"his heresies" as to the Real Presence in
the sacrament of the Eucharist.

In 1062, or 1063, Duke William, against the Lombard's own will (for
Lanfranc genuinely loved the liberty of letters more than vulgar power),
raised him to the abbacy of St. Stephen of Caen. From that time, his
ascendancy over his haughty lord was absolute. The contemporary
historian (William of Poitiers), says that "William respected him as a
father, venerated him as a preceptor, and cherished him as a brother or
son." He confided to him his own designs; and committed to him the
entire superintendence of the ecclesiastical orders throughout Normandy.
Eminent no less for his practical genius in affairs, than for his rare
piety and theological learning, Lanfranc attained indeed to the true
ideal of the Scholar; to whom, of all men, nothing that is human should
be foreign; whose closet is but a hermit's cell, unless it is the
microcosm that embraces the mart and the forum; who by the reflective
part of his nature seizes the higher region of philosophy--by the
energetic, is attracted to the central focus of action. For scholarship
is but the parent of ideas; and ideas are the parents of action.

After the conquest, as prelate of Canterbury, Lanfranc became the second
man in the kingdom--happy, perhaps, for England had he been the first;
for all the anecdotes recorded of him show a deep and genuine sympathy
with the oppressed population. But William the King of the English
escaped from the control which Lanfranc had imposed on the Duke of the
Normans. The scholar had strengthened the aspirer; he could only
imperfectly influence the conqueror.

Lanfranc was not, it is true, a faultless character. He was a priest, a
lawyer, and a man of the world--three characters hard to amalgamate into
perfection, especially in the eleventh century. But he stands in
gigantic and brilliant contrast to the rest of our priesthood in his own
day, both in the superiority of his virtues, and in his exemption from
the ordinary vices. He regarded the cruelties of Odo of Bayeux with
detestation, opposed him with firmness, and ultimately, to the joy of all
England, ruined his power. He gave a great impetus to learning; he set a
high example to his monks, in his freedom from the mercenary sins of
their order; he laid the foundations of a powerful and splendid church,
which, only because it failed in future Lanfrancs, failed in effecting
the civilisation of which he