conscience schooled at Aosta and Bec could not fail to teach him.
Frequency of assemblies under Rufus.
Easter Gemót. March 25, 1095.
A special meeting summoned.
Assembly of Rockingham. March 11, 1095.
To Anselm's proposal for referring the matter to the
Witan of the kingdom William made no objection. The
Red King seems never to have had any objection to
meeting either his great men or the general mass of his
subjects. He was in truth so strong that every gathering
of the kind became little more than a display of his
power. But it is not easy to see why the question could
not have been kept open till the ordinary Easter Gemót.
That Gemót was held this year at Winchester, and, as
we shall see in another chapter, matters of no small
moment had to be treated in it. The King's authority
was beginning to be defied in northern England, and at
this Easter it had to be asserted. But, for whatever
reason, it was determined that a special assembly should
be summoned a fortnight before the regular meeting at
Winchester, for the discussion of the particular point
which had been raised between the King and the Archbishop.
It illustrates the way in which the kings and
great men of that time were always moving from place
to place that a spot was chosen for the special meeting,
far away from the spot where William and Anselm then
were, far away from the place where the regular assembly
was to be held so soon after. Gillingham and
Winchester were comparatively near to each other; but
the assembly which was to give a legal judgement as to
Anselm's conflicting duties was summoned to meet on
the second Sunday before Easter at the royal castle of
Rockingham on the borders of Northamptonshire and
Leicestershire, a place which had at least the merit of
being one of the most central in England.
In the question which was now to be argued, there can be little doubt that the King was technically in the
