The importance of London had been growing without interruption ever
since its restoration by King Alfred, and it had risen to its position
as the capital city. This largely showed itself when Archbishop
Lanfranc, in 1075, held a great council in St. Paul's, "the first full
Ecclesiastical Parliament of England," Dean Milman calls it. Up to
that time, secular and Church matters had been settled in the same
assembly, but this meeting, held with the King's sanction, and
simultaneously with the Witan, or Parliament, established distinct
courts for the trial of ecclesiastical causes. It decreed that no
bishop or archdeacon should sit in the shiremote or hundred-mote, and
that no layman should try causes pertaining to the cure of souls.
The same council removed some episcopal sees from villages to towns,
Selsey to Chichester, Elmham first to Thetford, then to Norwich,
Sherburn to Old Sarum, Dorchester-on-Thame to Lincoln.

Another council of the great men met in St. Paul's in the course of
the dispute between Henry I. and Anselm about the investitures, but it
ended in a deadlock, and a fresh appeal to the Pope.

In the fierce struggle between Henry II. and Archbishop Becket,
Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, while apparently quite honest in his
desire to uphold the rights of the Church, also remained in favour
with the King, and hoped to bring about peace. Becket regarded Foliot
as his bitter enemy, and, whilst the latter was engaged in the most
solemn service in St. Paul's (on St. Paul's Day, 1167), an emissary
from the Archbishop, who was then in self-imposed exile abroad, came
up to the altar, thrust a sentence of excommunication into his hands,
and exclaimed aloud, "Know all men that Gilbert, Bishop of London,
is excommunicated by Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury." When Becket