He denies the authority of the Court.
Growth of the new doctrines.
Position of Lanfranc and Bishop William. inference from that act of the Conqueror which had severed the jurisdictions which ancient English custom had joined together. He told the barons of the realm and the other laymen who were present that with them he had nothing to do, that he altogether refused their jurisdiction; he demanded, that, if the King and the Bishops allowed them to be present, they should at least not speak against him.[1] The doctrine of ecclesiastical privilege had indeed grown, since, six and thirty years before, the people of England, gathered beneath the walls of London, had declared a traitorous archbishop to be deprived and outlawed, and had by their own act set another in his place. Yet the position of William of Saint-Calais was more consistent than the position of Lanfranc. William of Saint-Calais wholly denied the right of laymen to judge a bishop; Lanfranc, the assertor of that right, had been placed in his see on the very ground that the deposition of Robert and the election of Stigand were both invalid, as being merely acts of the secular power. Still, however logical might be the Bishop's argument, his claims were practically new, either in English or in Norman ears. If they had ever been heard of before, it had been only for a moment from the lips of Odo. And we may mark again that, though the words of William of Saint-Calais would have won him favour with Hildebrand, they won him no favour with Lanfranc. Lanfranc represented the traditions of the Conqueror, and in the days of the Conqueror, all things, divine and human, had depended on the Conqueror's nod.[2]
- ↑ "Domini barones et laici, permittite me, quæso, quæ dicturus sum regi dicere, archiepiscopis et episcopis respondere, quia nihil vobis habeo dicere, et, sicut huc non veni judicium vestrum recepturus, ita illud omnin recuso, et si domino nostri regi et archiepiscopis et episcopis placuisset vos hic negotio interesse, nec me taliter obloqui decuisset."
- ↑ See the complaints from the ecclesiastical side in N. C. vol. iv. p. 436.
