement
with reference to institutional capacities. These theories will provide the
lenses for the forthcoming empirical analysis of ACAs’ autonomy. The
second part of the chapter develops a concept of enforcement style for
ACAs. This concept will be used in the empirical analysis employed in
Chaps. 3, 4, 5, and 6, to code and compare the enforcement patterns of
the five Serbian, Croatian and Macedonian ACAs. The observed enforce-
ment patterns will serve as a proxy for their factual autonomy. The final
part of the Chap. 2 discusses the comparative strategy, methods, and data
employed in the study.
Chapter 3 provides an empirical analysis of the first Serbian ACA – the
Anticorruption Council (Council, 2001–). First are the Council’s origins
and institutional design reviewed, and thereafter its enforcement pattern
and reputational strategy are examined. The evidence that will be pre-
sented contradicts the insulation hypothesis and supports the reputational
hypothesis. Despite the utter lack of structural insulation from the govern-
ment, the Council resorted to assertive public communication to build a
reputation of a zealous watchdog. This deterred government’s statutory
reprisals, paving the way for autonomous conduct and further confronta-
tions with those in power.
Chapter 4 analyses the other two Serbian ACAs, the Republican
Committee for Resolution of Conflict of Interest (Committee, 2004–2009)
and its successor, the Anti-Corruption Agency (Agency, 2010–). While
featuring as separate agencies in formal terms, the Committee and its suc-
cessor Agency shared many elements of inter-institutional continuity. The
empirical analysis will reveal that the shift from the Committee to the
Agency produced a major decline in the de facto autonomy, despite the
drastic growth in organisational resources and a slight increase in the
structural insulation from government. The Agency’s fall in the de facto
autonomy can be explained by the Agency Director’s failure to position
the Agency as an assertive actor. Similarly to Chap. 3, the evidence
presented in this chapter also disputes the insulation thesis and offers fur-
ther support for the leadership/reputational theory.
 INTRODUCTION 17

Chapter 5 analyses the work of the Macedonian State Commission for

Prevention of Corruption (SCPC, 2002–), which though being an arm’s
length agency, featured low structural insulation from government. The
empirical analysis will reveal cross-time shifts in its enforcement style,
characterised by declining levels of de facto autonomy, after the initial
four years of extremely high de facto autonomy. This is explained by a
major leadership change upon the first SCPC mandate. The analysis also
illustrates how the preventative mandate of SCPC made it opportune for
the first board to carry out reputation-enhancing ‘intrusions’ into the
prosecutor’s turf, and how SCPC’s assertive public presentation enabled
it to sustain this conduct. The findings related to the first SCPC board
offer evidence in line with the reputational, rather than the insulation
hypothesis.
Chapter 6 is on the only suppressive ACA in the sample – the Croatian
Bureau for Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK).
The chapter starts by reviewing the genesis of the organisational changes
that USKOK underwent during its first decade of life. The empirical anal-
ysis of its enforcement will show that, despite boasting high independence
in legal terms, USKOK could not advance a harsh enforcement pattern
until its key organisational factors – the resources and the authorities in the
criminal procedure – strengthened. The USKOK case shows how the sup-
pressive ACA model sets a higher threshold for harsh enforcement than
the preventative ACA model does, entailing all organisational and leader-
ship factors to be strong before harsh enforcement can be advanced and
sustained.
Chapter 7 summarises and compares the empirical findings obtained in
Chaps. 3, 4, 5, and 6. As can be inferred from the individual chapters’
findings, the conclusion is that the comparative analysis contradicts the
insulation hypothesis, offering support to the notion that agency leaders
played the key role in steering ACAs’ enforcement. The key mechanism
for this was reputational management. The ACAs’ exercise of accountabil-
ity was driven by reputational concerns, oriented towards the audiences
rather than the formal hierarchical relationship with the government.
Organisational ACA model played a major role in mediating the way the
agency leaders considered pursuing harsh enforcement.
Chapter 8 concludes the book, reflecting on its empirical and theoreti-
cal contributions. It concludes that in the observed cases the strategy of
insulating agencies from government has not led to the expected levels of
agency autonomy. Further considerations of how to induce autonomous
bureaucratic conduct shall focus on the recruitment of agency leaders that
Another random document with
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 This is the letter which Alcuin wrote to the Bishop and monks of
Lindisfarne:—
“To the best sons in Christ of the most blessed Ep. 24. a.d. 793.
father the holy bishop Cuthbert, Higbald the bishop
and the whole body of the Church of Lindisfarne, the deacon
Alchuine sends greeting with heavenly benediction in Christ.
“When I was with you, your friendly love was wont to give me
much joy. And now that I am absent the calamity of your affliction
greatly saddens me every day. The pagans have contaminated the
sanctuaries of God, and have poured out the blood of saints round
about the altar; have laid waste the house of our hope, have
trampled upon the bodies of saints in the temple of God like dung in
the street. What can I say but groan forth along with you before the
altar of Christ, Spare, O Lord, spare thy people; give not thine
heritage to the Gentiles, lest the pagans say ‘Where is the God of
the Christians?’
