Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

120 REVIEW OF
minating, and embroidery were episcopal occupations
at a time when correspondence did not enter into
the day's business. A daily distribution of alms
was expected from bishops. They personally
ministered to the poor, and the holier they were,
the more they insisted on humble and loving offices,
which they made part of their lives. Every day
during Lent St. Oswald, Archbishop of York, washed
the feet of twelve poor men, and gave them, with
all kindness, a silver penny each. Bishops ranked as
ealdormen above the king's thanes, and they attended
either personally, or through their archdeacon,
the chief courts of justice, called shiremotes,
which were held twice a year.1 The separation of
the civil from the ecclesiastical courts was the work
of William the Conqueror. Secular affairs in those
initial times probably required the presence of the
bishop, an ealdorman, who commanded whatever
learning and education were to be had. Bishops
convoked diocesan synods twice a year, and the
Archbishop of Canterbury national councils. The
Archbishop of York occasionally convened the
bishops of his province,2 but he held a subordinate
position until the Conquest. All these councils had
much in common with the Witenagemotes. It was
Theodore's wrish that ecclesiastical assemblies should
be held every year at Cloveshoe.3
] De Prcr.sulibus Angliw, i. 93.
- Lingard, ii. 99.
3 Stubbs, Constitutional History, i. 231