was scarcely, if at all, felt. There was no Roman legation from the days of Theodore to those of Offa, and there are only scanty vestiges of such interference for the next three centuries; Dunstan boldly refused to obey a papal sentence. Until the eve of the Conquest, therefore, the development of the system was free and spontaneous, although its sphere was a small one.'[1]
This independence was far from being an unmixed blessing. The fighting bishop became as well known in England as he had been in Ireland. 'Two West-Saxon prelates fell in the battle of Charmouth in A.D. 835; and Bishop Ealhstan of Sherborne acted as Egbert's general in Lent in A.D. 825, and was one of the commanders who defeated the Danes on the Parret in A.D. 845.'[2] Despite the efforts of reformers such as Dunstan, the Church had become secularized, and sorely needed an infusion of new life. Such was its condition when both Church and State were revolutionized by the Norman conquest.
One of the first acts of William the Conqueror was to place men of his own nation in all the most important bishoprics. These foreign ecclesiastics—men of ability and energy—set themselves to reproduce in England the state of things to which they had been accustomed on the Continent. Thus, when the realm of England was brought under the sway of the Conqueror, the Church of England was brought under the sway of the Pope.
With the exception of Donat, first Bishop of Dublin, who was consecrated in 1038, all the Danish bishops of Ireland were appointed subsequently to the advent of William the Conqueror. They were there-
- ↑ Stubbs, Constitutional Hist. of England, 2nd ed., vol. i. p. 245.
- ↑ Ib., vol. i. p. 237.
