Norman Institutions. 911-1066 85
purified and enriched the life of the church the movement
was welcomed, but the duke parted with no whit of his
control. He appointed the bishops and abbots, and could,
upon occasion, depose them; he attended church councils
and sanctioned their decrees; the monasteries were under
his special protection and control; and no great church-
men were allowed to usurp in any district the functions
which the duke kept in the hands of his own local officials,
the wcomtes. As to the status of the church courts and
the extent of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the evidence is so
scanty and confusing that it is hard to formulate a
generalisation. But they clearly occupied a much more
important place than anything in the nature of church
courts among the Anglo-Saxons,1 and all the evidence
points towards Norman practice being the background of
William's famous ordinance separating the spiritual and
temporal courts in England after the Conquest.2 For the
pope the duke had always a pious deference and respect,
without sacrificing a vestige of authority.
In conclusion it is particularly important to notice that
the peasantry was in a better condition than elsewhere in
northern France. There had been a peasant revolt in
Normandy in 996, a very early time for such a movement;
and while contemporary evidence tells only of its quick
and cruel suppression by Duke Richard II., it may have
had some good results. The fact of the revolt itself indi-
cates a peasantry in no abject condition. At the time of
the Conquest, there was practically no personal servitude
in Normandy, no slaves; and many of the peasants had
rights that would justify us in reckoning them as freemen.
After the eleventh century, there was "no trace of serf-
dom or the freeing of serfs, and the free position of its
farming class3 distinguished the duchy from most of the
lands of northern France/'4 We have no means of know-
1 See above, pp. 61, 62. 2 See below, p. 131.
s Aside from the fighters and the churchmen, there was little but a farm-
ing class; at the time of the Conquest Normandy had little or nothing to
bring to England in the way of municipal institutions.
4 Haskins, The Normans in European History-, p. 157.