The Church 133
somewhat the status of the parish priest, who, before
the Conquest, ranked with the thegn in the social scale.
Lay patronage suffered many invasions in the following
centuries. This change, lite other ecclesiastical tenden-
cies of the time, worked to break down, or prevent the
growth of, any national feeling in the church.
These reform movements had had their source largely
in monasticism. So naturally the English monasteries
underwent a change and renewing of life after the Con-
quest. The appointment of abbots from the continent
who brought in the new standards of monastic life, the
struggle of the monasteries to free themselves from episco-
pal control, and the founding of colonies of the great
Cluniac "Congregation5' were immediate changes. But
England was now open to all continental developments;
one after another, the new monastic orders of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries were brought in and most of
them grew vigorously.
In general the Conquest incorporated England closely . . .
with that organic whole of life and achievement which we
call Christendom. This was not more true of the ecclesiastical
side of things than of the political or constitutional. But
the church of the eleventh century included within itself
relatively many more than the church of to-day of those
activities which quickly respond to a new stimulus and reveal
a new life by increased production.1
1 Adams, The History of England (1066-1216), p. 47.