Innovations of Rufus.
Earlier cases of simony.
Not systematic before Rufus.
The result was that, in the words of the Chronicler,
"God's Church was brought low."[1] The great ecclesiastical
offices, as they fell vacant, were either kept
vacant for the King's profit, or else were sold for his
profit to men who, by the very act of buying them, were
shown to be unworthy to hold them.[2] We are distinctly
told that this practice was an innovation of the days of
Rufus, and that it was an innovation of which Flambard
was the author.[3] The charge of simony, like
all other charges of bribery and corruption, is often
much easier to bring than to disprove; but it is not
likely to be spoken of as a systematic practice, unless it
undoubtedly happened in a good many cases. We have
come across cases in our earlier history where it was at
least suspected that ecclesiastical offices had been sold,
or, what proves even more, that they were looked on as
likely to be sold.[4] And that the practice was common
among continental princes there can be little doubt.
But there is nothing to make us believe that it was at
all systematic in England at any earlier time, and the
Conqueror at all events was clear from all scandal
of the kind. But the chain of reasoning devised by
Flambard would make it as fair a source of profit for
the king to take money on the grant of a bishopric as
to take it on the grant of a lay fief. And there is no
reason to doubt that Rufus systematically acted on this
principle, and that, save at the moment of his temporary
repentance, he seldom or never gave away a
bishopric or abbey for nothing. The other point of the
- ↑ This comes in the great passage under 1100; "Godes cyrcean he nyðerade, and þa bisceoprices and abbotrices þe þa ealdras on his dagan feollan, ealle he hi oððe wið feo gesealde, oððe on his agenre hand heold and to gafle gesette."
- ↑ See the passage quoted from Eadmer in Appendix W.
- ↑ See Appendix W.
- ↑ See N. C. vol. i. pp. 505, 527; vol. ii. p. 69.
