Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/610



The preaching of the crusade was not the only business of the great assembly at Clermont. A crowd of canons of the usual kind were passed against the usual abuses. Those abuses were not confined to England and Normandy. We are told that in all the lands on our side of the Alps—and we may venture to doubt whether things were likely to be much better on the other side—simony prevailed among all classes of the clergy, while the laity had taken to put away their wives and to take to themselves the wives of other men. The great example of this last fault was certainly King Philip of France, whose marriage or pretended marriage with Bertrada of Montfort, the wife of Count Fulk of Anjou, was one of the subjects of discussion at the council. All abuses of all these kinds were again denounced, as they had often been denounced before, and were often to be denounced again. But what concerns us more immediately is the decree that no bishop, abbot, or clerk of any rank, should receive any ecclesiastical benefice from the hand of any prince or other layman. *