For the great bishops--such as Fulbert, Ives and John of Salisbury--were indeed remarkable men, and they held their own successfully, not only, if need be, against the interference of their Archbishop of Sens, but also with the Counts of Chartres and the Kings of France and England.
The eleventh century above all was an era of notable bishops.
There were, of course, good bishops and bad. Aganon, who succeeded Gantelme, was in the former class, and he devoted himself to the rebuilding and establishing of the ruined churches and monasteries; among them that of S. Père de Chartres, which had been utterly demolished by the Normans. His nephew, Ragenfroi, succeeded him, and continued in the paths of his uncle. He was one of the greatest benefactors of S. Père, to which he added many buildings, and whither he brought twelve monks from the Monastery of Fleury-sur-Loire. Their fervour and discipline, which was to give new life to the community at Chartres, had been acquired under the rule of their abbot, Vulphard, destined to be one of the great bishop-builders of Chartres.
It was under Ragenfroi that Hugues le Grand, father of Hugues Capet, gave evidence of his lively devotion to the Notre-Dame de Chartres by the donation of the domain of Ingré, ‘with all its lands cultivated or not, vineyards, pasturage and _prairies_, with its forests and serfs of either sex, and the church which is dedicated to Saint Leu.’ So runs the charter, and the object is ‘that the brethren deriving therefrom the necessaries of life may have the more liberty to perform Divine service and spiritual exercises, and pour out the more abundant prayers for us, our wife and our whole family.’
Hardouin, Bishop of Chartres, succeeded to his brother’s position, but not his religion, says the chronicler; for he was filled with pride and swollen with secular ambition. He waged war with the monks of S. Père, and took from them every privilege and possession he could. And the chronicler adds (writing always from the point of view of S. Père) that several later bishops followed his example, and trod in the same path of sacrilege, wasting their own property and coveting that of others, plotting against the monks and harassing them, and even robbing them of much that the charity of the faithful had bestowed upon them, and, whereas they should have protected them, acting in the blindness of their hearts like tyrants and plunderers. Count Eudes succeeded his father Thibault (977), and the following narrative, which the monk Paul gives us in connection with his name, is sufficiently eloquent of the times.