Decrees of the council.
Lay investiture forbidden.
The preaching of the crusade was not the only business
of the great assembly at Clermont. A crowd of
canons of the usual kind were passed against the usual
abuses. Those abuses were not confined to England and
Normandy. We are told that in all the lands on our
side of the Alps—and we may venture to doubt whether
things were likely to be much better on the other side—simony
prevailed among all classes of the clergy, while
the laity had taken to put away their wives and to take
to themselves the wives of other men.[1] The great example
of this last fault was certainly King Philip of
France, whose marriage or pretended marriage with
Bertrada of Montfort, the wife of Count Fulk of Anjou,
was one of the subjects of discussion at the council.
All abuses of all these kinds were again denounced,
as they had often been denounced before, and were
often to be denounced again. But what concerns us
more immediately is the decree that no bishop, abbot,
or clerk of any rank, should receive any ecclesiastical
benefice from the hand of any prince or other layman.[2]*
- ↑ William of Malmesbury (iv. 344) draws a grievous picture of the state of things among the "Cisalpini," who "ad hæc calamitatis omnes devenerant, ut nullis vel minimis causis extantibus quisque alium caperet, nec nisi magno redemptum abire sineret." He then speaks at some length of simony, and adds; "Tunc legitimis uxoribus exclusis, multi contrahebant divortium, alienum expugnantes matrimonium; quare, quia in his et illis erat confusa criminum silva, ad pœnam quorundam potentiorum designata sunt nomina."
- ↑ The great provision of all is (Will. Malms. iv. 345), "Quod ecclesia catholica sit in fide, casta, libera ab omni servitute; ut episcopi, vel abbates, vel aliquis de clero, aliquam ecclesiasticam dignitatem de manu principum vel quorumlibet laicorum non accipiant." This decree does not appear among the acts of Piacenza in Bernold, 1095 (Pertz, v. 462). Among so many more stirring affairs, one decree of this council, which has a good deal of interest, might easily be forgotten. This is one which was meant to reform the abuses of the privileges of sanctuary; "Qui ad ecclesiam vel ad crucem confugerint, data membrorum impunitate, justitiæ tradantur, vel innocentes liberentur." Are we to see here the first beginning of a feeling against mutilation, which came in bit by bit in the
