Lanfranc's greatest political service was rendered in 1075, when he detected and foiled the conspiracy which had been formed by the earls of Norfolk and Hereford. He interceded for Waltheof's life and to the last spoke of the earl as an innocent sufferer for the crimes of others; he lived on terms of friendship with Bishop Wulfstan. On the death of the Conqueror (1087) he secured the succession for William Rufus, in spite of the discontent of the Anglo-Norman baronage; and in 1088 his exhortations induced the English militia to fight on the side of the new sovereign against Odo of Bayeux and the other partisans of Duke Robert. He exacted promises of just government from Rufus, and was not afraid to remonstrate when the promises were disregarded. In 1089 he was stricken with fever and he died on May 24 amidst universal lamentations. As a statesman Lanfranc did something to uphold the traditional ideal of his office; as a primate he ele vated the standards of clerical discipline and education. Of all the Hildebrandine statesmen who applied their teacher's ideas within the sphere of a national church he was the most successful.
The chief authority is the Vita Lanfranci by Milo Crispin, who was precentor at Bec and died in 1149. Milo drew largely upon the Vita Herluini, composed by Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster. The Chronicon Beccensis abbatiae, a 14th-century compilation, should also be consulted. The first edition of these two sources, and of Lanfranc's P. Jaffe, Berlin, 1865). Of modern works A. Charma's Lanfranc (Paris. 1648). Another edition, slightly enlarged, is that of J. A. Giles, Lan franci opera ( 2 vols., Oxford, 1844). The correspondence between Lanfranc and Gregory VII. is given in the Monumenta Gregoriana (ed. P. Jaffe, Berlin, 1865). Of modern works A. Charma's Lanfranc (Paris. 1849), H. Boehmer's Die Kilschungen Erzbsichof Lanfranks von Can terbury (Leipzig, 19o2) , and the same author's Kirche and Staat in England and in der Normandie (Leipzig, 1899) are useful. See also A. S. Macdonald, Lanfranc (1926), and the authorities cited in the articles on WILLIAM I. and WILLIAM II. (H. W. C. D.; X.)