ved with great respect by Urban, who considered
him as a martyr in the cause of religion, and even menaced the king on
account of his proceedings against the primate and the church, with
the sentence of excommunication. Anselm assisted at the council of
Bari, where, besides fixing the controversy between the Greek and
Latin churches, concerning the procession of the Holy Ghost [q], the
right of election to church preferments was declared to belong to the
clergy alone, and spiritual censures were denounced against all
ecclesiastics, who did homage to laymen for their sees or benefices,
and against all laymen who exacted it [r]. The right of homage, by
the feudal customs, was, that the vassal should throw himself on his
knees, should put his joined hands between those of his superior, and
should in that posture swear fealty to him [s]. But the council
declared it execrable, that pure hands, which could create God, and
could offer him up as a sacrifice for the salvation of mankind, should
be put, after this humiliating manner, between profane hands, which,
besides being inured to rapine and bloodshed, were employed day and
night in impure purposes, and obscene contacts [t]. Such were the
reasonings prevalent in that age; reasonings which, though they cannot
be passed over in silence, without omitting the most curious, and
perhaps not the least instructive part of history, can scarcely be
delivered with the requisite decency and gravity.
[FN [i] Hoveden, p. 463. [k] Eadmer, p. 25. M. Paris, p. 13.
Diceto, p. 494. Spellm. Conc. vol ii. p. 16. [l] Eadmer, p. 30. [m]
Diceto, p. 495. [n] Eadmer, p. 37, 43. [o] Ibid. p. 40. [p] M.
Paris, p. 13. Parker, p. 178. [q] Eadmer, p. 49. M. Paris, p. 13.
Sim. Dun. p. 224. [r] M. Paris, p. 14. [s] Spellman, Du Cange, in
verb. HOMINIUM. [t] W. Heming. p. 467. Flor. Wigorn. p. 649. Sim.
Dunelm. p. 224. Brompton, p. 994.]

[MN 1097.] The cession of Normandy and Maine by Duke Robert increased
the king's territories; but brought him no great increase of power,
because of the unsettled state of those countries, the mutinous
disposition of the barons, and the vicinity of the French king, who
supported them in all their insurrections. Even Helie, Lord of La
Fleche, a small town in Anjou, was able to give him inquietude; and
this great monarch was obliged to make several expeditions abroad,
without being able to prevail over so petty a baron, who had acquired
the confidence