ter Pence; and simony, a crime peculiarly reprobated by
the pontiff, was notorious in England. Therefore there was much to aid
Hildebrand in the Assembly of the Cardinals, when he brought before them
the oath of Harold, the violation of the sacred relics, and demanded that
the pious Normans, true friends to the Roman Church, should be permitted
to Christianise the barbarous Saxons [237], and William he nominated as
heir to a throne promised to him by Edward, and forfeited by the perjury
of Harold. Nevertheless, to the honour of that assembly, and of man,
there was a holy opposition to this wholesale barter of human
rights--this sanction of an armed onslaught on a Christian people. "It
is infamous," said the good, "to authorise homicide." But Hildebrand was
all-powerful, and prevailed.

William was at high feast with his barons when Lanfranc dismounted at his
gates and entered his hall.

"Hail to thee, King of England!" he said. "I bring the bull that
excommunicates Harold and his adherents; I bring to thee the gift of the
Roman Church, the land and royalty of England. I bring to thee the
gonfanon hallowed by the heir of the Apostle, and the very ring that
contains the precious relic of the Apostle himself! Now who will shrink
from thy side? Publish thy ban, not in Normandy alone, but in every
region and realm where the Church is honoured. This is the first war of
the Cross."

Then indeed was it seen--that might of the Church! Soon as were made
known the sanction and gifts of the Pope, all the continent stirred as to
the blast of the trump in the Crusade, of which that war was the herald.
From Maine and from Anjou, from Poitou and Bretagne, from France and from
Flanders, from Aquitaine and Burgundy, flashed the spear, galloped the
steed. The robber-chiefs from the castles now grey on the Rhine; the
hunters and bandits from the roots of the Alps; baron and knight, varlet
and vagrant,--all came to the flag of the Church,--to the pillage of
England. For side by side with the Pope's holy bull was the martial
ban:--"Good pay and broad lands to every one who will serve Count William
with spear, and with sword, and with cross-bow." And the Duke said to
Fitzosborne, as he parcelled out the fair fields of England into Norman
fiefs:

"Harold hath not the strength of mind to promise the least of those
things that belong to me. But I have the right to promise that which is
mine, and also that which belongs to him.