HISTORY OF HERLWIN.

217

His descent

He was and early

life.

Danes who occupied Neustria, that is to say, from the CHAP. VIII. original companions of Rolf as distinguished from the later settlers under Harold Blaatand. And this descent agrees with the geographical position of his estates, which lay, though on the left bank of the Seine, yet on the right bank of the Dive, within the limits of the original grant of Charles the Simple. On the spindle side he boasted of a still higher ancestry; his mother Heloise is said, on what authority it is not very clear, to have been a near kinswoman of the reigning house of Flanders. a vassal of Count Gilbert of Brionne, the faithful guardian of William, in the neighbourhood of whose castle his own estates lay. He had proved his faithfulness to his immediate lord by many services of various kinds, and he had won the favour, not only of Count Gilbert but of their common sovereign Duke Robert. On one occasion, an injury received from the Count had caused him to forsake his service. But presently the Count was engaged His virin a more dangerous warfare with Ingelram, Count of Ponthieu. Herlwin with his followers came at a critical moment to Gilbert's help, and the Count restored all, and more than all, that he had taken away from one who so well knew how to return good for evil. At another time

1 Will. Gem. vi. 9. "A Danis igitur qui Normanniam primi obtinuere pater ejus originem duxit." So Milo Crispin, Vitæ Abb. Becc. (Giles, Lanfranc, i. 261), who copies William. Both give the name Ansgotus. I know not why pedigree-makers (see one quoted by Taylor, Wace 209, and another in Sir A. Malet's Wace 269) identify this Ansgod with "Crispinus of Bec."

2 See above, p. 205.

3 See vol. i. pp. 191, 192.

* Will. Gem. vi. 9. "Mater proximam Ducum Morinorum, quos moderni Flandros cognominant, consanguinitatem attigit." Milo is satisfied with the description of "Ducum Flandriæ," without the flourish about the Morini. Herlwin may thus have been, in the female line, a descendant of our Ælfred.

Milo, ap. Giles, i. 262. Orderic, 460 B. Herlwin, hard pressed in the battle, vows that, if he survives, he will serve God only-"nulli ulteriùs nisi soli Deo militaret."

tues.

CHAP. VIII. Gilbert sent Herlwin to the ducal court on an errand of

1

which his conscience disapproved; he failed to execute the unjust commission; in revenge the Count ravaged the lands of Herlwin and did great damage to their poor occupiers.2 Herlwin went to the Count, and made light of his own injury, but prayed that in any case the losses of the poor might be made good to them. Such a man was already a saint in practice, if not in profession; and we have no right to assume that, in this carrying out of Christian principles into daily life, Herlwin stood alone among the gallant gentlemen of Normandy. But the misfortune always was that men like Herlwin, who were designed to leaven the world by their virtues, were in that age open to so many temptations to forsake the world altogether. Herlwin began to feel himself out of place templates monastic in the secular world of Normandy, full, as it was in those retirement. days, of strife and bloodshed, where every man sought to win justice for himself by his own sword. But he was hardly more out of place in the Norman ecclesiastical world, where priests not only married freely, but bore arms and lived the life of heathen Danes, and where even monks used their fists in a way which would hardly have been becoming in laymen. The faith of Herlwin nearly

He con

3

Milo, i. 264. The Count was seeking the destruction of some neighbour; "de cujusdam compatriotæ sui damno agens, quod in illius vergebat perniciem."

Ib. "Continuò abripiuntur omnia sua, nec curat, vastantur quoque pauperes sui, unde non parvâ sollicitatur curâ.”

3 See the description in Orderic, 574 D et seqq. His words are remarkable. After describing the marriage or concubinage of the clergy and even of the Bishops, he goes on (575 A); “Hujusmodi mos inolevit tempore neophytorum, qui cum Rollone baptizati sunt, et desolatam regionem non litteris sed armis instructi violenter invaserunt. Deinde presbyteri de stirpe Dacorum litteris tenuiter edocti parochias tenebant, et arma ferentes laicalem feudum militari famulatu defendebant."

* Milo, i. 266. "Quidam monachus monachum pugno repercussum avertit, ac impulsum supinis dentibus demisit ad solum; adhuc enim, ut dictum est, omnes omnium per Normanniam mores barbari erant."

HERLWIN'S FIRST FOUNDATION.

219

failed him when he saw the disorder of one famous monas- CHAP. VIII. tery; but he was comforted by accidentally beholding the devotions of one godly brother, who spent the whole night in secret prayer. He was thus convinced that the salt of the earth had not as yet wholly lost its savour.1

ville.

Herlwin now, at the age of forty, retired from the world, Herlwin begins his and received the habit of religion from Herbert, Bishop of foundation Lisieux.2 Count Gilbert released him from his service, and at Burneseemingly released his lands from all feudal dependence on 1034. himself. Herlwin then began the foundation of a monastery on his own estate of Burneville near Brionne.4 A few devotees soon gathered round him. They lived a hard life, Herlwin himself joining them in tilling the ground, and in raising with his own hands the church and the other buildings needed by the infant brotherhood. The church, when finished, was consecrated by Bishop Herbert, He bewho at the same time ordained Herlwin a priest, and gave Priest and him the usual benediction as Abbot of the new society."

1 Milo, i. 266, 267.

comes

6 Abbot. 1037.

2 Will. Gem. vi. 9. Ord. Vit. 549 A. Herbert was Bishop of Lisieux from 1026 to 1050. He began to rebuild the Cathedral, which was finished by his successor Hugh. No part of their work remains.

