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» Roger, 1107—1139. 179 
being so correctly laid that the joint deceives the eye, and leads it 
to imagine that the whole wall is composed of a single block.” His 
creative genius was in advance of his age, At first it seems a trial 
of our faith to believe that the work of Roger in the castle of 
Sherborne, and the few fragments that are left in his castle of The 
Devizes, really belong to the reign of Henry I., and not to the reign 
of Henry II. And yet it is the case: a great architect struck out 
a path for himself in an age of comparative peace. The style which 
had come in at the bidding of Roger was copied by lesser men 
almost a generation after his time. The greater lightness and 
and richness of Roger’s work became the fashion in the days of 
Henry II. and, when the fashion had once set in, lightness and 
richness went on increasing. 
I must not omit, without a passing remark, the fact, that Roger’s 
episcopate marks a great change in the ecclesiastical state of England, 
as regarded the increasing distance between the bishop, as chief 
‘pastor, and the flock over which he had been placed. The bishop 
now became a feudal lord, and the clergy his vassals. Claims of 
state occupied the bishop’s time ; and the care of the diocese became 
committed more and more to suffragans. Even when in his diocese 
his baronial character led him rather to his castle, or rural manor, 
‘than to the palace under the shadow of his own Church. He was 
‘for the most part the absent lord and visitor, rather than the present 
head of his Cathedral. And so everything, as it has been said, 
“helped to stiffen the fatherly care of the bishop of souls into a 
formal jurisdiction exercised according to a rigid technical law. 
There were, of course, bishops who rose above the temptations among 
which they were placed, but the general tendency to secularity 
prevailed, and put on a worse form through the changes which 
followed upon the Conquest.” ! 
Of course, Bishop Roger’s remarkable rise made him many enemies. 
Men saw him daily increasing in wealth, in influence, and it is to be 
feared also, in arrogance. Nor were bis great works always carried 
out with a due regard to the just claims of others. Malmesbury 
1See Freeman’s ‘‘ Norman Conquest,” y. 497. 
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