With the exception of Worcester, no English see was left in the hands of a native bishop. They were held either by Normans or by the Lotharingians who had been appointed in the Confessor’s reign. At Worcester, Wulfstan, though not a man of learning, was allowed to retain his bishopric on account of his holiness. Among his other good works, he preached in Bristol against the slave-trade with Ireland that was largely carried on there, and persuaded the townsmen to give it up. Most of William’s bishops were men of high character, for his appointments were free from simony, and were, no doubt, suggested by Lanfranc; and the king himself had no liking for evil men. Some of them were learned; nearly all were magnificent. They did not play a great part in State affairs, and stand in some contrast both to the old native bishops, who were leaders of the witan, and, though several of them had been the king’s clerks, to the bishops of a later period, who were before all things royal ministers. They generally rebuilt their churches in the Norman style, of which the Confessor’s church at Westminster was the earliest example in England. At York, Archbishop Thomas did away with the discipline introduced by Ealdred, and assigned separate prebends to each of the canons, an arrangement which was gradually adopted in all cathedral churches with secular chapters. That the chapter of a cathedral church should consist of monks was extremely rare except in England, but as the Normans generally were strong supporters of monasticism, this was a peculiarity of which they approved, and in some churches secular canons were displaced by monks. Some of the bishops, however, who were not monks, with Walchelin, bishop of Winchester, at their head, saw that monastic chapters were a hindrance to the bishop, and were unfitted for their duties. They conceived the idea of replacing the monks by secular canons even in the metropolitan church. William is said to have approved of the scheme; but it was highly distasteful to Lanfranc, “the father of the monks,” and he obtained a letter from Alexander II. indignantly forbidding it. The scheme was defeated, and Walchelin, who had forty clerks with their tonsure cut and their dress prepared as canons, ready to take the place of the monks of St. Swithun’s, and to divide the monastic estates into prebends, had to send them about their business. Although William’s Norman bishops were generally good specimens of continental churchmen, they had no sympathy with the thoughts and feelings of their clergy and people. Of one only, Osbern of Exeter, it is said that he adopted the English mode of life. Lanfranc despised the national saints, and doubted the right of his predecessor, Ælfheah, to the title of martyr, until he was taught better by Anselm, abbot of Bec. The admiration of the Normans for monasticism caused a considerable increase in the practice of endowing monasteries with tithes and parish churches, and thus in many cases tithes were paid to abbeys both here and abroad.
The national character of the Church.
In every respect our Church lost much of its insular, and something also of its national, character by the Conquest. Its prelates were foreigners; it was drawn more closely to Rome, and legates came over, and judged and deposed her native bishops, not always justly; its councils and courts were separated from the councils and courts of the nation. There seems to have been a change made even in doctrine; for the dogma of transubstantiation, of which Lanfranc was the special champion, was now universally accepted, and the archbishop’s eagerness in this matter is reflected in the many stories of miracles connected with the Holy Elements which appear in contemporary literature. Yet the Church remained the representative of English nationality; her influence at once began to turn Normans into Englishmen; and it is interesting to find Lanfranc using the terms “our island” and “we English,” and describing himself to Alexander II. as a “new Englishman.” As primate of the English Church, he was the spiritual head of the nation, of English villeins as well as of Norman barons. All were Englishmen to him, and all soon became in truth one people. And while the establishment of a separate system of ecclesiastical administration tended to destroy the national character of the Church, this tendency was neutralized by the exercise of the king’s supremacy. The new system worked well; but its success was due to the fact that it was carried out by a king and a primate at once so strong and so united in policy as the Conqueror and Lanfranc.
William Rufus, 1087-1100.
The first William, if an austere man, was a mighty ruler, who loved order and valued the services of good men: the second was a braggart and a blasphemer, whose life was unspeakably evil and whose greediness knew no shame. In his hands the royal supremacy became a hateful tyranny, and the relations between the Church and the Crown were disturbed. Early in the reign the change in these relations was illustrated by an appeal to Rome. William of Saint-Calais, bishop of Durham, an ambitious and crafty intriguer, was cited to appear before the king’s court on a charge of treason, and his lands were seized. He complained that his bishopric had been seized, and Lanfranc, who upheld the king’s action, answered that his fiefs were not his bishopric. Next he pleaded the privilege of his order, and refused to be judged by the lay barons. “If I may not judge you and your order to-day,” said Robert of Meulan, “you and your order shall never judge me.” If bishops refused the jurisdiction of the king’s court, they should cease to be members of it, they should no longer hold fiefs of the Crown. Finally, William appealed to Rome. Archbishop Robert had in exile appealed to the Pope against a decree of the national assembly; Bishop William, for the first time since the days of Wilfrith, made a like appeal in the presence of the king and his council. The sole object of Rufus was to obtain Durham Castle; the bishop surrendered it, and was allowed to go abroad, but he does not appear to have prosecuted his appeal.
