For some of his own purposes, William had perhaps chosen his minister too wisely.  The objects of the two colleagues were not always the same.  Lanfranc, sprung from Imperialist Pavia, was no zealot for extravagant papal claims.  The caution with which he bore himself during the schism which followed the strife between Gregory and Henry brought on him more than one papal censure.  Yet the general tendency of his administration was towards the growth of ecclesiastical, and even of papal, claims.  William never dreamed of giving up his ecclesiastical supremacy or of exempting churchmen from the ordinary power of the law.  But the division of the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the increased frequency of synods distinct from the general assemblies of the realm—­even though the acts of those synods needed the royal assent—­were steps towards that exemption of churchmen from the civil power which was asserted in one memorable saying towards the end of William’s own reign.  William could hold his own against Hildebrand himself; yet the increased intercourse with Rome, the more frequent presence of Roman Legates, all tended to increase the papal claims and the deference yielded to them.  William refused homage to Gregory; but it is significant that Gregory asked for it.  It was a step towards the day when a King of England was glad to offer it.  The increased strictness as to the marriage of the clergy tended the same way.  Lanfranc did not at once enforce the full rigour of Hildebrand’s decrees.  Marriage was forbidden for the future; the capitular clergy had to part from their wives; but the vested interest of the parish priest was respected.  In another point William directly helped to undermine his own authority and the independence of his kingdom.  He exempted his abbey of the Battle from the authority of the diocesan bishop.  With this began a crowd of such exemptions, which, by weakening local authority, strengthened the power of the Roman see.  All these things helped on Hildebrand’s great scheme which made the clergy everywhere members of one distinct and exclusive body, with the Roman Bishop at their head.  Whatever tended to part the clergy from other men tended to weaken the throne of every king.  While William reigned with Lanfranc at his side, these things were not felt; but the seed was sown for the controversy between Henry and Thomas and for the humiliation of John.

Even those changes of Lanfranc’s primacy which seem of purely ecclesiastical concern all helped, in some way to increase the intercourse between England and the continent or to break down some insular peculiarity.  And whatever did this increased the power of Rome.  Even the decree of 1075 that bishoprics should be removed to the chief cities of their dioceses helped to make England more like Gaul or Italy.  So did the fancy of William’s bishops and abbots for rebuilding their churches on a greater scale and in the last devised continental style.  All tended