Source.—Florence of Worcester, Chronicon, ed. Thorpe, vol. ii., pp. 4, 5.

In the season of Lent, by advice of William earl of Hereford and certain others, king William ordered the monasteries of the whole of England to be searched, and the money, which the wealthier English had deposited therein on account of his severity and devastation, to be taken from them and brought to his treasury. On the octave of Easter (4 April) a great council was held at Winchester, by the command and in the presence of king William, with the consent of Pope Alexander, whose authority was represented by his legates Ermenfred bishop of Sion, and John and Peter, cardinal priests of the apostolic see. In this council Stigand archbishop of Canterbury was degraded on three grounds; to wit, because he wrongfully held the bishopric of Winchester with the archbishopric; and because, in the lifetime of archbishop Robert, he had not only taken the archbishopric, but also for some time in the celebration of mass had used his pall, which remained at Canterbury, when he had been unjustly and forcibly expelled from England; and because afterwards he received his pall from Benedict, who had been excommunicated by the holy church of Rome for having gained the apostolic see by bribery. His brother Agelmar, bishop of East Anglia, was also degraded. Moreover several abbots were degraded there, the king being bent on depriving as many of the English as possible of their honours, and in their place he appointed persons of his own race, to strengthen his hold on the kingdom which he had newly acquired. Here also he deprived of their honours certain bishops and abbots, whom neither synods nor secular laws condemned on any obvious ground, and kept them in confinement to the end of their lives, influenced simply, as we have said, by distrust on account of his new kingdom.... After this the king summoned from Normandy Lanfranc, abbot of Caen, a Lombard by birth, a man of the widest range of learning, and with expert knowledge alike of all liberal and divine arts and of secular literature, and equally wise in counsel and the administration of temporal affairs; on the Assumption of St. Mary (15 August) he appointed him archbishop of the church of Canterbury, and on the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (24 June), being Sunday, caused him to be consecrated archbishop at Canterbury. The ceremony was performed by Giso bishop of Wells and Walter bishop of Hereford, who had both been ordained at Rome by Pope Nicholas, when Aldred archbishop of York received his pall, for they avoided ordination by Stigand, who was then over the archbishopric of Canterbury, knowing him to have received his pall uncanonically. Bishop Herman also, who had transferred his see from Sherborne to Salisbury, was present with certain others at the consecration; whereafter Lanfranc consecrated Thomas archbishop of York.