ABSTRACT
At the heart of the relationship between Innocent II and the islands of Britain and Ireland, however, lies the paradox of an Anglo-Norman monarchy which sought and in large measure maintained significant control over the form and frequency of contacts between its people - clerical, religious, and lay, and the popes of the time, but which found it necessary to call on papal authority to authorise or recognise decisions taken or judgments made in its territories, as well as to secure papal endorsement of its own position. Royal-papal relations were always a complex exercise in pressure and persuasion on both sides, and mostly the initiative came from the king. Hugh's election as archbishop was duly confirmed by Innocent II, who authorised the Norman bishops to conduct his consecration. For his part, Innocent's attitude to the powerful Anglo-Norman monarchs was necessarily circumspect.
