The practice a new one.
The olden practice.
Tenure in frank-almoign.
Odo Abbot of Chertsey resigns, 1092.
Restored by Henry, 1100.
These doings on the part of Rufus are by the writers
of the time put in marked contrast with the practice of
earlier kings, and especially with the practice of his own
father. As the old and inborn kings had done nothing
of the kind, so neither had the Conqueror from beyond
sea. In their days, when an abbot or bishop died, his
spiritual superior, the bishop of the diocese or the archbishop
of the province, administered the estates of his
church during the vacancy, bestowing the income to
pious and charitable uses, and handing the estates over
to the new prelate on his appointment.[1] In later legal
language, the guardian of the spiritualties was also the
guardian of the temporalities. Bishoprics and abbeys
were dealt with as smaller preferments have always
been dealt with, as holdings in frank-almoign. The
novelty lay, not in receiving the bishopric or abbey from
the king, but in receiving it on the terms of a lay
fief. One prelate, Odo Abbot of Chertsey, the Norman
successor of the English Wulfwold,[2] resigned his post
rather than hold it on such terms.[3] For the rest of the
reign of Rufus the estates of the abbey were left in the
hands of Flambard. One of the earliest among the reforms
of Henry and Anselm was the restoration of Odo.[4]
Vacancies longer in abbeys than in bishoprics. If we look more minutely into the chronology of this reign, it will appear that these long vacancies were more usual in the case of the abbeys than in that of the
- [Footnote: ordinati miseria quam laici, quod tædebat eos vitæ eorum." The annalist
had said a little earlier (1092), in nearly the same words, "Prædictus Radulphus, vir quo in malo nemo subtilior, ecclesias sibi commissas exspoliavit bonis omnibus, et divites simul et pauperes [see p. 341] ad tantam deduxit inopiam, ut mallent mori quam sub ejus vivere dominatu."]abbatiam Certesiæ."]
