[Sidenote: Louis VI. and the Church.] While Philip I. kept both Rome and Cluny in check, his son became the stalwart champion of the rights of the Church. It was his friendship for the Church that conquered the Isle de France and made it possible for Suger to serve two such different masters as Louis VI. and St. Bernard. Louis VI. restored the strong alliance with the Papacy that prepared the way for the time when the French king could boast that he was ‘the eldest son of the Church.’ He ardently supported Innocent II. against Anacletus, welcomed Innocent to his dominions, and attended the Council of Sens in 1131. Nevertheless he did not scruple to show priests and monks that he meant to be master in his own kingdom, making bishops as well as barons respect the royal justice, and never relaxing his rights over ecclesiastical appointments. Even when Suger was chosen abbot by the over-zealous monks of Saint-Denis, who had neglected to wait for the King’s authorisation to elect, Louis, though he confirmed the election, put in prison the monks who brought him the news of their brethren’s unconstitutional haste. Louis quarrelled with leading bishops like Ivo of Chartres and Henry of Sens. Indignation at Louis’ treatment of his bishops drew Bernard from his retreat to denounce a king who ‘persecuted not so much bishops, as the zeal for justice, and the habit of religion which he finds in them.’ But these examples of friction were exceptional. If the clergy would but accept his authority, they could have no better friend than Louis VI. And besides his alliance with the Church, Louis VI. drifted gradually into an alliance with the lesser people, which reminds us of the constant championship by the Norman kings of England of the popular as against the feudal party. The better peace that now prevailed throughout France made town life, trade and commerce, possible on a larger scale than in the rough times of absolute feudal anarchy. [Sidenote: The communal movement.] The communal movement was now beginning in northern France, and though the king was far from being, as the older historians make him, the ‘enfranchiser of the communes,’ he was at least not fiercely hostile to the less revolutionary sides of the new movement.[23] He issued a large number of charters to towns and villages under ecclesiastical control, which, though meant to help the Church, also tended to help forward the municipal movement. Even more than this, his zeal to uphold sound justice was an incalculable boon to his people. The simple peasants saw in the good king a wonder-worker and a thaumaturgist, and were ready to give almost divine honours to the prince whom they celebrated as ‘the Justiciar.’