[943] This was pointed out by Hallam, Middle Ages, i. 128, ed. 1846.
[944] See N. C. vol. v. p. 381.
[947] Select Charters, 97. “Similiter et homines baronum meorum justa et legitima relevatione relevabunt terras suas de dominis suis…. Et præcipio quod barones mei similiter se contineant erga filios et filias vel uxores hominum suorum.”
[949] Select Charters, 97. “Omnia placita et omnia debita quæ fratri meo debebantur condono, exceptis rectis firmis meis et exceptis illis quæ pacta erant pro aliorum hæreditatibus vel pro eis rebus quæ justius aliis contingebant.”
[950] See N. C. vol. iv. pp. 429, 821. Eadmer says emphatically in the Preface to the Historia Novorum; “Ex eo quippe quo Willelmus Normanniæ comes terram illam [Angliam] debellando sibi subegit, nemo in ea episcopus vel abbas ante Anselmum factus est qui non primo fuerit homo regis, ac de manu illius episcopatus vel abbatiæ investituram per dationem virgæ pastoralis suscepit.” He excepts the bishops of Rochester, who received investiture from the Archbishop of Canterbury, their lord as well as their metropolitan.
A distinct witness to the antiquity of the royal rights in England is borne by William of Malmesbury (v. 417), where he is speaking of the controversy in Henry the First’s time. The King refused to yield to the new claims of the Pope, “non elationis ambitu, sed procerum et maxime comitis de Mellento instinctu, qui, in hoc negotio magis antiqua consuetudine quam recti tenore rationem reverberans allegabat multum regiæ majestati diminui, si omittens morem antecessorum, non investiret electum per baculum et annulum.”
Another remarkable witness is given by one of the continuators of Sigebert (Sigeberti Auctarium Ursicampinum, Pertz, vi. 471). He records the death of Lanfranc under a wrong year, 1097, and adds; “Anselmus abbas Beccensis, pro sua sanctitate et doctrina non solum in Normannia, sed etiam in Anglia jam celeberrimus, successit in præsulatu. Qui licet a rege Willelmo et principibus terre totiusque ecclesiæ conventu susceptus honorifice fuisset, multas tamen molestias et tribulationes postmodum sub ipso rege passus est pro statu ecclesiæ corrigendo. Nam reges Angliæ hanc injustam legem jam diu tenuerant, ut electos ecclesiæ præsules ipsi per virgam pastoralem ecclesiis investirent.”