His zeal for the
reformation of abuses made the canons of the national council, held
under his presidency at St. Paul's on November 18, 1237, an epoch in
the history of our ecclesiastical jurisprudence.
Despite his efforts the legate remained unpopular. The pluralists and
nepotists, who feared his severity, joined with the foes of all
taxation and the enemies of all foreigners in denouncing the legate. To
avoid the danger of poison, he thought it prudent to make his own
brother his master cook. During the council of London it was necessary
to escort him from his lodgings and back again with a military force.
In the council itself the claim of high-born clerks to receive
benefices in plurality found a spokesman in so respectable a prelate as
Walter of Cantilupe, the son of a marcher baron, whom Otto had just
enthroned in his cathedral at Worcester, and the legate, "fearing for
his skin," was suspected of mitigating the severity of his principles
to win over the less greedy of the friends of vested interests. His
Roman followers knew and cared little about English susceptibilities,
and feeling was so strong against them that any mischance might excite
an explosion.
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