Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/611

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This struck straight at the ancient use both of England and of Normandy. It forbad what Gregory the Seventh had, if not allowed, at least winked at, during his whole reign, in the case of the common sovereign of those two lands. This decree, we cannot doubt, had an important bearing on the future position of Anselm. Wibert, calling himself Clement, was of course excommunicated afresh, along with the Emperor as his supporter. So were the King of the French and his pretended queen, for their adulterous marriage. So were all who should call them King and Queen or Lord and Lady, or should so much as speak to either of them for any other purpose except to rebuke their offences. The thunders of the Church could have found only one more fitting object than the reformation of this great moral scandal. But we see to what a height ecclesiastical claims had grown, when the council took on itself to declare the offenders deprived of their royal dignity and their feudal rights. Then followed the great discourse which called men to the Holy War. Urban told how, of the three parts of the world, the infidels had rent away two from Christendom; how Asia and Africa were theirs—a saying wholly true of Africa, and which, when the Turk held Nikaia, seemed even more true of Asia than it really was. Europe alone was left, our little portion. Of that, Spain had been lost—the Almoravids had come

than by loss of limb.]
 * [Footnote: next century? The guilty man is to be punished, but in some other way