of their women, and often for their lives, deserted their habitations
and fled into the woods on the king's approach. No circumstance could be
more dishonorable to a prince; but happily, like many other great
abuses, it gave rise to a great reform, which went much further than its
immediate purposes. This disorder, which the punishment of offenders
could only palliate, was entirely taken away by commuting personal
service for a rent in money; which regulation, passing from the king to
all the inferior lords, in a short time wrought a great change in the
state of the nation. To humble the great men, more arbitrary methods
were used. The adherence to the title of Robert was a cause, or a
pretence, of depriving many of their vast possessions, which were split
or parcelled out amongst the king's creatures, with great injustice to
particulars, but in the consequences with general and lasting benefit.
The king held his courts, according to the custom, at Christmas and
Easter, but he seldom kept both festivals in the same place. He made
continual progresses into all parts of his kingdom, and brought the
royal authority and person home to the doors of his haughty barons,
which kept them in strict obedience during his long and severe reign.

His contests with the Church, concerning the right of investiture, were
more obstinate and more dangerous. As this is an affair that troubled
all Europe as well as England, and holds deservedly a principal place in
the story of those times, it will not be impertinent to trace it up to
its original. In the early times of Christianity, when religion was only
drawn from its obscurity to be persecuted, when a bishop was only a
candidate for martyrdom, neither the preferment, nor the right of
bestowing it, were sought with great ambition. Bishops were then
elected, and often against their desire, by their clergy and the people:
the subordinate ecclesiastical districts were provided for in the same
manner. After the Roman Empire became Christian, this usage, so