The custom of giving fees to those who appointed to benefices had become inveterate, and in many cases had degenerated into the purchase of them. A Pope could not assume the tiara without a lavish largess to the Roman populace. A bishop could not grasp his pastoral staff without paying heavy sums to the Emperor and to the Pope. The former payment was denounced as simony, the latter was exacted as an obligation. But under some of the Emperors the bishoprics were sold to the highest bidder. What was customary on promotion to a bishopric became customary on acceptance of lesser benefices, and no priest could assume a spiritual charge without paying a bounty to the episcopal treasury. When a bishop had bought his throne, he was rarely indisposed to sell the benefices in his gift, and to recoup a scandalous outlay by an equally scandalous traffic. The Bishop of Florence was thought by St. John Gualberto to have bought the see. He was a Pavian, Peter Mediabardi. His father came to Florence to visit his son. The Florentines took advantage of the unguarded simplicity of the old man to extract the desired secret from him.[26] [26] "Cui Florentini clam insidiantes tentando dicere coeperunt," &c.... "ille utpote simplicissimus homo coepit jurejurando dicere," &c.--_Andrew of Genoa_, c. 62. "Master Teulo," said they, "had you a large sum to pay to the King for your son's elevation?" "By the body of St. Syrus," answered the father, "you cannot get a millstone out of the King's house without paying for it." "Then what did you pay?" asked the Florentines greedily.[27] [27] "Alacres et avidi rem scisitari." "By the body of St. Syrus!" replied the old man, "not less than three thousand pounds." No sooner was the unguarded avowal made, than it was spread through the city by the enemies of the bishop.[28] [28] For the account of what follows, in addition to the biography by Andrew of Strumi, we have the _Dialogues_ of Desiderius of Monte Cassino, lib. iii. St. John Gualberto took up the quarrel. He appeared in Florence, where he had a monastery dedicated to St. Salvius, and began vehemently to denounce the prelate as a simoniac, and therefore a heretic. His monks, fired by his zeal, spread through the city, and exhorted the people to refuse to accept the sacramental acts of their bishop and resist his authority.