gay duke known as "Robert the Devil." William, the child of this
unconsecrated union, upon the death of his father succeeded to the
dukedom. One of the steps in the rapid climb of this family of Rollo
had been a marriage connecting them with the royal family of England.
King Edward, William's remote cousin, died without an heir. Here was
an opportunity. With sixty thousand Norman adventurers like himself,
William started with the desperate purpose of invading England and
wresting the crown from his cousin Harold.

It was not the first time the Northman had invaded England. But never
before had he come bringing a higher civilization, and under the banner
of the Church! In a few weeks Harold, last king of the Saxons, was
dead, and William, Duke of Normandy, was William I., King of England.

Philip, King of France, saw with dismay his richest province ruled by a
king of England, and his own vassal wearing a crown with power superior
to his own! A door had thus opened through which would enter
entangling complications and countless woes in the future.

While William was trampling England into the dust, and with pitiless
hand rivetting a feudal chain upon the Saxons, another and greater
centre of power was developing at Rome, where the monk Hildebrand, who
had now become Pope Gregory VII., claimed a universal sovereignty from
which there was no appeal. Christ was King of Kings. So, as His
vicegerent upon earth, the authority of the pope was absolute in
Christendom.

The moment of this supreme elevation in the Church was reached at
Canossa, 1072, when Henry, the excommunicated Emperor of Germany, came
barefooted, in winter, and prostrated himself before Gregory VII. If
Charlemagne had worn the Church as a precious jewel in his crown in the
ninth century, now in the eleventh the Church wore all the European
states as a tiara of jewels in her mitre. With supreme wisdom, and
with a sure instinct for power, her supremacy had been rooted first in
the hearts of the people, then the mailed hand laid upon their rulers.

CHAPTER VII.

The corner-stone of the social structure in France was the dogma that
work was degrading; and not only manual labor, but anything done with
the object of producing wealth was a degradation. The only honorable
occupation for a gentleman was either to pray or to fight.

Society in France was, therefore, divided into three classes: the
_Clergy_, called the "First Estate"; the _Nobil