promised the payment of Peter's pence and such
obedience as his English predecessors had rendered, he refused homage;
he allowed no papal letters to enter the kingdom without his leave, and
when an anti-pope was set up, he and Lanfranc treated the question as to
which pope should be acknowledged in England as one to be decided by the
crown. The Conquest brought the church into closer connexion with Rome
and gave it a share in the religious and intellectual life of the
continent; it stimulated and purified English monasticism, and it led to
the organization of the church as a body with legislative and
administrative powers distinct from those of the state. The relations
established by the Conqueror between the crown, the church and the pope,
its head and supreme judge, worked well as long as the king and the
primate were agreed, but were so complex that trouble necessarily arose
when they disagreed. William Rufus tried to feudalize the church, to
bring its officers and lands under feudal law; he kept bishoprics and
abbacies vacant and confiscated their revenues. He quarrelled with
Anselm (q.v.) who succeeded Lanfranc. Anselm while at Rome heard the
investiture of prelates by laymen denounced, and he maintained the papal
decree against Henry I. Bishops were vassals of the king, holding lands
of him, as well as officers of the church. How were they to be
appointed? Who should invest them with the symbols of their office? To
whom was their homage due? (see INVESTITURE). These questions which
agitated western Europe were settled as regards England by a compromise:
Henry surrendered investiture and kept the right to homage. The
substantial gain lay with the crown, for, while elections were
theoretically free, the king retained his power over them. Though Henry
in some degree checked the exercise of papal authority in England,
appeals to Rome without his sanction were frequent towards the end of
his reign. Stephen obtained the recognition of his title from Innocent
II., and was upheld by the church until he violently attacked three
bishops who had been Henry's ministers. The clergy then transferred
their allegiance to Matilda. His later quarrel with the papacy, then
under the influence of St Bernard, added to his embarrassments and
strengthened the Angevin cause.

The Angevin kings.

During Stephen's reign the church grew more powerful than was for the
good either of the state or itself. Its courts encroached on the spher