“What assurance is there for the churches of Britain if the holy
Cuthbert, with so great a number of saints, does not defend his own
Church? Either this is the beginning of greater affliction, or else the
sins of the dwellers there have called it upon them. It has not
happened by chance; it is the sign that calamity was greatly
deserved.
“But now, ye that survive, stand like men, fight bravely, defend the
camp of God. Remember Judas Machabeus, how he purged the
Temple of God, and freed the people from a foreign yoke. If anything
in your manner of life needs correction, pray correct it speedily. Call
back to you your patrons, who have left you for a time. It was not that
their influence with God’s mercy failed; but, we know not why, they
did not speak. Do not boast yourselves in the vanity of raiment; that
is matter not of boasting but of disgrace for priests and servants of
God. Do not blur the words of your prayers with drunkenness. Do not
go forth after pleasures of the flesh and greediness of the world; but
remain firmly in the service of God and in the discipline of the life by
rule; that the most holy fathers whose sons you are may not cease to
be your protectors. Go in their footsteps, and abide secure in their
prayers. Be not degenerate sons of such ancestry. Never will they
cease from your defence, if they see you follow their example.
“Be not utterly cast down in mind by this calamity. God chastens
every son whom he receives; and He has chastened you the more
because he loves you more. Jerusalem, the city loved of God, and
the Temple of God, perished in the flames of the Chaldeans. Rome,
with her coronal of holy Apostles and innumerable martyrs, has been
broken up by a pagan visitation; but by God’s pity has quickly
recovered. Nearly the whole of Europe has been laid waste by the
sword and the fire of Goths and of Huns; but now, by God’s mercy,
as the sky is adorned with stars, so the land of Europe shines bright
with churches, and in them the divine offices of the religion of Christ
flourish and increase.
“And thou, holy father, leader of the people of God, shepherd of
the holy flock, physician of souls, light set upon a candlestick, be the
form of all goodness to them that see you, the herald of salvation to
all that hear you. Let your company be honest in character, an
example to others unto life, not to destruction. Let thy banquets be
with sobriety, not with drunkenness. Let thy dress be suited to thy
condition. Be not conformed unto men of the world in any vain thing.
The empty adornment of dress, and the useless care for it, is for
thee a reproach before men and a sin before God. It is better to
adorn with good habits the soul that is to live for ever, than to dress
up in delicate garments the body that soon will decay in the dust. Let
Christ be clothed and fed in the person of the poor man, that so with
Christ you may reign. The ransom of a man is true riches. If we love
gold, we should send it before us to heaven, where it will be of
service to us. What we love, we have; then let us love that which is
eternal, not that which is perishable. Let us aim at the praise of God,
not of men. Let us do what did the holy men whom we laud. Let us
follow their footsteps on earth, that we may be worthy to be
partakers in their glory in the heavens.
“May the protection of the divine pity keep you from all adversity,
and set you with your fathers in the glory of the kingdom of heaven.
When our lord, King Karl, comes home, his enemies by God’s mercy
subdued, we will arrange to go to him, God helping us. If we are able
then to help your holiness, either in the matter of the youths who
have been carried captive by the pagans, or in any other need of
yours, we will take diligent care to carry it through.”
Alcuin soon after wrote another letter to the bishop and monks of
Lindisfarne, and yet another to Cudrad, probably Cuthred, a
presbyter of Lindisfarne, who had been carried off by the Northmen
and then rescued. In these letters he urges them to bear in mind that
prayers are more valuable as a defence than collections of arrows
and weapons, and heaps of stones for hurling at an enemy. From
this it would appear that the monastery at Lindisfarne was being
fortified.
To the monks of Wearmouth and Jarrow, whose geographical
situation rendered them very liable to a raid by the pirate northmen,
he wrote a very long and interesting letter, some extracts from which
may here be given.
“Keep most diligently the regular life [the life by Ep. 27. a.d. 793.
rule] which your most holy fathers, [the abbats]
Benedict[137] [Biscop] and Ceolfrid,[138] decreed for you.
“Let the Rule of Saint Benedict [of Nursia, the abbat of Monte
Cassino] be very often read in the assembly of the brethren, and
expounded in the vulgar tongue that all may understand.
“Consider whom you have as your defence against the pagans
who have appeared in your maritime parts. Set not your hope on
arms, but on God. Trust not to carnal flight, but in the prayer of your
forefathers. Who does not fear the terrible fate which has befallen
the church of the holy Cuthbert? You, also, dwell on the sea, from
which this pest first comes.
“Bear in mind the nobleness of your fathers, and be not
degenerate sons. Look at the treasures of your library, the beauty of
your churches, the fairness of your buildings. How happy the man
who, from those most fair dwellings, passes to the joys of the
kingdom of heaven.
