He demands to be the King's spiritual guide.
- out requiring full restitution of everything to which
the see had a lawful claim. In the private conference at Rochester, he therefore demanded, as a condition of his accepting the see, that he should receive all that Lanfranc had held, without delay or dispute or process in any court. As for lands to which his church had an ancient claim, but which Lanfranc had been unable to win back, for those he demanded that the King should do him justice in his court.[1] The second demand touched the ancient relations between the crown and the archbishopric. The sheep, about to be yoked with the wild bull, sought to make terms with his fierce comrade. Anselm demanded that, in all matters which touched God and Christianity, the King should take him as his counsellor before all other men; as he acknowledged in the King his earthly lord, so let the King acknowledge in him his ghostly father and the special guardian of his soul.[2]
Acknowledgement of Popes. To these two requests Anselm added a third, one which touched a point on which the Red King seems to have been specially sensitive. It had been the rule of his father's reign that no Pope should be acknowledged in England without his consent.[3] William Rufus seems to have construed this rule in the same way in which he construed some others. From his right to nominate to
- ↑ This seems to be the distinction drawn by Anselm, Hist. Nov. 19, 20; "Volo ut omnes terras quas ecclesia Cantuariensis, ad quam regendam electus sum, tempore beatæ memoriæ Lanfranci archiepiscopi tenebat, sine omni placito et controversia ipsi ecclesiæ restituas, et de aliis terris quas eadem ecclesia ante suum tempus habebat, sed perditas nondum recuperavit, mihi rectitudinem judiciumque consentias." About anything which Lanfranc had actually held there could, it is assumed, be no question, either of law or of fact; about earlier claims there might easily be either.
- ↑ Ib. 20. "Sicut ego te volo terrenum habere dominum et defensorem, ita et tu me spiritualem habeas patrem et animæ tuæ provisorem." To this day it is held that, wherever the King may be, the Archbishop of Canterbury is his parish priest.
- ↑ See N. C. vol. iv. p. 436.
