bute he meant Peter's pence; which, though
at first a charitable donation of the Saxon princes, was interpreted,
according to the usual practice of the Romish court, to be a badge of
subjection acknowledged by the kingdom. William replied, that the
money should be remitted as usual; but that neither had he promised to
do homage to Rome, nor was it in the least his purpose to impose that
servitude on his state [g]. And the better to show Gregory his
independence, he ventured, notwithstanding the frequent complaints of
the pope, to refuse to the English bishops the liberty of attending a
general council which that pontiff had summoned against his enemies.
[FN [g] Spicileg. Seldeni ad Eadmer, p. 4.]

But though the king displayed this vigour in supporting the royal
dignity, he was infected with the general superstition of the age, and
he did not perceive the ambitious scope of those institutions, which,
under colour of strictness in religion, were introduced or promoted by
the court of Rome. Gregory, while he was throwing all Europe into
combustion by his violence and impostures, affected an anxious care
for the purity of manners; and even the chaste pleasures of the
marriage-bed were inconsistent, in his opinion, with the sanctity of
the sacerdotal character. He had issued a decree prohibiting the
marriage of priests, excommunicating all clergymen who retained their
wives, declaring such unlawful commerce to be fornication, and
rendering it criminal in the laity to attend divine worship, when such
profane priests officiated at the altar [h]. This point was a great
object in the politics of the Roman pontiffs; and it cost them
infinitely more pains to establish it, than the propagation of any
speculative absurdity which they had ever attempted to introduce.
Many synods were summoned in different parts of Europe before it was
finally settled; and it was there constantly remarked, that the
younger clergymen complied cheerfully with the pope's decrees in this
particular, and that the chief reluctance appeared in those who were
more advanced in years: an event so little consonant to men's natural
expectations, that it could not fail to be glossed on, even in that
blind and superstitious age. William allowed the pope's legate to
assemble, in his absence, a synod at Winchester, in order to establish
the celibacy of the clergy; but the church of England could not yet be
carried the whole length expected. The synod was cont