To sum up, if the strength of the feudal tie and the energy or diplomacy of some of the great feudatories prevented France from crumbling into a mere dust-heap of fiefs, contiguous but unconnected, the evil from which the nation was suffering was, none the less, dangerous and deep-seated. The realm was frittered away into principalities which seemed every day to grow further and further apart.
From this general disintegration of the kingdom, the clergy, and especially the bishops, escaped only with the greatest difficulty. Too many members of the episcopate belonged both by birth and tendencies to the feudal classes for them to furnish the elements of a reaction or even to desire it. But there were a few among the mass, who were in a position, either through greater openness of mind, or more genuine culture, to see things from a higher point of view, who succeeded in imposing their ideas above all local divisions, and, while the royal authority seemed bankrupt, were able to exercise in the kingdom some sort of preponderating moral influence. The most illustrious examples are those of two bishops of Chartres, Bishop Fulbert in the time of King Robert, and Bishop Ivo in the time of Philip I.
With Fulbert the whole kingdom seems to have been in perpetual consultation on all manner of questions, even those in appearance most trivial. Does a point in feudal law need clearing up? is there a canonical difficulty to be solved? or a feeling of curiosity to be satisfied? recourse is had to him. About 1020 the Duke of Aquitaine, William the Great, asks him to expound the mutual obligations of suzerain and vassal, and the bishop at once sends him a precise and clear reply, which, he says at the end, he would like to have drawn out further, "if he had not been absorbed by a thousand other occupations and by his anxiety about the re-building of his city and his church which had just been destroyed by a terrible fire." Some years later the public mind throughout the kingdom had been much exercised by a "rain of blood" on the coast of Poitou. King Robert, at the request of the Duke of Aquitaine that he would seek enlightenment from his clergy as to this terrifying miracle, at once writes off to Fulbert, and at the same time to the Bishop of Bourges, seeking an explanation and details concerning previous occurrences of the phenomenon. Without delay Fulbert undertakes the search, re-reads Livy, Valerius Maximus, Orosius, and Gregory of Tours and sends off a letter with full particulars. Next comes the scholasticus of St Hilary's of Poitiers, his former pupil, who overwhelms him with questions of every kind and demands with special insistence whether bishops may serve in the army. In reply, his kind master sends him a regular dissertation.
But these are only his lighter cares; he has to guide the king in his policy and warn him of the blunders he makes. About 1010 Robert was on the point of convoking a great assembly to proclaim the Peace of
