t he seldom kept both festivals in the same place. He made
continual progresses into all parts of his kingdom, and brought the
royal authority and person home to the doors of his haughty barons,
which kept them in strict obedience during his long and severe reign.

His contests with the Church, concerning the right of investiture, were
more obstinate and more dangerous. As this is an affair that troubled
all Europe as well as England, and holds deservedly a principal place in
the story of those times, it will not be impertinent to trace it up to
its original. In the early times of Christianity, when religion was only
drawn from its obscurity to be persecuted, when a bishop was only a
candidate for martyrdom, neither the preferment, nor the right of
bestowing it, were sought with great ambition. Bishops were then
elected, and often against their desire, by their clergy and the people:
the subordinate ecclesiastical districts were provided for in the same
manner. After the Roman Empire became Christian, this usage, so
generally established, still maintained its ground. However, in the
principal cities, the Emperor frequently exercised the privilege of
giving a sanction to the choice, and sometimes of appointing the bishop;
though, for the most part, the popular election still prevailed. But
when, the Barbarians, after destroying the Empire, had at length
submitted their necks to the Gospel, their kings and great men, full of
zeal and gratitude to their instructors, endowed the Church with large
territories and great privileges. In this case it was but natural that
they should be the patrons of those dignities and nominate to that power
which arose from their own free bounty. Hence the bishoprics in the
greatest part of Europe became in effect, whatever some few might have
been in appearance, merely donative. And as the bishoprics formed so
many seigniories, when the feudal establishment was completed, they
partook of the feudal nature, so far as they were subjects capable of
it; homage and fealty were required on the part of the spiritual vassal;
the king, on his part, gave the bishop the investiture, or livery and
seizin of his temporalities, by the delivery of a ring and staff. This
was the original manner of granting feudal property, and something like
it is still practised in our base-courts. Pope Adrian confirmed this
privilege to Charlemagne by an express grant. The clergy of that time,
ignorant, but inquisitive, wer