“Accustom the boys to the praise of the heavenly King, not to
digging out the earths of foxes, not to coursing the swift hare. How
impious it is to leave the worship of Christ and follow the trace of the
fox. Let them learn the sacred Scriptures, that when they are grown
up they may teach others. He who does not learn in youth does not
teach in age. Remember Bede the presbyter, the most noble teacher
of our age, what a love he had for learning as a boy; what honour he
has now among men; what glory of reward with God. Quicken
slumbering minds with his example. Attend lectures; open your
books; study the text; understand its meaning; that you may both
feed yourselves and feed others with the food of the spiritual life.
“Avoid private feasting and secret drinking as a pitfall of hell.
Solomon says that stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in
secret is pleasant, but the guests are in the depth of hell; he means
that at such feasts there are demons present. Do not lose eternal
joys for sloth of mind or fleshly delights.”
As we have seen, the same destruction that had come upon
Lindisfarne came very soon after upon Wearmouth and Jarrow. Bede
little knew how close home the blow which he forecast would strike.
We should have felt that something was wanting if no letter had
been preserved from Alcuin to the bishop and monks of Hexham.
Hexham was the see of one of Bede’s most highly valued
correspondents, Acca. Of the very small number of letters written by
Bede which have come down to us, only fourteen in all, eight are
addressed to Acca. They are in the main formal treatises on several
parts of the Old and New Testaments, including a treatise on the
Temple of Solomon which was probably suggested by the
remarkable illustration of the Tabernacle in the Codex Amiatinus.
The Church of St. Andrew, Hexham, built by Wilfrith, and St. Peter,
Ripon, also built by him, were in Wilfrith’s time the two finest
churches north of the Alps. We have the description of them by
Wilfrith’s chaplain, Stephen Eddi.[139] Almost the whole of one of the
two exquisite sculptured crosses which were placed at the head and
foot of Acca’s grave is still in existence. The magnificent restoration
of the Abbey Church of Hexham in this year of grace, 1908, is one of
the greatest ecclesiastical works of the young twentieth century.
 “To the shepherd of chief dignity Aedilberit[140] Ep. 88. Before
the bishop, and to all the congregation of the Oct. 16, 797.
servants of God in the Church of St. Andrew [of
Hexham], Alchuini, the humble client of your love in Christ, wishes
health.
“Earnestly desirous of spiritual friendship, I am at pains to address
to your sanctity the poor letters of my littleness, both that I may
renew the pact of our ancient intimacy and that I may commend
myself to your most sacred prayers. And if according to the Apostle
the prayer of one just man availeth much, how much more the
prayers of a most holy congregation in Christ, the intercessions of
whose peaceful concord daily at the canonical hours are believed to
reach heaven, while the secret prayer of each single one beyond
doubt reaches to the ears of the omnipotent God. Wherefore with all
humility of entreaty, so far as my request may avail with your piety, I
commend myself both to the united prayer of all and to the individual
prayer of each; that by the prayers of your sanctity, freed from the
chain of my sins, I may with you, my dearest friends, enter the gates
of life.
“O most noble progeny of holy fathers, successors of their honour
and their venerable life, and inhabiters of their most beautiful places,
follow the footsteps of your fathers; that from these most beautiful
habitations you may attain by the gift of God to a portion in the
eternal blessedness of those that begat you, to the beauty of the
kingdom of heaven.
“Learn to know God and to obey His precepts, Himself saying to
you ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the Commandments.’ Therefore
the reading of the Holy Scriptures is necessary, for in them each may
learn what he must follow and what avoid. Let the light of learning
dwell among you, and give light through you to other churches, that
the praise of you may sound forth in the mouth of all, and your
reward may remain eternal in the heavens. Each man shall receive
the reward of his own work. Teach diligently the boys and the young
men the knowledge of books in the way of the Lord, that they may
become worthy to succeed to your honour, and may be your
intercessors. For the prayers of the living are profitable to the dying,
whether to the pardon of sin or to the increase of glory. He who sows
not does not reap; he who learns not does not teach. And such a
house as yours without teachers cannot be, or can scarcely be, safe.
Great is alms-doing, to feed the poor with food for the body; but
greater is it to satisfy the hungry soul with spiritual doctrine. As the
provident shepherd takes care to supply his flock with all that is best,
so the good teacher ought with all pains to procure for those under
him the pastures of eternal life. For the increase of the flock is the
glory of the shepherd, and the multitude of the wise is the safety of
the world. I am aware that you, most holy fathers, fully know all this,
and accomplish it; but the love of him that dictates this has dragged
the words from his mouth, believing that you are willing to read with
pious humility that which I dictate with devoted soberness in the love
of God. Again and again I beseech you that you deign to have my
name in memory among those of your friends.
“May the God Christ Himself hearken to your kindliness
interceding for the whole Church of God, and grant that we may
attain unto the glory of eternal beatitude, my dearest brothers.”
