people had remained jealous of strangers, and as yet distinguished from
the nations of Europe by a strange immobility and want of sympathy with
the intellectual and moral movements around them. Sometimes strangers
visited its kings; sometimes English pilgrims made their way to Rome by a
dangerous and troublesome journey. But even the connection with the
Papacy was slight. A foreign legate had scarcely ever landed on its
shores; hardly any appeals were carried to the Roman Curia; the Church
managed its own business after a customary fashion which was in harmony
with English traditions, which had grown up during centuries of undisturbed
and separate life.

On the other side of the Channel Henry ruled over a straggling line of
loosely compacted states equal in extent to almost half of the present
France. His long line of ill-defended frontier brought him in contact
with the lands of the Count of Flanders, one of the chief military
powers of the day; with the kingdom of France, which, after two hundred
years of insignificance, was beginning to assert its sway over the great
feudal vassals, and preparing to build up a powerful monarchy; and with
the Spanish kingdoms which were emerging from the first successful
effort of the Christian states to throw back the power of the Moors.
Normandy and Auvergne were separated only by a narrow belt of country
from the Empire, which, under the greatest ruler and warrior of the age,
Frederick Barbarossa, was extending its power over Burgundy, Provence,
and Italy. His claims to the over-lordship of Toulouse gave Henry an
interest in the affairs of the great Mediterranean power--the kingdom of
Sicily; and his later attempts on the territories of the Count of
Maurienne brought him into close connection with Italian politics. No
ruler of his time was forced more directly than Henry into the range of
such international politics as were possible in the then dim and
inchoate state of European affairs. England, which in the mind of the