§ 22. CONFLICT OP THE HIERARCHY IN ENGLAND. 85
the Berengarian controversy ; while Hildebrand protected Berengar as long as he could.1 He was zealous for clerical celibacy, substituted monks for secular canons in cathedrals, and prohibited, through the Council of Winchester in 1076, the ordination of married priests, but allowed the rural clergy to retain their wives. He did not fully sustain the pope's claim to temporal authority, and disobeyed the fre quent summons to appear at Rome. He lived, upon the whole, on good terms with the king, although he could not effect anything against his will. He aided him in his attempt to Normanize the English Church. He was intrusted with the regency when the duke was absent on the Continent. He favored the cause of learning, and rebuilt the cathedral of Canterbury, which had burnt down.
William was a despot in Church and State, and rather grew harder and more reckless of human suffering in his later years. His will was the law of the land. Freeman places him both "among the greatest of men" and "among the worst of men."2 His military genius and statesmanship are undoubted ; but he was utterly unscrupulous in the choice of means. He had a strong sense of religion and reverence for the Church, and was liberal to her ministers ; he did not, like his son, keep the benefices vacant and rob her revenues ; he did not practise simony, and, so far, he fell in with the Hildebrandian reform.3 But he firmly insisted on the right of investiture. He declared that he would not allow a single bishop's staff to pass out of his hands. He held his own even against Hildebrand. He felt that he owed his crown only to God and to his own sword. He was will-
1 On Lanfranc's connection with the Berengar controversy, see Schaff, vol. IV. 656 and 567 sq.
2 Norman Conquest, II. 165.
8 Freeman, V. 169 : " He was one of the few princes of that age whose hands were wholly clean from the guilt of simony. His ecclesiastical ap pointments for the most part do him honor; the patron of Lanfranc and Anselm can never be spoken of without respect."
86 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1085-1122.
ing to pay Peter's pence to the pope as alms, but not as tribute, and refused to swear allegiance to Gregory VII.
He made full use of the right of a victor. He subjected the estates of the Church to the same feudal obligations as other lands. He plundered religious houses. He deposed Archbishop Stigand and other Saxon bishops to make room for Norman favorites, who did not even understand the lan guage of the people. These changes were not begun till 1070, when Stigand was tried before the papal legates who had placed the crown on William's head. The main charges were simony and that he had received the pall from the usurping pope, Benedict X. William left only one English man, the simple-minded Wulfstan of Worcester, in possession of his see. He gradually extended the same system to abbacies and lower dignities. He allowed no synod to con vene and legislate without his previous permission and subsequent confirmation of its decrees, no pope to be ac knowledged in England without his will, no papal letters to be received and published without his consent. No ecclesi astic was to leave the kingdom without his permission, and bishops were forbidden to excommunicate a noble for adul tery or any capital crime without the previous assent of the king. In these ways the power of the clergy was limited, and a check put upon the supremacy of Rome over the English Church. Lanfranc seems to have fully sympathized with these measures. For after the death of Alexander II., who had been his pupil at Bee, he seems to have treated the popes, especially Gregory VII., coolly. Gregory wrote him several letters threatening him with suspension and for his absence from the synods which were convening in Rome.1
On the other hand, the law was passed in William's reign remanding ecclesiastical suits to separate tribunals,2 a law
1 Reg. Greg., VI. 30, IX. 20 ; Migne, 148, 021, 643.
2 Gee and Hardy, 57 sq.