 CHAPTER VIII
Alcuin’s letters to King Eardulf and the banished intruder Osbald.—His letters to
King Ethelred and Ethelred’s mother.—The Irish claim that Alcuin studied at
Clonmacnoise.—Mayo of the Saxons.

Alcuin had grievous anxieties about the manner of life of the kings
of his native province, and the continual revolutions and disputed
successions. Things got worse as he grew into older age—old age
as it was then counted.
In the previous chapter we have seen a letter of his to Ethelred,
the King of Northumbria, under date 793. He wrote another letter to
him in that same year, which he addressed in the following
affectionate form:—“To my most excellent son Ethelred the king, to
my most sweet friends Osbald the patrician and Osbert the duke, to
all the friends of my brotherly love, Alchuin the levite desires eternal
beatitude.”
In the year 796 Ethelred, as we have seen, was killed in a faction
fight, after putting to death the last two males of the royal line of
Eadbert, the brother of Archbishop Ecgbert, and was succeeded by
“my most sweet friend Osbald the patrician”, who, however, only
reigned twenty-seven days, and had not time to strike any coins with
his name and effigy. Eardulf, a man of considerable position,
succeeded. He was in a very full manner recognized as king, being
consecrated, as Simeon of Durham tells us (a.d. 796), “in the Church
of St. Peter, at the altar of the blessed apostle Paul, where the race
of the Angles first received the grace of baptism.” On this altar, see
page 81.
It is an interesting fact that we have two letters of Alcuin, written,
the one to (28) Osbald on his banishment, the other to (29) Eardulf
on his succession to the throne from which Osbald had been
banished. It can very seldom have happened that a man has had to
write two letters under such conditions.
“To the illustrious man Eardwulf the King, Ep. 65. a.d. 796.
Alchuine[141] the deacon sends greeting.
“Mindful of the old friendship to which we are pledged, and
rejoicing greatly in thy venerated salutation, I am at pains to address
thy laudable person with a letter on a few points touching the
prosperity of the kingdom conferred on thee by God, and the
salvation of thy soul, and the manner in which the honour put into thy
hands by the gift of God may remain stable.
“Thou knowest very well from what dangers the divine mercy has
freed thee,[142] and how easily, when it would, it has brought thee to
the kingdom. Be always grateful, and mindful of such very great gifts
of God to thee; that as far as thou canst the will of God thou wilt do
with thy whole heart; and be obedient to the servants of God who
keep thee warned of His Commandments. Know of a surety that
none other can preserve thy life than He who hath freed thee from
present death; and none can protect and keep thee in that honour of
thine but He who of His free pity hath granted that dignity to thee.
Keep diligently in thy mind mercy and justice, for, as Solomon says,
and, more than that, God allows, in mercy and justice shall the
throne of a kingdom be established.
“Consider most intently for what sins thy predecessors have lost
their kingdom and their life, and take exceeding care that thou do not
the like, lest the same judgement fall on thee. The perjuries of some
God has condemned; the adulteries of others He has punished; the
avarice and deceits of others He has avenged; the injustice of others
has displeased Him. God is no respecter of persons, and those who
do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God. Instruct first
thyself in all goodness and soberness, and afterwards the people
over whom thou art set, in all modesty of life and of raiment, in all
truth of faith and of judgements, in keeping the Commandments of
God and in probity of morals. So wilt thou both stablish thy kingdom,
and save thy people, and rescue them from the wrath of God, which
by sure signs has long been hanging over them.
 “Never would so much blood of nobles and of rulers be poured
forth in your nation, never would the pagans lay waste holy places,
never would such injustice and arrogance prevail among the people,
if it were not that the manifest vengeance of God hangs over the
inhabiters of the land. Do thou, preserved as I believe for better
times, kept to set thy country right, do thou, by God’s grace aiding
thee, work out with full intent, in God’s will, the safety of thine own
soul and the prosperity of the country and the people committed to
thy charge; so that out of the setting-right of those subject to thy rule,
thy kingdom here on earth may be stablished, and the glory of the
kingdom to come be granted to thee and thy descendants.
“Let this letter, I pray you, be kept with you, and very often read,
for the sake of thy welfare and of my love, that the omnipotent God
may deign to preserve thee in the increase of His holy church for the
welfare of our race, flourishing long time in thy kingdom and
advancing in all that is good.”
That letter finished, Alcuin proceeded next to write to the expelled
usurper Osbald. He did not mince matters; he dealt, as people say,
very faithfully with him.
“To my loved friend Osbald,[143] Alchuine the Ep. 66. a.d. 796.
deacon sends greeting.
“I am displeased with thee, that thou didst not obey me when I
urged thee in my letter of more than two years ago to abandon the
lay life and serve God according to thy vow. And now a worse, a
more disastrous fate has come upon thy life. Turn again, turn again
and fulfil thy vow. Seek an opportunity for entering upon the service
of God, lest thou perish with those infamous men, if indeed thou art
innocent of the blood of thy lord.[144] But if thou art guilty, by consent
or design, confess thy sin; be reconciled with God, and leave the
company of the murderers. The love of God and of the saints is
better for thee than that of evil-doers.
