thought that one could repent on one's deathbed. Another reason, which operated less in Rome
than elsewhere, was that kings could bend to their will the bishops in their kingdoms, and thus
secure enough priestly magic to save themselves from damnation. Church discipline and a
unified ecclesiastical government were therefore essential to the power of the clergy. These
ends were secured during the eleventh century, as part and parcel of a moral reformation of the
clergy.
The power of the clergy as a whole could only be secured by very considerable sacrifices on the
part of individual ecclesiastics. The two great evils against which all clerical reformers directed
their energies were simony and concubinage. Something must be said about each of these.
Owing to the benefactions of the pious, the Church had become rich. Many bishops had huge
estates, and even parish priests had, as a rule, what for those times was a comfortable living.
The appointment of bishops was usually, in practice, in the hands of the king, but sometimes in
those of some subordinate feudal noble. It was customary for the king to sell bishoprics; this, in
fact, provided a substantial part of his income. The bishop, in turn, sold such ecclesiastical
preferment as was in his power. There was no secret about this. Gerbert (Sylvester II)
represented bishops as saying: "I gave gold and I received the episcopate; but yet I do not fear to
receive it back if I behave as I should. I ordain a priest and I receive gold; I make a deacon and I
receive a heap of silver. Behold the gold which I gave I have once more unlessened in my
purse." * Peter Damian in Milan, in 1059, found that every cleric in the city, from the
archbishop downwards, had been guilty of simony. And this state of affairs was in no way
exceptional.
Simony, of course, was a sin, but that was not the only objection to it. It caused ecclesiastical
preferment to go by wealth, not merit; it confirmed lay authority in the appointment of bishops,
and episcopal subservience to secular rulers; and it tended to make the episcopate part of the
feudal system. Moreover, when a man had purchased preferment, he was naturally anxious to
recoup himself, so that worldly rather than spiritual concerns were likely to preoccupy
* Cambridge Medieval History, V, Ch. 10.