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Updated: April 30, 2025
If the legal position which Lanfranc had so vigorously defended was correct, that a bishop might be tried as a baron by a lay court and a lay process, with no infringement of his ecclesiastical rights, then there could be no defence against this further extension of feudal principles.
In England he went first to Winchester to get possession of his father's great treasure, and then to Canterbury with his letter to Lanfranc. Nowhere is there any sign of opposition to his succession, or of any movement in favour of Robert, or on Robert's part, at this moment.
Now, however, he was praying himself, and anxious to get rid of this guilt. The man whom all England with one voice declared to be the ideal archbishop was at hand, and the king besought him most earnestly to accept the appointment, and so to aid him in his endeavour to save his soul. This man was Anselm, now abbot of the famous monastery of Bec, where Lanfranc had been at one time prior.
It was startling to watch Geoffrey as he read the parchment, the very hairs of his head seemed to erect themselves, and his colour changed from pale to red, from red to pale again. "My brother," said Lanfranc, "what dost thou read which so disturbeth thee?" "Read it thyself," said he, giving the letter which he had finished to the primate.
Thomas was at last compelled to submit to Lanfranc himself, though he made reservations with regard to his successors. In 1072 Worcester, and soon after Lindsey and Lincoln, were taken from the see of York. The abbeys of Selby and St. Oswald in Gloucester were given to the archbishop by way of some return.
His mind was so deeply absorbed with his conquest and other state matters that he did not seem to comprehend the difficulties which might arise under his successors, in yielding so much power to the primate. Moreover Lanfranc, in the quiet enjoyment of his ecclesiastical privileges, gave his powerful assistance in imposing the Norman yoke. He filled the great sees with Norman prelates.
Then arose such men as Erigena, Roscelin, Bérenger, Lanfranc, Anselm, Bernard, and others, all more or less orthodox, but inquiring and intellectual. It was within the walls of the cloister that the awakening began and the first impulse was given to learning and philosophy.
And Mauger, Archbishop of Rouen, excommunicated the Duke and his bride, and the ban fell idle; for Lanfranc sent from Rome the Pope's dispensation and blessing , conditionally only that bride and bridegroom founded each a church. And Mauger was summoned before the synod, and accused of unclerical crimes; and they deposed him from his state, and took from him abbacies and sees.
In the hands of diplomatists like William and Lanfranc, all these arguments, none of which had in itself the slightest strength, were enough to turn the great mass of continental opinion in William's favour. But he could add further arguments specially adapted to different classes of minds.
He will only say that his wish is for his son William to succeed him in his kingdom, and he prays Lanfranc to crown him king, if he deem such a course to be right. Such a message was a virtual nomination, and William the Red succeeded his father in England, but kept his crown only by the help of loyal Englishmen against Norman rebels.
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