The first attempt which we find in England to separate the ecclesiastical from the civil jurisdiction, was that law of Edgar by which all disputes among the clergy were ordered to be carried before the bishop.[**] The penances were then very severe; but as a man could buy them off with money, or might substitute others to perform them, they lay easy upon the rich.[***] With regard to the manners of the Anglo-Saxons, we can say little, but that they were in general a rude, uncultivated people, ignorant of letters, unskilled in the mechanical arts, untamed to submission under law and government, addicted to intemperance, riot, and disorder. Their best quality was their military courage, which yet was not supported by discipline or conduct. Their want of fidelity to the prince, or to any trust reposed in them, appears strongly in the history of their later period; and their want of humanity in all their history. Even the Norman historians, notwithstanding the low state of the arts in their own country, speak of them as barbarians, when they mention the invasion made upon them by the duke of Normandy.[****] The conquest put the people in a situation of receiving slowly, from abroad, the rudiments of science and cultivation, and of correcting their rough and licentious manners. [* LL. Ælf. sect. 37, apud Wilkins, p. 43.] [** Wilkins, p. 83.] [*** Wilkins, p. 96, 97. Spel. Concil. p. 473.] [**** Gul, Pict. p. 202.] CHAPTER IV. [Illustration: 068.jpg WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.] WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. Contemporary Monarchs: EMP. OF GERM. K. OF SCOTLAND K. OF FRANCE. Ks. OF SPAIN. Henry IV. Malcolm III. 1093 Philip I. Sancho II. 1072 Alphonso VI. POPES. Alexander II.1073 Gregory VII. 1085 Victor III. 1087