The Church 127
One of William's chief advisers and his close friend was
Lanfranc, who had been made prior of the abbey of Bee
in 1045 and was later abbot of a great monastery in
Caen, and was thus identified with the most advanced
continental thought on church reform. Lanfranc had
also been for many years famous as a theologian. His
relations with William increased the pope's expectations
of church reform in England. But the expectations
did not stop with reform. Why should not the Nor-
man kingdom in England follow the example of the
Norman dukedom in Italy, and guarantee its contin-
ued co-operation with the pope by the close, vassal
relation?
William had been willing to profit by the moral sup-
port and the prestige which the pope's patronage had
lent his undertaking, but he did not intend to allow the
pope to gain any hold over England that would diminish
his own power. His policy was like that of his ancestors in
Normandy, who had favoured a pure and vigorous church
and under whom Normandy had become prominently
identified with church reform, but who had been mas-
ters of everything in their duchy. About 1076, the
demand, which must have been expected/ came from
Hildebrand, now Gregory VII. It was that William
should do homage to the pope for England. The papal
legate, who brought this demand, bore also the request
that the old English payment to the pope, known as
Peter's Pence,2 be more diligently collected and sent. Wil-
liam readily acceded to the latter, but to the demand
that he become the pope's vassal for England he sent an
emphatic refusal, stating that he had not promised it,
1 **It is quite within the limits of possibility that, in Ms negotiating
with Rome before Ms invasion of England, William may have given the
pope to understand, in some indefinite and informal way, that if he won
the kingdom, he would hold it of St. Peter. In accepting the consecrated
banner wMch the pope had sent Mm, he could hardly fail to know that he
might be understood to be acknowledging a feudal dependence."—Adams,
The History of England (1066-1216), p. 49. See ibid., pp. 38~5°» for an
account of the effect of the Conquest upoii the English church.
2 See above, p. 60, note 3.