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William, the greatest of his class, is still but a member of a class. Along with him we must reckon a crowd of kings, bishops, and high officials in many ages of our history. Theodore of Tarsus and Cnut of Denmark, Lanfranc of Pavia and Anselm of Aosta, Randolf Flambard and Roger of Salisbury, Henry of Anjou and Simon of Montfort, are all written on a list of which William is but the foremost.
Langland, in the Vision of Piers Plowman, makes the first mention of his popularity: "I kan not parfitly my paternoster, as the priest sayeth, But I kan rymes of Robyn Hode and Randolf, Earl of Chester". Again, in John Fordun's Scottish Chronicle, written about 1360, we find him described not only as a notorious robber, but as a man of great charity.
The jester then, much to the annoyance of the two boys, thought proper to follow them to the office of the comptroller, and as that dignitary read out from his books the name of every Henry, and of all the varieties of Ralf and Randolf among the hundred and eighty persons composing the household, he kept on making comments.
But the circumstances of his reign gave increased strength to certain tendencies which had been long afloat. And out of them, in the next reign, the malignant genius of Randolf Flambard devised a systematic code of oppression. Yet even in his work there is little of formal change. There are no laws of William Rufus.
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