“Add not sin to sin by devastating thy country, by shedding blood.
Think how much blood of kings, princes, and people has been shed
by thee and thy kinsmen. Unhappy generation, from which so many
evils have happened to the land. Set thyself free, I beseech thee by
God, that thou perish not eternally. While there is time, run, hasten,
hurry, to the mercy of God, who is ready to receive the penitent and
to comfort them that turn to Him; lest a day come when thou
wouldest and canst not. Do not incur the shame of giving up what
thou hast begun. There is more shame in your soul perishing
eternally than in deserting in the present impious men. Better still if
you can convert some of them from the wickedness they have
committed: do your best, that you may have the reward of your own
repentance and of other’s repentance too. This is the love that
covereth a multitude of sins; do this, and live happily and fare well in
peace.
“I beg that you will have this letter frequently read in your
presence, that you may be mindful of yourself in God, and may know
what care I have, distant though I am, of your welfare.
“If you can at all influence for good the people[145] among whom
you are in exile, do not neglect the opportunity, that you may by
God’s grace the earlier reach your own recovery.”
The murder of Ethelred gave rise to this letter. Alcuin had been
very faithful in his advice to Ethelred, as the following letter well
shows. It is very carefully composed, and a great anxiety breathes in
every balanced phrase.
“To the most beloved lord Aedelred the king Ep. 42. 790-795.
Alchuine the deacon sends greeting.
“The intimacy of love urges me to write an intimate letter to thee
alone.[146] Because I shall always love thee I shall never cease to
admonish thee, in order that, being subdued to the will of God thou
mayest be made worthy of His protection, and the nobility of the
royal dignity may be made honourable by nobility of conduct.
“No man is free or noble who is the slave of sin. The Lord says,
[147] ‘Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin.’ It becometh not
thee, seated on the throne of the kingdom, to live like common men.
Anger should not be lord over thee, but reason. Pity should make
thee loveable, not cruelty hateful. Truth should proceed from thy
mouth, not falsehood. Be to thine own self conscious of chasteness,
not of lust; of self-control, not of riotous living; of sobriety, not of
drunkenness. Be not notable in any sin, but laudable in every good
work. Be large in giving, not greedy in taking. Let justice embellish all
thine actions. Be the type of honour to all that see thee. Do not, do
not, take other men’s goods by force lest thou lose thine own. Fear
God who has said ‘with what judgement ye judge ye shall be judged.’
Love the God Christ and obey His commands, that His mercy may
preserve in blessing to thee, and to thy sons and followers, the
kingdom which He has willed that thou shouldest hold, and may
deign to grant the glory of future beatitude.
“May the omnipotent God cause to flourish in felicity of reign, in
dignity of life, in length of prosperity, thee, my most beloved son.”
We have letters written by Alcuin to Etheldryth the mother of king
Ethelred, queen of Ethelwold Moll, king of Northumbria 759 to 765,
who married her at Catterick in 762. In her widowhood she became
an abbess, ruling over a mixed monastery of men and women, as is
shown by the following letter, written before Ethelred’s violent death:
—
“To the most loved sister in Christ the Mother Ep. 50. a.d. 793-
Aedilthyde the humble levite Alchuine sends 796.
greeting.
“When I gratefully received the gifts of your benignity, and gladly
heard the salutation of your love, I confess that I was made glad by a
great sweetness. For I knew that faithful love remained constant in
your breast, which neither distance by land nor the stormy wave of
tidal sea could stop from flying to me with beneficent munificence,
even as it is said, ‘Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the
floods drown it.’[148]
“That thou mayest be worthy to hear in the day of judgement the
voice of God saying, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant,’
instruct with instant care those that are under thee, admonish them
by word, perfect them by example, for their safety is thy reward. Be
not silent for fear of man, but for love of God speak, convince,
rebuke, beseech. Them that sin openly chastise before all,[149] that
the rest may fear. Some admonish in the spirit of gentleness, others
seize in the pastoral staff, diligently thinking out the remedy which
best suits each. Sweet potions cure some; bitter, others. Honour the
old women and the old men as mothers and fathers; love the
youthful as brothers and sisters; teach the little ones as sons and
daughters; have care for all in Christ, that in Christ you may have
reward for all.
“Let thy vigils and prayers be frequent; let psalms be in thy mouth,
not vain talk on thy tongue; the love of God in thy heart, not worldly
ambition in thy mind; for all that is loved in the world passes away, all
that is esteemed in Christ remains. Whether we will or no, we shall
be eternal. We should study with all intentness faithfully there to live
where we are always to remain.
