Attention has been called in another chapter to the fact that the bishops did not universally (or indeed usually), make their residences in the principal cities[886]. A remarkable distinction thus arose between themselves and the prelates of Gaul and Germany. The latter, strong in the support of the burgesses, and identified with the urban interests, found means to consolidate a power which they used without scruple against the king when it suited their convenience, or which enabled them to extort from him the grant of offices that virtually rendered them independent of his authority. This was generally effected through the bishop’s obtaining the county, that is becoming the count, and thus exercising the palatine power in his city, as well as that which he might already possess _iure episcopii_, and as _defensor urbis_ or patron of the municipality. This, rare indeed under Charlemagne, but not uncommon in the times which preceded and followed him, can at least not be proved to have taken place in England before the Conquest[887]. There is indeed one instance which might seem at first sight to contradict this assertion, but which upon closer investigation rather confirms it. We learn that certain thieves, having attempted a sacrilegious entry into the church of St. Eádmund, and being miraculously delivered into the hands of the authorities, were put to death by the orders of Ðeódred, then bishop of London and of Eastanglia[888]. This event took place after the conquest of the last-named province by Æðelstán, who about 930 drove the Danes from it or reduced them under his own power. At that time it appears uncertain whether the conquered kingdom had been duly arranged and settled, or whether any ealdorman had been appointed to govern it. If not, we must imagine that Ðeódred, the only constituted authority on the spot, acted at his own discretion in a case of urgency, without absolutely possessing the legal power to do so; that the act was in short one of those examples of what in modern times we understand by the term Lynch-law, that law which men are obliged to administer for themselves in the absence of the regular machinery of government. But it is further observable that, according to the terms of the legend itself, these thieves were taken _in the manner_, and consequently liable to capital punishment without any trial at all[889]; this justice we may suppose Ðeódred to have executed, and to its summary character we may attribute the regrets he expressed on the subject at a later time. It is also possible to account for the act by supposing that even at this early period the bishop possessed his sacu and sócn in the demesne of St. Eádmund, and that he proceeded to execute his thieves by his right as lord of the sócn: but there is no clear proof that the immunity did exist before the time of Cnut, and I therefore incline to the second explanation as the most probable. But if Ðeódred did not act in