William II of England - Relations With The Church, and Personal Beliefs

Relations With The Church, and Personal Beliefs

Less than two years after becoming king, William II lost his father William I's advisor and confidant, the Italian-Norman Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury. After Lanfranc's death, the king delayed appointing a new archbishop for many years, appropriating ecclesiastical revenues in the interim. In panic owing to serious illness in 1093, William nominated as archbishop another Norman-Italian, Saint Anselm of Canterbury — considered the greatest theologian of his generation – but this led to a long period of animosity between Church and State, Anselm being a stronger supporter of the Gregorian reforms in the Church than Lanfranc. William and Anselm disagreed on a range of ecclesiastical issues, in the course of which the king declared of Anselm that "Yesterday I hated him with great hatred, today I hate him with yet greater hatred and he can be certain that tomorrow and thereafter I shall hate him continually with ever fiercer and more bitter hatred". The English clergy, beholden to the king for their preferments and livings, were unable to support Anselm publicly. In 1095 William called a council at Rockingham to bring Anselm to heel, but the archbishop remained firm. In October 1097, Anselm went into exile, taking his case to the Pope. The diplomatic and flexible Urban II, a new pope, was involved in a major conflict with the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, who supported an antipope. Reluctant to make another enemy, Urban came to a concordat with William Rufus, whereby William recognised Urban as pope, and Urban gave sanction to the Anglo-Norman ecclesiastical status quo. Anselm remained in exile, and William was able to claim the revenues of the archbishop of Canterbury to the end of his reign.

However, this conflict was symptomatic of medieval English politics, as exemplified by the murder of Thomas Becket during the reign of the later Plantagenet king Henry II, and indeed by Henry VIII's actions centuries later, and as such should not be seen as a defect of William II's reign in particular. Of course, contemporary churchmen were themselves not above engaging in such politics: it is reported that, when Archbishop Lanfranc suggested to William I that he imprison the rebellious bishop Odo of Bayeux, he exclaimed "What! he is a clergyman". Lanfranc retorted that "you will not seize the bishop of Bayeux, but confine the earl of Kent": Odo was both bishop of Bayeux, and earl of Kent. Also, while there are complaints of contemporaries regarding William II's personal behaviour, he was instrumental in assisting the foundation of Bermondsey Abbey, endowing it with the manor of Bermondsey; and it is reported that his "customary oath" was "By the Face at Lucca!" It seems reasonable to suppose that such details are indicative of William II's personal beliefs.