The king of England had very nearly fallen into the same dangerous situation: Pascal had already excommunicated the earl of Mallent, and the other ministers of Henry who were instrumental in supporting his pretensions:[***] he daily menaced the king himself with a like sentence, and he suspended the blow only to give him leisure to prevent it by a timely submission. The malecontents waited impatiently for the opportunity of disturbing his government by conspiracies and insurrections:[****] the king’s best friends were anxious at the prospect of an incident which would set their religious and civil duties at variance; and the countess of Blois, his sister, a princess of piety, who had great influence over him, was affrightened with the danger of her brother’s eternal damnation.[*****]
[* W. Malms, p. 167.]
[** Padre Paolo, sopra Benef. Eccles. p. 112. W.
Malms, p. 179 Chron. Abb St. Petri de Burgo, p. 63. Sim.
Dunelm. p. 233.]
[*** Eadmer p. 79.]
[**** Eadmer, p. 80.]
Henry, on the other hand, seemed determined to run all hazards, rather than resign a prerogative of such importance, which had been enjoyed by all his predecessors; and it seemed probable from his great prudence and abilities, that he might be able co sustain his rights, and finally prevail in the contest. While Pascal and Henry thus stood mutually in awe; of each other, it was the more easy to bring about an accommodation between them, and to find a medium in which they might agree.
Before bishops took possession of their dignities, they had formerly been accustomed to pass through two ceremonies: they received from the hands of the sovereign a ring and crosier, as symbols of their office; and this was called their investiture: they also made those submissions to the prince which were required of vassals by the rites of the feudal law, and which received the name of homage. And as the king might refuse both to grant the investiture and to receive the homage, though the chapter had, by some canons of the middle age, been endowed with the right of election, the sovereign had in reality the sole power of appointing prelates. Urban II. had equally deprived laymen of the rights of granting investiture and of receiving homage:[*] the emperors never were able, by all their wars and negotiations, to make any distinction be admitted between them: the interposition of profane laymen, in any particular, was still represented as impious and abominable; and the church openly aspired to a total independence on the state. But Henry had put England, as well as Normandy, in such a situation as gave greater weight to his negotiations, and Pascal was for the present satisfied with his resigning the right of granting investitures, by which the spiritual dignity was supposed to be conferred; and he allowed the bishops to do homage for their temporal properties and privileges.[**] The pontiff was well pleased to have made this acquisition, which, he hoped, would in time involve the whole; and the king, anxious to procure an escape from a very dangerous situation, was content to retain some, though a more precarious authority, in the election of prelates.
[* Eadmer, p. 91. W. Malms, p. 163. Sim. Dunelm.
p. 230.]
[** Eadmer, p. 91. W Malms, p. 164. 227. Hoveden,
p. 471, M. Paris, p. 43. T. Rudborne, p. 274. Brompton. p.
1000. Wilkins, p. 303, Chron. Dunst. p. 21.]
After the principal controversy was accommodated, it was not difficult to adjust the other differences. If the pope allowed Anselm to communicate with the prelates who had already received investitures from the crown; and he only required of them some submissions for their past misconduct.[*] He also granted Anselm a plenary power of remedying every other disorder, which, he said, might arise from the barbarousness of he country.[**] Such was the idea which the popes then entertained of the English; and nothing can be a stronger proof of the miserable ignorance in which that people were then plunged, than that, a man who sat on the papal throne, and who subsisted by absurdities and nonsense, should think himself entitled to treat them as barbarians.
During the course of these controversies, a synod was held at Westminster, where the king, intent only on the mam dispute, allowed some canons of less importance to be enacted, which tended to promote the usurpations of the clergy. The celibacy of priests was enjoined; a point which it was still found very difficult to carry into execution; and even laymen were not allowed to marry within the seventh degree of affinity.[***] By this contrivance, the pope augmented the profits which he reaped from granting dispensations, and likewise those from divorces. For as the art of writing was then rare, and parish registers were not regularly kept, it was not easy to ascertain the degrees of affinity even among people of rank; and any man, who had money sufficient to pay for it, might obtain a divorce, on pretence that his wife was more nearly related to him than was permitted by the canons. The synod also passed a vote, prohibiting the laity from wearing long hair.[****] The aversion of the clergy to this mode was not confined to England. When the king went to Normandy, before he had conquered that province, the bishop of Seeze, in a formal harangue, earnestly exhorted him to redress the manifold disorders under which the government labored, and to oblige the people to poll their hair in a decent form. Henry, though he would not resign his prerogatives to the church willingly parted with his hair: he cut it in the form which they required of him, and obliged all the courtiers to imitate his example.[*****]
[* Eadmer, p. 87.]
[** Eadmer, p. 91.]
[*** Eadmer, p 67, 68. Spel. Concil. vol. ii. p.
22.]
[**** Eadmer, p 68. ]
The acquisition of Normandy was a great point of Henry’s ambition; being the ancient patrimony of his family, and the only territory winch, while in his possession, gave him any weight or consideration on the continent: but the injustice of his usurpation was the source of great inquietude, involved him in frequent wars, and obliged him to impose on his English subjects those many heavy and arbitrary taxes, of which all the historians of that age unanimously complain.[*] His nephew William was but six years of age when he committed him to the care of Helie de St. Saen; and it is probable that his reason for intrusting that important charge to a man of so unblemished a character, was to prevent all malignant suspicions, in case any accident should befall the life of the young prince,
1110.