With reference to the military proclivities of our bishops, it is due to them to point out that as councillors and ambassadors they were naturally in great request at court, where their superior education and training enabled them to serve the state and crown to advantage. The nation was continually at war, kings and courtiers were warriors, hence the bishops were accustomed to both court and camp, and vied with the proudest baron in the splendour of their apparel, and the number of their attendant knights and men-at-arms. The following brief extract from Hallam, relating to feudal tenures in Anglo-Saxon England, throws some little light on the military service of some of the bishops in pre-conquest times, although, no doubt, many churchmen considered it a holy war that they waged against the heathen Danes in defence of their country and religion:-- "All the freehold lands of England, except _some_ of those belonging to the Church, were subject to three great public burdens: military service in the king's expeditions, or at least in defensive war; the repair of bridges, and that of royal fortresses. These obligations, and especially the first, have been sometimes thought to denote a feudal tenure. There is, however, a confusion into which we may fall by not sufficiently discriminating the rights of a king as chief lord of his vassals, and as sovereign of his subjects. In every country, the supreme power is entitled to use the arm of each citizen in the public defence. The usage of all Nations agrees with common reason in establishing this great principle. There is nothing therefore peculiarly feudal in this military service of landholders; it was due from the allodial proprietors upon the continent, it was derived from their German ancestors, it had been fixed, probably, by the legislatures of the Heptarchy upon the first settlement in Britain." We can easily imagine the Anglo-Saxon kings calling upon the bishops for assistance against the Danes. The Conquest was followed by the imposition of the feudal system, binding the church to perform military service to the crown. This, at first regarded as a hardship, agreed well with the warlike spirit of the times, and although the bishops appointed their feudal advocates to fight their battles, protect their interests, and lead their vassals to the field, yet they sometimes took the field in person, and rode amid the lances of the men-at-arms. The military advocates held their lands of the church, and, in court and field, their service was honourable. Indeed the title of advocates of the church was bestowed upon Pepin and Charlemagne.