As a participant in government and court ceremony and an aggressive advocate of ecclesiastical privilege, Hincmar took an active part in all the great political and religious affairs of his time, and was especially energetic in defending and extending the rights of the church and of the metropolitans in general, and of his own metropolitan of the church of Reims in particular. In the resulting conflicts, in which his personal interest was in question, he displayed great activity and a wide knowledge of canon law, but was not so scrupulous that he would not resort to disingenuous interpretation of texts.