“Honour frequently with divine praise and alms to the poor the
festivals of saints, that you may be worthy of their intercession and
partakers of their bliss. Let thy discourses be laudable for their truth;
thy conduct loveable for its sobriety and modesty; thy hands
honourable for their free giving. Let the whole round of your life be
an example in all goodness to others, that the dignity of your person
be praised by all, be loved by many, and the name of God through
thee be praised; as the Truth Itself saith, ‘Let your light so shine
before men that they may see your good works and glorify your
Father which is in heaven.’”
The line which Alcuin takes in attempting to console Etheldryth
after the violent death of a son who had lived a violent life, was a
remarkable one.
“I cannot in bodily presence address by word of Ep. 62.
mouth your most sweet affection, because we live
so far apart. I therefore do by the ministry of a letter that which is
denied to my tongue. With all the power of my heart, I desire that you
go forward in every good thing, most dear mother, and be made
worthy to be counted in the number of them of whom, in the gospel,
our Lord Jesus Christ made answer, ‘Whosoever shall do the will of
my Father which is in heaven, the same is my mother and my
brother.’[150] How ‘mother,’ unless He is daily generated by holy love
in the bowels of a perfect heart? See what a Son a pious mother can
have—that same God, King, Redeemer, in all tribulations Consoler.
“Many are the tribulations of the just, but more are the
consolations of Christ. By what event of secular misery should one
be beaten who possesses in his breast the source of all consolation,
that is, Christ indwelling. Nay, rather should such an one rejoice in
tribulations, because of the hope of eternal beatitude, as the Apostle
says, ‘By much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God,’
and, ‘The Lord chasteneth every son whom He receiveth’; and of the
Apostles He saith, ‘They departed from the presence of the council,
rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His
name.’
“Let your love know that your spiritual Son the Lord Jesus is not
mortal. He lives, He lives, on the right hand of God He lives and
reigns.
“Be not broken down by the death of your son after the flesh, the
departure of his body, but labour every hour, every moment, that his
soul may live in happiness with Christ. Let the hope of His goodness
be your consolation, for many are the mercies of God. He has left
thee thy son’s survivor that through thy intercessions and alms He
may have mercy on him too. It may be that he died in his sins, but in
the divine pity it may be wrought that he live; for the robber who in
his wickedness hanged with Christ was saved in the mercy of Christ.
Mourn not for him whom you can not recall. If he is with God, mourn
him not as lost, but be glad that he has gone before you into rest. If
there are two friends, the death of the first to die is happier than the
death of the other, for he has one to intercede for him daily with
brotherly love, and to wash with tears the errors of his earlier life.
And doubt not that the care of pious solicitude which you have for his
soul is profitable. It profits thee and him. Thee, that thou dost it in
faith and love; him, that either his pain is lightened or his bliss is
increased. Great and inestimable is the pity of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who would have all men be saved and none perish.”
Our next episode takes us back to York, where one of Alcuin’s own
pupils was elected to the archbishopric. It may be well to mention
here, and to dispose of, a curious question which has been raised in
connexion with Alcuin’s studies in the time of his youth, pursued as
we believe only at York.
Alcuin is claimed by the Irish as one of the many Ep. 14. a.d. 790.
English youths who were brought up in Irish
monasteries, and they name Clonmacnoise as the place of study. Dr.
John Healy, the learned Roman Bishop of Clonfert, writes thus[151]:
—“There is fortunately a letter of his still preserved, which shows
quite clearly that he was a student of Clonmacnoise, and a pupil of
Colgu, and which also exhibits the affectionate veneration that he
retained through life for his Alma Mater at Clonmacnoise.” But the
letter does not bear that interpretation, and, indeed, the learned
bishop has to read Hibernia instead of Britannia in the only place
where the island of Colgu’s home is named, or to understand an
implied contrast between Britain and Ireland which would be too
obscure in a perfectly simple matter. “I have sent to your love”,
Alcuin says, “some oil, which now scarcely exists in Britain, that you
may supply it where the bishops need it, for the furtherance of the
honour of God.[152] I have sent also to the brethren, of the alms of
King Karl[153]—I beseech you, pray for him—fifty sicles[154], and of
my own alms fifty sicles; to the brethren of Baldhuninga to the south,
thirty sicles of the alms of the king and thirty of my own alms, and
twenty sicles of the alms of the father of the family of Areida and
twenty of my own alms; and to each of the anchorites three sicles of
pure gold, that they may pray for me and for the lord King Charles.”
There is nothing here that points to Ireland except the name of the
person to whom the letter is addressed, Colcu, whom Alcuin speaks
of as “the blessed master and pious father”. The name Baldhuninga
is very Northumbrian, the home of the family of Baldhun. The
mention of anchorites has been supposed to look like Ireland, but we
must remember that Alcuin himself, in singing the praises of the
saints of the Church of York, tells of the life of only two persons of his
own time other than kings and archbishops, and they were
anchorites.[155] The gift of money from the father-of-the-family of
Areida clearly comes from some one in Gaul who is very closely
associated with Alcuin himself. It so happens that the Abbey of Tours
had a small cell dedicated to St. Aredius, and the suggestion may be
hazarded that the little family of monks there sent through their prior
the twenty sicles which Alcuin doubled. It is evident that Colcu had
conferred benefits on those in whom Alcuin was specially interested,
and we may suppose that on some visit to Alcuin he had delivered a
course of lectures by which the monks of St. Aredius had profited.
