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He be

comes

Prior. 1045.

2

CHAP. VIII. to Bec, which then fully answered his ideal.1 Received as a monk by Abbot Herlwin, he strove to hide himself from the world; he even at one time thought of leaving the monastery, and leading a life of utter solitude in the wilderness. But the Abbot required him on his obedience to remain, and he was advanced to the dignity of Prior.3 He had already proved his fitness to command by his readiness to obey. His predecessor in the Priorship, an unlearned man, had bidden him, when reading in the refectory, to shorten the second syllable of docere. The great scholar did as he was bid, deeming holy obedience to be something higher than the rules of Donatus. But such necessity was not long laid upon him; such a light as his could not long be hid under a bushel; his fame was again spread abroad, and with it the fame of the house in which he sojourned. Clerks and scholars, men of noble birth, even sons of princes, flocked to profit by the instructions of the learned Prior, and enriched the Abbey with costly gifts for his sake. The society increased so fast that the

4

1 The legend is found in a simpler form in Milo, i. 282, 283. and in a fuller shape in the Chronicon Beccense, i. 195, 196, followed by Hook, i. 81, 82. I do not see the chronological difference spoken of by the Dean, except that the Chronicler, like most of the other writers, leaves out the sojourn at Avranches. The two versions are worth comparing, as illustrating the growth of a legend, which is not the less plainly a legend because it contains nothing miraculous. The earlier form is the more consistent with the general story, as it represents Lanfranc as ignorant of Scripture and divine things. The meeting between Lanfranc and Herlwin is well conceived and well told. 2 Milo, i. 285.

3 Milo, i. 286. "Lanfrancum Priorem constituit, et quidquid ditioni monasterii subjacebat, interius et exterius ipsius curæ commisit."

* Ib. 284. “Vir sapiens sciens magis obedientiam Christo debere quam Donato, dimisit quod bene pronunciaverat, et dixit quod non recte dicere jubebatur. Nam producere brevem vel longam corripere syllabam non capitale noverat crimen; verum jubenti ex parte Dei non parere culpam non levem esse sciebat."

5 Will. Gem. vi. 9. "Accurrunt clerici, Ducum filii [one would like to know their names], nominatissimi scholarum Latinitatis magistri, laici potentes, altâ nobilitate viri. Multi pro ipsius amore multas eidem

ecclesiæ terras contulere."

LANFRANC AT BEC.

225

with Wil

buildings were found to be too small, and the site not CHAP. VIII. healthy enough for so great a multitude.1 By the persuasion of Lanfranc, Herlwin was induced to change his abode once more, and to raise a third house, larger and more stately than either of its predecessors,2 but still within the same valley and upon the banks of the same beck. At last the name of the Prior of Bec reached the ears of Duke His favour William himself. Lanfranc became his trusted counsellor,3 liam, and we shall presently find him acting zealously and successfully on his sovereign's behalf, in pursuit of the object which, next to the Crown of England, was nearest to William's heart. The fame of Lanfranc soon spread be- He appears yond the bounds of Normandy; he appeared, as we have Synods of already seen, at a succession of synods, as the champion of Rome and the received doctrine of the Church. 4 The theological 1049, 1050. position of Lanfranc I leave to be discussed by others; it is enough to say that, summoned before Pope and Council as a suspected heretic, he came away from Rome and Vercelli with the reputation of the most profound and most orthodox doctor of his time.6

The monastery of Ouche or Saint Evroul had, as far

1 Will. Gem. vi. 9. "Adunatam etenim illic fratrum multitudinem quia domorum spaciositas jam capere non valebat, et quia situs loci degentium incolumitati contrarius exsistebat."

2 William of Jumièges (u. s.) describes the work, and says that "post triennii completionem, solâ necdum completâ basilica," Lanfranc became Abbot of Saint Stephen's. This last appointment did not happen till 1066 (Ord. Vit. 494 B). Did the rebuilding not begin till 1063?

3 I reserve the account of Lanfranc's connexion with William till I come to the history of the Duke's marriage.

* See above, p. 116.

5 See Hook, ii. 89.

* Orderic (519 D) describes the work of Lanfranc against Berengar as "dilucido venustoque stilo libellum, sacris auctoritatibus ponderosum, et indissolubiliter constantem consequentiis rationum, veræ intelligentiæ adstructione de Eucharistia copiosum, facundo sermone luculentum, nec prolizitate tædiosum." One could wish that the excellent Orderic had, in this last respect, imitated the work which he so much admired.

VOL. II.

at the

Vercelli.

CHAP. VIII. as the eleventh century was concerned, an origin of a The modifferent kind from that of Bec; but its story is really nastery of Ouche or little more than that of Bec carried back into an earlier Saint Evroul.

ness.

age. That is to say, while Bec was altogether a new foundation, Saint Evroul was, like many other religious houses both in England and Normandy, a restoration of an earlier one. In both countries the Scandinavian invaders had destroyed or pillaged countless churches and monasteries. Many of these last, sometimes after complete destruction, sometimes after dragging on a feeble existence during the intermediate time, rose again, like Crowland and Jumièges, in more than their former greatBut the case of Saint Evroul was a peculiar one. Its temporary fall was owing, not to the devastations of heathen Northmen, but to the wars between Christian Story of Normandy and Christian France. The history of its founder, Ebrulf or Evroul, a saint of the sixth century, in many respects forestalls the history of Herlwin of Bec.1 Of noble birth in the city of Bayeux,-perhaps therefore of Saxon, rather than of either Frankish or Gaulish, blood,-high in favour at the court of Hlodhar the son of Hlodwig, he lived, even as a layman, the life of a saint. At last he forsook the world; his wife and himself both took monastic vows; but Ebrulf, as Lanfranc had wished to do, presently forsook his monastery for a deeper seclusion. With three companions only, he sought out a lonely spot by the river Charenton, close by the forest of Ouche, on the borders of the dioceses of Lisieux, Evreux, and Seez. There he lived a hermit's life, adorned, as we

Ebrulf or
Evroul.

