Obviously it is with Lanfranc that we must start this enquiry, for the character of the organisation and legislation of the newly reformed Church in England depended upon his judgment. In saying this, I am not leaving out of account the part played by the Conqueror, which will be dealt with later. William acted as master of the Church, but the details of its government were left in the hands of Lanfranc. I am considering, from the ecclesiastical standpoint, the law which was accepted, which was the object of study, and which informed the rising generation; this was Lanfranc's province, and his was clearly the directing and controlling mind.

The law of the Church was a question, too, in which he was bound to be profoundly interested. His early training in Italy had been in the civil law, of which he had also been a teacher. It was probably not until he went to Bec that he took up the study of theology, and he may have started his study of canon law there as well. When he became archbishop, the importance of the law must have presented itself at once to his legal mind, and we can hardly be wrong in imagining that he would refer at once to the library at Bec for the collection, or collections, which he had read and studied there.