Feudal tyranny.
The special danger which threatened the Church in this reign arose from the attempt to treat it as a feudal society. Ralph Flambard, the minister of Rufus, raised money for his master chiefly by exaggerating and systematizing the feudal elements already existing in civil life. The practice of granting the temporalities by investiture shows that, even before the Conquest, Church lands were to some extent regarded in a feudal light, and since then this idea had gained strength. Rufus treated them as mere lay fiefs, and dealt with the prelates simply as his tenants-in-chief. No profits could, of course, accrue to the Crown from Church lands, such as were gathered from lay fiefs in the form of reliefs, a payment made by the heir on entering on his estate, or from other feudal burdens of a like kind. When, therefore, a bishopric or royal abbey fell vacant, the king, to compensate himself for the disparity, instead of causing the property to be administered for the benefit of the Church, entered on the lands and treated them as his own. It thus became his interest to keep sees vacant until he received a large sum for them. Simony grew prevalent and the character of the clergy declined; they engaged in secular pursuits, farmed the taxes, and sought in all ways to make money. After the death of Lanfranc in 1089, the king kept the archbishopric vacant, and granted the lands of the see to be held by his friends or by the highest bidder. This was a different matter from his dealings with other sees; for the archbishop was the spiritual head of the nation, and constitutionally the chief adviser of the king and the foremost member of his court, as he had been of the witenagemót. Accordingly the barons saw the king’s conduct with displeasure. Rufus was not moved by greediness alone. While Lanfranc lived he had been forced to listen to his remonstrances with respect, and as he hated reproof, he determined not to appoint another archbishop as long as he could avoid doing so. He would, he declared to one of his earls, be archbishop himself. Neither the suffragan bishops nor the monks of Christ Church dreamed of electing without his order, and each year the state of the Church grew worse. At last Rufus fell sick and was like to die. Then the bishops and nobles entreated him, for his soul’s sake, to appoint a primate and do other works meet for repentance. He consented willingly, and they sent for Abbot Anselm, who chanced to be in England.
S. Anselm, archbishop, 1093-1109.
Anselm was a native of Aosta. Born and brought up amid the cloud-capt Alps, he longed when a child to climb the mountains and find God’s house, which, he had been told, was in the clouds. One night he dreamed that he had done so and had found the palace of the Great King: he sat at the Lord’s feet and told Him how grieved he was that His handmaids were idling in the harvest-fields below. Then, at the Lord’s bidding, the steward of the palace gave him bread of the purest whiteness, and he ate and was refreshed. The dream is told us by his friend and biographer, Eadmer, who no doubt heard it from his own lips. It was prophetic of his life and character. He grew up studious and holy; his learning was renowned through Europe, and by Lanfranc’s advice he entered the monastery of Bec, and became abbot there. He visited England more than once, and men marvelled to see how the stern Conqueror became gentle when he was by. When he was brought to the sick-bed of Rufus he received his confession and urged him to amend his life. The king, who thought that he was dying, promised to do so, and his lords begged him to begin by naming an archbishop. He raised himself in his bed, and pointing to Anselm, said, “I name yonder holy man.” There seems to have been no form of election; the king’s word was held a sufficient appointment. Anselm was sorely unwilling to accept the office; he believed that the king would recover, and he knew his evil heart. To make him archbishop was, he said, “to yoke an untamed bull and an old and feeble sheep together.” He told Rufus that if he consented, the grants made during the vacancy of the lands of the see must be revoked, and that he must take him as “his spiritual father and counsellor;” for such was the constitutional position of the primate with respect to the king. Lastly, he reminded the king that he had already acknowledged Urban II. as Pope; for Rufus had not yet decided between the two claimants for the papacy.
The untamed bull and the feeble sheep.