575.

2

1 The whole early history of his house is given by Orderic at great length, 609 et seqq. So also Will. Gem. vii. 23.

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2 Ord. 609 C. 'Degens adhuc sub laicali habitu vitam instituerat ut nihil ab his discrepare videretur, quos imperium regulare coercebat." His piety however was not wholly after the type of Eadward the Confessor, for we read (609 D) that "conjugem, ut patris nomen haberet, acceperat."

ORIGIN OF SAINT EVROUL

of Saint

227

the Danish

are told, by many miracles, and his cell, like the cell of CHAP. VIII. Guthlac at Crowland, became the small beginning of a famous monastery. The secluded site of the house saved Monastery it from the ravages of the Northmen, and the votaries of Evroul; Saint Evroul, with almost unique good luck, remained it escapes undisturbed, while Hasting and Rolf were overthrowing ravages; so many holy places of their brethren elsewhere.2 But during the troubled minority of Richard the Fearless, when King Lewis of Laôn and Duke Hugh of Paris were invading the defenceless Duchy,3 the monks of Saint Evroul received two seemingly honourable, but, as it turned out, highly dangerous, guests. These were Herlwin, Abbot of Saint Peter's at Orleans, the Chancellor of Hugh the Great, and Ralph of Drangy his Chamberlain.1 Both, we are told, were men of great piety, but they showed their piety in a strange fashion. Soon after their visit, but is pillaged by Duke Hugh gave orders for the ravage of that part of Hugh the Normandy. His devout officers either despised or scrupled 943. at plunder of a more vulgar kind; they remembered the hospitality of the monks of Saint Evroul, and requited

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1 One legend of Saint Ebrulf (611 C) is the same as the well-known story of Elfred and his last loaf.

2 Ord. Vit. 623 C. "Olim dum Daci, qui adhuc pagani erant, cum Hastingo Neustriam vastaverunt, et rursus Rollone cum suis sæviente, plures ecclesiæ cum urbibus et oppidis desolatæ sunt; nos, suffragante Deo, in silvestri sterilique rure latuimus, et debacchantium gladios, licet in timore nimio et egestate, sospites evasimus." This must have been forgotten when it is said in Neustria Pia, p. 90, that Saint Evroul was ravaged by the Danes.

* See vol. i. pp. 210, 211. Orderic gives his version of these events in p. 619. He calls Hugh "Hugo Magnus Aurelianorum Dux," and Lewis receives his surname of "Ultramarinus," which we do not find in contemporary writers. Most names of the kind were doubtless used in common discourse during the lifetime of the princes designated by them, but they did not find their way into written history till later.

Ord. Vit. 619 D, 622 D.

5 Ib. 621 B. ""

Rusticorum pecudes sive supellectilem non curaverunt ; sed Uticensis hospitii memores, illuc reversi sunt, et ex insperato cum suis in cœnobium irruerunt." Then follow the details of the plunder.

Great.

The monastery forsaken.

1

CHAP. VIII. it by carrying off all the ornaments of their church, including, what they most valued, the relics of their founder and other saints. The holy spoil was duly shared among various churches of the Duchy of France, and a large body of the monks of Saint Evroul followed the objects of their veneration. A few however remained behind, and the brotherhood still dragged on a feeble existence for some time. At last the house of Saint Evroul was utterly forsaken and forgotten, and miracles were needed to point The church out the spot where it had stood. A pious priest 2 from restored by Beauvais, Restold by name, moved by a divine vision, came and dwelt on the spot, and found benefactors willing to repair the ruined church. At last one special beneGeroy and factor arose. Geroy, a man of great valour and piety, was his family. lord of Escalfoy by the forest of Ouche, and of Montreuil

Restold.

3

near the Dive. Of mingled French and Breton extraction, he had been attached to the fortunes of the elder William of Belesme, probably as a vassal of some of the estates held by him under the Crown of France. In a c. 1015. fight against Count Herbert of Maine, when William and all the rest of his followers had fled, Geroy regained the day by his single valour. In return for this exploit, William introduced him at the court of Richard the Good, by whom he was allowed to succeed to the lordships already spoken of. They had been the property of Helgo, a

1 Ord. Vit. 622 D.

2 Ib. 624 C. This holy man, like Orderic's own father, was married. "Uticum perrexit ibique cum conjuge et Ilberto filio suo primus habitavit." (625 A.) He afterwards had a companion named Ingram. (461 A.) 3 Ib. 625 C, D.

He is described as "Ernaldi Grossi de Corte Sedaldi Abonii Britonis filii filius.” (Ord. Vit. 463 A.) He goes on to say that he "ex magnâ nobilitate Francorum et Britonum processit, mirâque probitate et audaciâ temporibus Hugonis Magni [clearly a mistake for Hugh Capet] et Roberti Regum Francorum nobiliter viguit."

5 Ib. 463 A.

Orderic (464 A, B) tells a curious story about these lordships. When

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