sum of money, which compromised the position of the spiritual community that it served. In a small parish church this right may be trivial, but in the German territories of Otto the Great it was an essential check and control on the church, through which the Holy Roman Emperor largely ruled. Simony, the outright purchase of an ecclesiastic position through payment or barter, was an ever-present problem, one that was attacked over and over in all the synods of the 11th- and early 12th-century Gregorian reforms, and fuelled the Investiture Controversy. The benefice system grew out of the proprietary churches. The Royal peculiars have remained proprietary churches until today. A Medieval example is the church of Littleham, Devon, mentioned in 1422. Lorsch Abbey An example of a proprietary church is Lorsch Abbey, founded in 764 by the Frankish Count Cancor and his widowed mother Williswinda as a church and monastery on their estate, Laurissa. They entrusted its administration to Cancor's nephew Chrodegang, Archbishop of Metz, who became its first abbot. In 766 Chrodegang resigned the office of abbot, in favour of his brother Gundeland. See also Proprietary chapel Staðamál Notes References Ulrich Stutz: Ausgewählte Kapitel aus der Geschichte der Eigenkirche und ihres Rechtes. Böhlau, Weimar 1937 Ulrich Stutz: Die Eigenkirche als Element des mittelalterlich-germanischen Kirchenrechts. Wissenschaftl. Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1964 Ulrich Stutz, Hans Erich Feine: Forschungen zu Recht und Geschichte der Eigenkirche. Gesammelte Abhandlungen. Scientia, Aalen 1989, Ulrich Stutz: Geschichte des kirchlichen Benefizialwesens. Von seinen Anfängen bis auf die Zeit Alexanders III. Scientia, Aalen 1995, (Ergänzt von Hans Erich Feine) External links Wood, Susan. The Proprietary Church in the Medieval West, Oxford University Press, 2006 Christianity in the Middle Ages Feudalism Religious law