At home the great points of Henry’s reign were those which form the domestic history of all feudal monarchies, the relation of the Church and State, and the maintenance of police. With regard to the Church his views were those of his father. He was ready to support and increase its influence; he was not ready to give up any of the prerogatives which his predecessors had possessed. He thus reversed all the action of his brother, recalled Anselm at once with marked honour, and filled up the vacant benefices. But the Archbishop during his exile had mixed in Continental politics, at that time consisting almost entirely of the question of investitures. He returned home determined to assert to the full the independence of the Church. He therefore refused to swear fealty, and do homage to the King, or to consecrate those bishops who had received their investitures from him. Henry, supported by his lay counsellors, was equally determined to uphold the rights of the crown. The matter was referred to the Pope, Pascal II. The Papacy had enemies enough already, and could not afford to drive to extremities a Prince so powerful, and in the main so friendly, as Henry. The reply which was returned was ambiguous. Henry again commanded the Archbishop to perform his usual duties. A second application to Rome produced no better result. Anselm was urged to perseverance. Henry’s ambassadors were given to understand that, as long as his appointments were good, the King should not be interfered with. Firm in his own views, but uncertain as to the Pope’s wishes, Anselm had no course open to him but to visit Rome in person. He there met with but lukewarm support, and withdrew to Lyons, while Henry laid hands upon all the revenues of the archbishopric. For some time Anselm rejected all offers of compromise; but when, after all his efforts, he could induce the Pope to go no further than the excommunication, not of the King, but of some of his ministers, he lost heart, and, in 1106, a compromise was arranged at Bec, by which Henry retained the really important part of investiture, the oaths of fealty and homage, while resigning the idle symbol of the gift of ring and crozier. This compromise, which was the same in effect as that made sixteen years afterwards at Worms between Henry V. and Calixtus II., set at rest for the present that rivalry between Church and State which the policy of the Conqueror had introduced. The decrees of a Synod held at Westminster, 1102, by Anselm before going to Rome, show the abuses which the ecclesiastical disputes of the last reign had introduced. They are directed against such habits as simony, marriage of the clergy, the assumption of lay dress by ecclesiastics, the holding of secular courts by bishops, the adoration of unauthorized saints and relics, and vindicate the claims of the Church to be considered as the chief civilizing agent of the time by forbidding the selling of men for slaves.