William and the Church

The Norman Conquest affected the life of the church as well as of the state. The Anglo-Saxon church, despite the efforts of Alfred, Dunstan, and Eadward the Confessor, was never an integral part of the Continental church. Moreover, it had become disorganized and corrupt. William had come to England with the blessing of the pope, and was morally bound not only to aid in elevating the church, but also to bring it more directly tinder the authority of the papacy. He began by removing the Anglo-Saxon bishops and replacing them with others from the Continent, trained in the ways of the Roman church and devoted to pope and king. Stigand was deposed, and Lanfranc made archbishop of Canterbury; and when a few years later the archbishop of York died, Thomas of Bayeux was given his place, and his diocese was made subordinate to that of Canterbury. This act, by making Lanfranc the sole head of the English church, strengthened the ecclesiastical unity of England.

Lanfranc, the right-hand man of William the Conqueror, was not only a great theologian and a great disciplinarian, but he was also trained in law. He came to England ready to organize the church and to enforce many of the Cluniac reforms, which Dunstan had tried to introduce. He and William worked heartily together. Lanfranc imposed celibacy upon the clergy, substituted, whenever the opportunity arose, the regular clergy (the monks) for the secular clergy (the priests), and encouraged the coining of monastic orders into England. He found many of the sees located in villages and small towns and caused them to be removed to the cities, where the bishop might enjoy the benefits of urban life.

Lanfranc took another and more important step. He wished to make the church independent of the state organization, and to that end persuaded the king to issue an ordinance which had a very important effect upon the later history of the English church. We can understand this ordinance when we remember that in Anglo-Saxon times there were no separate ecclesiastical courts, but that the bishops sat with the ealdormen in the shiremot, where ecclesiastical as well as civil cases were heard. William's ordinance said that hereafter bishops and archdeacons were to deal, in courts of their own, with such ecclesiastical cases as had hitherto come before the hundred court; and that, too, not according to local custom or the law of the hundred, but according to canon and episcopal laws. Here we see the result of Lanfranc's legal training. The English church was thenceforth to have separate courts and to be governed by canon or church law, while the clergy were to become a distinct order by themselves.

But William was not willing that either church or pope should limit his own power as king of England and of Englishmen. He refused to do homage to Gregory VII. Though he continued the old Anglo-Saxon payment to Rome of a penny on every hearth (Peter's pence), he forbade that any one in his kingdom should acknowledge a new pope or should receive any papal letters without his consent. He would not allow the English clergy in their separate convocation to decide anything unless he agreed to it, and he would not suffer the church to try publicly or to excommunicate any of his barons or officers without first referring the matter to him.' Thus even while he strengthened the papal authority he kept it well under control, and himself regulated ecclesiastical affairs within his own dominion.

General Character of the Norman Conquest

The Norman Conquest marks the introduction into England of new ideas and practices in land tenure, military service, government, and church organization, due in large part to the personal influence of the Conqueror and his advisers. But indirectly it brought about changes that were social and economic as well. The introduction of a new land law and military service created a feudal hierarchy, extending from the king at the top, through the earls and barons, to the knight at the bottom, each man holding his land of some one above him. Whereas in Anglo-Saxon times there had been only two or occasionally three persons between the king and the land, in Norman times the number sometimes rose to eight or nine. Thus what is called the "feudal structure" became more elaborate and weighty. The social arrangement of Anglo-Saxon times was changed, and a separation began between the upper and the lower classes, which was to continue for four centuries.

The effect of the Conquest upon the condition of those below the feudal class, that is, the inhabitants of the vills, was equally marked. The introduction of feudal tenure, and the heavy taxes which William imposed, decreased the number of small, independent holdings, led to the formation of great manorial estates, and brought many free and lordless villages under the control of Norman lords. More villagers than ever, those on lay as well as those on ecclesiastical estates, were forced to perform services, to make payments to their lords, to be bound to the soil, that is, to become what we know as villeins. This process was not complete until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

The Norman Conquest brought England, the English people, and the English church out of isolation into the current of Continental life. It introduced symmetry, simplicity, and consolidation into English government and law. It brought into conflict on English soil two rival peoples, differing in language and customs, the fusion of whom was not to be effected for a century and a half. It hastened the depression of the peasantry, and worked hardship for great masses of the population. And, lastly, the possession of Normandy and of other Frankish fiefs, which were acquired later and which the English kings held as vassals of the French king,, brought upon England some of the evils of Frankish feudalism. The Conquest was bad as well as good for England; but the harm was only temporary, the good permanent.