Nothing remained to complete William's satisfaction but the punishment of Ralph de Guader; and he hastened over to Normandy in order to gratify his vengeance on that criminal. But though the contest seemed very unequal between a private nobleman and the King of England, Ralph was so well supported both by the Earl of Britany and the King of France, that William, after besieging him for some time in Dol, was obliged to abandon the enterprise, and make with those powerful princes a peace, in which Ralph himself was included. England, during his absence, remained in tranquillity, and nothing remarkable occurred, except two ecclesiastical synods which were summoned, one at London, another at Winchester. In the former the precedency among the episcopal sees was settled, and the seat of some of them was removed from small villages to the most considerable town within the diocese. In the second was transacted a business of more importance.
[MN 1076. Dispute about investitures] The industry and perseverance are surprising, with which the popes had been treasuring up powers and pretensions during so many ages of ignorance; while each pontiff employed every fraud for advancing purposes of imaginary piety, and cherished all claims which might turn to the advantage of his successors, though he himself could not expect ever to reap any benefit from them. All this immense store of spiritual and civil authority was now devolved on Gregory VII. of the name of Hildebrand, the most enterprising pontiff that had ever filled that chair, and the least restrained by fear, decency, or moderation. Not content with shaking off the yoke of the emperors, who had hitherto exercised the power of appointing the pope on every vacancy, or at least of ratifying his election; he undertook the arduous task of entirely disjoining the ecclesiastical from the civil power, and of excluding profane laymen from the right which they had assumed of filling the vacancies of bishoprics, abbeys, and other spiritual dignities [a]. The sovereigns who had long exercised this power, and who had acquired it not by encroachments on the church, but on the people, to whom it originally belonged [b], made great opposition to this claim of the court of Rome; and Henry IV., the reigning emperor, defended this prerogative of his crown with a vigour and resolution suitable to its importance. The few offices, either civil or military, which the feudal institutions left the sovereign the power of bestowing, made the prerogative of conferring the pastoral ring and staff the most valuable jewel of the royal diadem; especially as the general ignorance of the age bestowed a consequence on the ecclesiastical offices, even beyond the great extent of power and property which belonged to them. Superstition, the child of ignorance, invested the clergy with an authority almost sacred; and as they engrossed the little learning of the age, their interposition became requisite in all civil business, and a real usefulness in common life was thus superadded to the spiritual sanctity of their character. [FN [a] L'Abbé Conc. tom. x. p. 371, 372. com. 2. [b] Padre Paolo sopra benef. eccles. p. 30.]