Its special fitness in England. alone that it could have been used. In the highest rank of all, used to the loftier metaphors of the two great lights of heaven and the two swords on earth, figures drawn from ploughs and oxen might have seemed unworthy of the supreme majesty of the Roman Emperor and the Roman Pontiff. In other lands the metaphor would have failed from another side. The Primate of Rheims or of Rouen could hardly be spoken of as in the same sort the yoke-fellow of the French King or the Norman Duke. In England the parable had more truth. It set forth at once the supreme ecclesiastical authority of the King, and the check which ancient custom put on that authority in the shape of an archiepiscopal tribune of the people. But the happy partnership of the two powers had come to an end. The strong ox Lanfranc was dead. His surviving yoke-fellow was a young and untameable wild bull.[1] With him they wished to yoke an old and feeble sheep, who might perhaps furnish them with the wool and milk of the Lord's word, and with lambs for His service,[2] but who was utterly unequal to the task of pulling in fellowship with such a comrade. His weakness and the King's fierceness could never work together. If they would only think over the matter, they would give up the attempt which they had begun. The joy with which they had hailed his nomination would be turned into sorrow. They talked of his raising up the Church from widowhood; if they insisted on forcing him into the see, the Church would be thrust
- ↑ "Horum boum unus, scilicet Lanfrancus archiepiscopus, mortuus est; et alius ferocitatem indomabilis tauri obtinens jam juvenis aratro prælatus, et vos loco mortui bovis, me vetulam ac debilem ovem cum indomito tauro conjungere vultis."
- ↑ "Indomabilis utique feritas tauri sic ovem lanæ et lactis et agnorum fertilem per spinas et tribulos hac et illac raptam, si jugo se non excusserit, dilacerabit." So a little after; "Me, de quo lanam et lac verbi Dei, et agnos in servitium ejus, nonnulli possent habere." The metaphor becomes passing strange when it is thus worked out in detail.
