e right of granting investitures, by
which the spiritual dignity was supposed to be conferred; and he
allowed the bishops to do homage for their temporal properties
and privileges.[**] The pontiff was well pleased to have made this
acquisition, which, he hoped, would in time involve the whole; and the
king, anxious to procure an escape from a very dangerous situation,
was content to retain some, though a more precarious authority, in the
election of prelates.

[* Eadmer, p. 91. W. Malms, p. 163. Sim. Dunelm.
p. 230.]

[** Eadmer, p. 91. W Malms, p. 164. 227. Hoveden,
p. 471, M. Paris, p. 43. T. Rudborne, p. 274. Brompton. p.
1000. Wilkins, p. 303, Chron. Dunst. p. 21.]

After the principal controversy was accommodated, it was not difficult
to adjust the other differences. If the pope allowed Anselm to
communicate with the prelates who had already received investitures from
the crown; and he only required of them some submissions for their past
misconduct.[*] He also granted Anselm a plenary power of remedying every
other disorder, which, he said, might arise from the barbarousness of he
country.[**] Such was the idea which the popes then entertained of the
English; and nothing can be a stronger proof of the miserable ignorance
in which that people were then plunged, than that, a man who sat on
the papal throne, and who subsisted by absurdities and nonsense, should
think himself entitled to treat them as barbarians.

During the course of these controversies, a synod was held at
Westminster, where the king, intent only on the mam dispute, allowed
some canons of less importance to be enacted, which tended to promote
the usurpations of the clergy. The celibacy of priests was enjoined; a
point which it was still found very difficult to carry into execution;
and even laymen were not allowed to marry within the seventh degree of
affinity.[***] By this contrivance, the pope augmented the profits which
he reaped from granting dispensations, and likewise those from divorces.
For as the art of writing was then rare, and parish registers were not
regularly kept, it was not easy to ascertain the degrees of affinity
even among people of rank; and any man, who had money sufficient to
pay for it, might obtain a divorce, on pretence that his wife was more
nearly related to him than was permitted by the canons. The synod also
passed a vote, prohibiting the laity from wearing long hair.[****] The
aversion of