He was probably a professor (his actual title was lector, a name still
kept up for a public lecturer at the University of Cambridge) at the
School of York. There was a famous Reader in Theology of the same
name, or as much the same as any one can expect in early Erse,
Colgan or Colgu, who lived and lectured at Clonmacnoise and died
there in 794, four years after Alcuin wrote this letter at the beginning
of the year 790. It is of course tempting to suppose that this famous
Irishman, the first Ferlegind or Lector recorded in the Irish Annals,
was the Colcu to whom Alcuin wrote, the Colcu of whom Alcuin in a
letter written at the end of this same year 790 said that he was with
him and was well. That letter was addressed to one of Alcuin’s
pupils, Joseph, whose master the letter says Colcu had been. On the
whole, we must take it that our Colcu was too closely associated with
Alcuin’s teaching and with Northumbria to be the Colgu of whom
Bishop Healy says that though he was a Munster-man by birth he
seems to have lived and died at Clonmacnoise. But it is another
puzzling coincidence that Simeon of Durham records the death of
Colcu, evidently as of one who had worked in the parts of which he
was commissioned to write, in the year of the death of Colgu of
Clonmacnoise, 794: “Colcu, presbyter and lector, migrated from this
light to the Lord.”
We have a letter of Alcuin’s addressed to “the Ep. 217. a.d. 792-
most noble sons of holy church who throughout the 804.
breadth of the Hibernian island are seen to serve
Christ the God in the religious life and in the study of wisdom”. In this
letter Alcuin fully recognizes that in the old time most learned
masters used to come from Hibernia to Britain, Gaul, and Italy, and
did excellent work among the churches. But beyond that, the letter,
which is far from a short one, is so completely vague that it is
impossible to imagine that Alcuin had studied in Ireland, or had had
the help, in England or in France, of one of the most famous of Irish
teachers from one of the most famous of their seats of religion and
learning.
The same impression is given by Alcuin’s letter Ep. 276.
to the monks of Mayo, of whom he naturally knew
more. When the Conference of Whitby went against the Scotic
practices, Bishop Colman retired, first to Iona, then to Inisbofin, and
then to the place in Ireland now called Mayo, where he settled the
thirty Anglo-Saxon monks who had accompanied him, leaving the
Scotic monks, formerly of Lindisfarne, in Inisbofin, “the island of the
white heifer.” Bede tells us that Mayo was kept supplied by English
monks, so that it was called Mayo of the Saxons. Curiously enough
they kept up the practice of having a bishop at their head in
succession to their first head, Bishop Colman of Lindisfarne. There
were bishops of Mayo down to 1559. In Alcuin’s time Mayo was still
a Saxon monastery. The Irish Annals of the Four Masters mention a
Bishop Aedan of Mayo, in 768; but his real name was English,
Edwin, not Irish, Aedan, as we learn from Simeon of Durham. Alcuin
must certainly have mentioned his own visit to Ireland in his letter to
the monks of Mayo, if such a visit had ever taken place. The letter
was written late in his life. He tells them that when he lived in
Northumbria he used to hear of them from brethren who visited
England. He reminds them that for the love of Christ they had
chosen to leave their own country, and live in a land foreign to them,
and be oppressed by nefarious men. He urged them to keep
zealously the regular life, as established by their holy predecessors;
and to devote themselves to study, for a great light of knowledge had
come forth from them, and had lighted many places in Northumbria.
The lord bishop they must hold as a father in all reverence and love,
and he must rule them and their life with all fear in the sight of God.
The story of the migration from Lindisfarne to Mayo, as told by
Bede (H. E. iv. 4), is so quaintly Irish in its main part, that it may fairly
be told here in Bede’s words. After stating that Colman took with him
all the Scotic monks of Lindisfarne, and thirty Saxons, and went first
to Iona, he proceeds thus:—
“Then he went away to a small island some distance off the west
coast of Hibernia, called in the Scotic tongue Inis-bofin, that is, the
Isle of the White Heifer. There he built a monastery, and in it he
placed the monks of both nations whom he had brought with him.
They could not agree among themselves; for the Scots left the
monastery when the summer came and harvest had to be gathered
in, and roamed about through places with which they were
acquainted. When winter came they returned to the monastery, and
claimed to live on what the English had stored. Colman felt that he
must find some remedy. Looking about near and far he found a place
on the main land suitable for the construction of a monastery, called
in the Scots tongue Mageo. He bought a small portion of the land
from the earl to whom it belonged, on which to build, on condition
that the monks placed there should offer prayers to God for him who
had allowed it to be purchased. With the help of the earl and all the
neighbours he built the monastery and placed the English monks in
it, leaving the Scots on Inisbofin. The monastery is to this day held
by English monks. It has grown large from small beginnings, and is
commonly called Mageo[156]. All has been brought into good order,
and it contains an excellent body of monks, collected from the
province of the Angles. They live by the labour of their own hands in
great continence and simplicity, after the example of their venerable
fathers, under the Rule and under a canonical abbat.”
