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From the Margins to the Mainstream

international resolution of the so-called Investiture Controversy

in 1122, which allowed emperors to select bishops but only the
pope to consecrate them. After that, it was Church authorities,
the local canons and, of course, the pope himself who had the
most decisive say. The canons of Utrecht, however, were sons of
prominent families from the region, who came under heavy pres-
sure from their kinfolk to make the selection of a bishop serve
their own familial interests. Too many opposing parties, then,
had a stake in the bishop’s seat for the transfer of authority to
occur harmoniously or, as the reforms of 1122 intended, to place
spiritual criteria first in the selection process. This development
undermined the ability of both the emperor and the bishop to
steer an autonomous course, and it would subject Utrecht, with
its competing factions, to squabbling or violence over most new
episcopal appointments.
Local lords could and did contest Utrecht’s expansion from
their fortified homes. Future powerhouses such as Brabant to the
south and Guelders to the east would emerge as significant forces
only in the course of the twelfth century, and only in the thir-
teenth would Utrecht’s power be seriously challenged by others.
The bishop’s earliest threat came from the west, from the Frisians
led by Gerulf’s descendants. These counts modestly but stead-
ily expanded their power from their base, where the Rhine then
flowed into the sea, near present-day Valkenburg and Rijnsburg
in South Holland. They re-established the ruined abbey near
Egmond in the early tenth century, in time making it one of the
most influential spiritual centers in the northern Netherlands, as
well as the administrative heart of the counts. At the end of the
tenth century, Count Dirck II donated to the St. Adelbert Abbey
the Evangeliarium of Egmond, a richly illustrated book of the
gospels that includes the first extant depictions of early medi-
eval Dutch architecture and people. Until about 1200, Egmond
was also the only place in the Netherlands where books were
produced.

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