3 Milo, i. 264, 265. The release of the lands seems implied in the foundation of the monastery. Will. Gem. u. s. Milo, i. 265.

5 Will. Gem. u. s. "Ipse non solum operi præsidebat, sed opus ipsum efficiebat, terram fodiens, fossam efferens, lapides, sabulum, calcemque humeris comportans, ac ea in parietem ipsemet componens." The church of Burneville then, like Cnut's church on Assandun (see vol. i. p. 472), was clearly a minster of stone and lime. For a like example of humility, take Saint Hugh of Lincoln, who worked at the building of his own cathedral church. (Metrical Life of St. Hugh, ed. Dimock, p. 32.) Compare the penance imposed on Duke Godfrey for his sacrilege at Verdun; see above, p. 98. In somewhat the same spirit Edward the First worked personally in making the ditch at Berwick in 1296. Rishanger, ed. Riley, p. 375.

6 Will. Gem. u. s. "Ab eodem præsule sacerdos ordinatus atque Abbas constitutus est." Cf. Milo, i. 267. The last writer seems to make Herlwin delay his monastic profession till the consecration of the church, but it seems from William of Jumièges and Orderic (549 A) that an interval of three years passed between his first profession and his ordination and benediction as Abbot. Milo himself, though in a confused way, recognizes an interval of three years.

He re

CHAP. VIII. About the same time he for the first time learned to read, and that to such good purpose that he gradually became mighty in the Scriptures, and that without ever neglecting the daily toil which his austere discipline imposed upon himself.1 His mother Heloise also, struck by the example of her son, gave up her dower-lands, and became a sort of serving sister to the brotherhood, washing their clothes, and doing for them other menial services. But after a while it was found that the site of Burneville was unsuited for a religious establishment; it seems not to have been well supplied with the two great monastic necessities of wood and water. Herlwin therefore determined to remove his monastery infant colony to a spot better suited to his purpose, a spot to which his own name has ever since been inseparably attached. A wooded hill divides the valley of the Risle, with the town and castle of Brionne, from another valley watered by a small stream, or, in the old Teutonic speech of the Normans, a beck. That stream gave its name to the most famous of Norman religious houses, and to this day the name of Bec is never uttered to denote that spot without the distinguishing addition of the name of Herlwin. The hills are still thickly wooded; the beck still flows, through rich meadows and under trees planted by

moves the

to Bec.

Present condition

of the spot.

1 Will. Gem. vi. 9. Milo, i. 265.

2 Milo, i. 268. "Simili se inibi propter Deum servituti nobilis mater ejus addixit, et concessis Deo prædiis, quæ habebat, ancillæ fungebatur officio." 3 Chron. Becc. ap. Giles, i. 194. "Quia campestris et inaquosus est locus." On the necessity of wood and water for monks, we have the witness of Orderic (461 A) in the case of his own house. "Locus iste," says William the son of Geroy, "ubi cœpistis ædificare, habitationi monachorum aptus non est, quia ibi aqua deest et nemus longè est. Certum est quod absque his duobus elementis monachi esse non possunt." The description of Bec in William of Jumièges enlarges on the advantages of the spot. It is "omni opportunitate humano usui commodus. Propter densitatem ac rivi recreationem, ferarum illic multus erat accursus."

Will. Gem. u. s. "Locus, qui à rivo illic mananti Beccus appellatur." So Chron. Becc. ap. Giles, i. 194; "Locus qui dicitur Beccus, et ita vocitatus à rivulo ibi decurrente, qui adhuc hodiernis temporibus decurrit juxta muros prati."

HE REMOVES TO BEC.

221

the water-side, by the walls of what once was the renowned CHAP. VIII. monastery to which it gave its name. But of the days of Herlwin no trace remains besides these imperishable works of nature. A tall tower, of rich and fanciful design, one of the latest works of medieval skill, still attracts the traveller from a distance; but of the mighty minster itself all traces, save a few small fragments, have perished. The monastic buildings, like those of so many other monasteries in Normandy and elsewhere in Gaul, had been rebuilt in the worst days of art, and they are now applied to the degrading purposes of a receptacle of French cavalry. The gateway also remains, but it is, like the rest of the buildings, of a date far-later than the days of Herlwin. The truest memorial of that illustrious Abbey is now to be found in the parish church of the neighbouring village. In that lowly shelter is still preserved the effigy with which after times had marked the resting-place of the Founder. Such are all the traces which now remain of the house which once owned Lanfranc and Anselm as its inmates.

govern

In this valley it was that Herlwin finally fixed his infant Herlwin's settlement, devoting to it his own small possessions in the ment as valley itself, and obtaining from Count Gilbert a grant of the Abbot. adjoining wood, one of the most precious possessions of the lordship of Brionne.2 There Herlwin built his first church, and added a wooden cloister, which he afterwards exchanged for one of stone. There he ruled his house in peace and wisdom, his knowledge of the outer world, and especially

1 It must be remembered that Herlwin's first church at Bec was on a different site from the existing remains, which represent his second building. 2 Milo, i. 268. "Comes Gilbertus nil usquam eo saltu pretiosius possidebat." The only human habitations in the valley were three mills, in two of which Herlwin had the right of a third part. Partly by gift, partly by purchase, he obtained possession of the whole valley. For his own gifts at Burneville and elsewhere, see his Charter in Neustria Pia, 437.

3 Will. Gem. vi. 9. Milo, i. 269. "Consecratâ, paucis exstructâ annis, non parvâ ecclesiâ, columnis ex ligneis claustrum construxit." The church then was of stone.