Bede appears to have not known anything of a bishop-abbat of
Mayo.
It is clear that the bishop-abbat acted as a diocesan bishop in the
neighbourhood of Mayo. In the year 1209 the Irish Annals record the
death of Cele O’Duffy, Bishop of Magh Eo of the Saxons, the name
Magh Eo, or Mageo, meaning the Plain of Yews. In 1236 Mayo of the
Saxons was pillaged by a Burke, who “left neither rick nor basket of
corn in the church-enclosure of Mayo, or in the yard of the church of
St. Michael the Archangel; and he carried away eighty baskets out of
the churches themselves”. It was for protection in such raids that the
round towers were built adjoining the churches. In 1478 the death of
Higgins, Bishop of Mayo of the Saxons, is recorded. The see was
about that time annexed to Tuam so completely that the Canons of
Mayo ceased to have the status of Canons of a Cathedral Church.
Alcuin used the form Mugeo, not Mageo, and Simeon of Durham
calls it “Migensis ecclesia”. This last form explains the signature—or
rather the “subscription”—of one of six bishops present at a Council
under King Alfwold of Northumbria in 786, “Ego Aldulfus Myiensis
ecclesiae episcopus devota voluntate subscripsi[157].”
 CHAPTER IX
Alcuin’s letter to all the prelates of England.—To the Bishops of Elmham and
Dunwich.—His letters on the election to the archbishopric of York.—To the new
archbishop, and the monks whom he sent to advise him.—His urgency that
Bishops should read Pope Gregory’s Pastoral Care.

Alcuin, as we have seen, felt himself entitled to write frankly to

persons in the most exalted and important positions, though only an
abbat. To individual bishops and archbishops he wrote very frankly,
though only a deacon. In his correspondence with kings and bishops
and other persons in his native land, we get the impression that he
felt himself to be in a much larger sphere of operations, able to take
a much larger view of affairs, than from the nature of the case they
could be or do.
Here is a letter which may be taken as a good illustration of this
remark:—
“To the most holy in Christ and in all honour to be Ep. 61. a.d. 796.
by us beloved, the pontiffs of Britain our most
sweet native land, the humble levite Alchuin, a son of the holy
church of York, greeting in the love of Christ.
“Having great confidence in your goodness, my reverend fathers,
and in the acceptableness to God of your prayers, and having a
convenient opportunity for commending myself to your charity as a
body, I do not neglect the occasion of time and messenger. I offer
myself to your holiness, suppliantly praying each one of you to take
me as his son for the love and affection of God, and to intercede
along with his fellow-warriors for the safety of my soul. For I also,
according to the ability of my littleness, am a devoted interceder for
your honour and success.
“Let your affection know that the lord Charles the king greatly
desires the supplications of your holiness to the Lord, alike for
himself and the stability of his realm and for the spread of the
Christian name, and for the soul of the most reverend father Adrian
the Pope, for faithfulness of friendship towards a dead friend is most
highly approved.
“One who intercedes for such a friend no doubt greatly enhances
his own merits with God. The aforesaid lord king for the furtherance
of this his petition has sent to your holiness some small gifts of
blessing.[158] I pray you to accept with gladness what he has sent
and to do faithfully what he asks of you; that the faith of your
goodness may meet with a great reward from God, and the religion
of humbleness may be widely praised among men.
“O my most holy fathers and shepherds, O most clear light of the
whole of Britain, feed the flock of Christ, which is with you, by
assiduous preaching of the Gospel and good example of holy life.
Preach with truth, correct with vigour, exhort with persuasion. Stand
with your loins girt in the army of Christ, and your lights burning, that
your light may shine before all who are in the house of God, that they
may see your good works and glorify our Father which is in Heaven.
The time of labour here is exceeding short, the time of reward is the
longest eternity. What is happier than to pass from this present
misery to eternal bliss. See to it diligently that the land which our
ancestors received by the gift of God may by celestial benediction be
preserved to our descendants. The increase of the flock is the
reward of the shepherd, the safety of the people the praise of the
priest. Let all intemperance and injustice be prohibited, all honesty
and sobriety be taught, that in every walk of life the God Christ be
honoured, and His blessed grace keep you in every part to the
praise and glory of His name for ever.
“That you may be sure this comes from us, we have sub-sealed it
with our seal.
“The blessing of God the Father in the grace and love of Christ
and in the consolation of the Holy Spirit be with you and keep you in
all good, my lords most holy, my fathers most worthy of honour,
mindful of us for ever. Amen.”