ainst all ecclesiastics who did homage to
laymen for their sees or benefices, and against all laymen who exacted
it.[**] The rite of homage, by the feudal customs, was, that the vassal
should throw himself on his knees, should put his joined hands between
those of his superior, and should in that posture swear fealty to
him.[***] But the council declared & execrable that pure hands,
which could create God, and could offer him up as a sacrifice for the
salvation of mankind, should be put, after this humiliating manner,
between profane hands, which, besides being inured to rapine and
bloodshed, were employed day and night in impure purposes and obscene
contacts.[****] Such were the reasonings prevalent in that age;
reasonings which, though they cannot be passed over in silence, without
omitting the most curious and perhaps not the least instructive part
of history, can scarcely be delivered with the requisite decency and
gravity.

[* Eadmer, p. 49. M. Paris, p. 13. Sim. Dunelm,p.
224.]

[** M. Paris, p. 14.]

[*** Spelman. Du Cange, in verbo Hominium.]

[**** W. Hemmg. p. 467. Flor. Wigorn. p. 649. Sim.
Dunelm p. 524. Brompton, p. 994.]

{1097.} The cession of Normandy and Maine by Duke Robert increased the
king's territories; but brought him no great increase of power, because
of the unsettled state of those countries the mutinous disposition of
the barons, and the vicinity of the French king, who supported them in
all their insurrections. Even Helie, lord of La Fleche, a small town
in Anjou, was able to give him inquietude; and this great monarch
was obliged to make several expeditions abroad, without being able
to prevail over so petty a baron, who had acquired the confidence and
affections of the inhabitants of Maine. He was, however, so fortunate as
at last to take him prisoner in a rencounter, but having released him,
at the intercession of the French king and the count of Anjou, he found
the province of Maine still exposed to his intrigues and incursions.
Helie, being introduced by the citizens into the town of Mans, besieged
the garrison in the citadel, {1099.} William, who was hunting in the
new forest when he received intelligence of this hostile attempt, was
so provoked, that he immediately turned his horse, and galloped to the
sea-shore at Dartmouth, declaring that he would not stop a moment till
he had taken, vengeance for the offence. He found the weather so cloudy
and te