30] [***** Diceto, p 495.] [****** Eadmer, p.

37, 43.] [******* Eadmer, p.

40.] [******** M.Paris, p.13.Parker, p.

178.] Anselm assisted at the council of Bari, where, besides fixing the controversy between the Greek and Latin churches concerning the procession of the Holy Ghost,[*] the right of election to church preferments was declared to belong to the clergy alone, and spiritual censures were denounced against all ecclesiastics who did homage to laymen for their sees or benefices, and against all laymen who exacted it.[**] The rite of homage, by the feudal customs, was, that the vassal should throw himself on his knees, should put his joined hands between those of his superior, and should in that posture swear fealty to him.[***] But the council declared & execrable that pure hands, which could create God, and could offer him up as a sacrifice for the salvation of mankind, should be put, after this humiliating manner, between profane hands, which, besides being inured to rapine and bloodshed, were employed day and night in impure purposes and obscene contacts.[****] Such were the reasonings prevalent in that age; reasonings which, though they cannot be passed over in silence, without omitting the most curious and perhaps not the least instructive part of history, can scarcely be delivered with the requisite decency and gravity.
[* Eadmer, p.49.

M.Paris, p.13.Sim.