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384
MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
co/operation, each contributing all he had. As a result, it was
almost impossible to say where the boundary between the
functions ofChurch and State lay. The bishops were appointed
by the king, usually with the advice and during a meeting ofthe
Witenageinot, ofwhich the existing bishops and (in later days)
abbots were influential members. The king, for his part, owed
his position largely to the approval of the same body, and was
crowned with a ceremony that recalled both the God/given
monarchy ofIsrael and the hallowing ofa bishop. The Witan,
composed of elements both lay and clerical, counselled or de^
cided all the affairs ofthe country, both temporal and spiritual,
even fulfilling many of the functions of the synod which, so
frequent in the days of Theodore, had now lapsed altogether.
On a lower level, the bishop in the hundred court judged cases
both lay and ecclesiastical. Bishops were often used for diplo'
matic missions, and had often (as had abbots) wide adminis'
trative powers as the lords ofimmunities or districts withdrawn
from the immediate control ofthe king and his deputies.When
monasteries came into being it was at a royal meeting, probably
a reinforced Witan, that the code of their observance was ap/
proved; the king appointed abbots and the monks and nuns
regarded themselves as bedesmen and bedeswomen ofthe royal
family.
Yet this interpenetration of Church and State, temporal and
spiritual, which is at first glance so similar to the Erastian
Church of later
ages, reflected no positive desire to form a
national church, still less to withdraw in any way from the see
of Peter. Reverence and devotion to Rome had been charac^
teristic ofthe Church in England since the days ofAugustine. Pilgrims from England to the tombs of the Apostles were so
numerous that
they had given their name to a district in the
City; the archbishops of Canterbury went to Rome for the
pallium when this became a customary discipline (the first
recorded visit was in 927), and since the days of Alfred, or
perhaps of OfFa, England alone ofthe countries of Europe had
sent an annual free-will personal trib ute of Peter/pence. It was an
axiom that agreement with Rome was the final touchstone of