Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/488

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for all spiritual purposes. The difference in order seems to arise from the different theory of the episcopate which has prevailed since the restoration of ecclesiastical elections was fully established by the Great Charter. In the irregular practice of the eleventh century, the notion of investiture of a benefice by the king had come to the front. The king had in his hands a great fief, which he granted to whom he would; that fief was chargeable with certain spiritual duties. It was therefore for the Church, by her spiritual rite of consecration, to make the king's nominee, already invested with his temporal rights, capable of discharging his spiritual duties. Such was clearly the established view of the days of Rufus, and the order of the process is in harmony with it. The office is treated as an appendage to the benefice. In the theory which is both earlier and later the benefice is treated as an appendage to the office. The order of the process is therefore reversed. The spiritual office is first filled by the three ecclesiastical processes of election, confirmation, consecration—the last of course being needless when the person chosen is already a bishop. The bishop then takes personal possession of his church by installation or enthronement. The spiritual functions over, the bishop, now in full possession of his office, lastly receives the attached benefice by homage to the king and restitution of the temporalities at his hands. That elections were hardly ever really free at any time, that the royal leave was needed for the election, that kings recommended, that popes "provided," that the later law requires the electors to choose only the king's nominee and requires the metropolitan to confirm the person so chosen, makes no difference to the theory. The royal power is kept in the background; it is the ecclesiastical power which formally acts. The king's hand pulls the wires of the ecclesiastical puppets; but the ecclesiastical