MANY of the strands discussed thus far come together in this final chapter as we consider how tightly episcopal authority was woven into the fabric of local society. Lay men and women depended on bishops to confirm their children, consecrate their churches and train their clergy, to be sure. But because they were local landlords, sometimes of enviable means, and representatives of the king in secular as well as spiritual matters, bishops came to exercise considerable authority at the local level. Here, as in other matters, no prescribed set of rules dictated their non-canonical activities, and there were probably as many differences as similarities in the extent to which individuals embroiled themselves in local politics, law and commerce. Nevertheless, the evidence suggests that through their professional responsibilities and personal associations bishops cultivated relationships that would bind local families and episcopal communities together in deep and lasting ways. Although they are impossible to quantify, these local relationships contributed to the Church's prosperity in a variety of ways, and therefore merit as full a discussion as the evidence will allow. This chapter explores the various ties that bound Anglo-Saxon bishops to the men and women who inhabited their dioceses, some of which would, by the end of the eleventh century, cause raised eyebrows among more than a few Gregorian reformers. Among other things, this chapter will show that the relationships created by the local activities of bishops tended to collapse the distance between clergy and laity, a distance the Gregorians would go to great lengths to reestablish.

Creating and Maintaining Spiritual Ties

While most individuals probably only saw a bishop once in their lives, the episcopal Church itself loomed large in the physical landscape of the English town and countryside, as the previous chapter demonstrated. Besides being the seat of the bishop, and a liturgical community in its own right, the cathedral church and other churches belonging to the bishop had pastoral responsibilities of their own. It is easy to forget, for instance, that the cathedral of Winchester was a spiritual community that served many of the inhabitants of the city of Winchester, and not just the bishop and his monks. The unprecedented openness of liturgical observances to lay participation, monastic as well as secular, must have been in recognition of the pastoral responsibilities that many monastic communities, in particular the four monastic cathedrals, undertook as well.