Page:The Normans in European History.djvu/179

Rh for which contemporaries could find no parallel short of the palmy days of monasticism in Roman Egypt. In course of time the monastic ideal reacted upon the secular clergy, and the monastic schools raised the level of learning throughout the duchy, until provincial councils succeeded in establishing the celibacy of the priesthood and the stricter discipline of Rome. In all this movement for reform the dukes took a leading part, inviting the reformers to their courts, aiding in the foundation and restoration of cloisters, and lending their strong support to the efforts for moral improvement in the secular clergy. They also asserted their supremacy over the Norman church, presiding in its councils, revising the judgments of its courts, appointing and investing its bishops and abbots. Moreover, while ready to coöperate with the moral ideas of the Papacy, they resisted all attempts at papal interference in Norman affairs. When Alexander II sought to restore an abbot whom William the Conqueror had deposed, the duke replied that he would gladly receive papal legates in matters of faith and doctrine, but would hang to the tallest oak of the nearest forest any monk who dared to resist his authority in his own land. William's resistance was equally firm in the case of Gregory VII, who failed completely in his efforts at direct action in William's dominions. Nowhere on the Continent, concludes Böhmer, was there at this time a country where the prince and his