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founded or enriched a monastery in the outskirts of the city, in honour of Saint Vigor, a canonized predecessor in the see of Bayeux.1 The name of Odo is one which will be found constantly recurring in this history, from the day when his Bishop's staff and warrior's mace were so successfully wielded against the defenders of England, till the day when he went forth to wield the same weapons against the misbelievers of the East, and found on his road a tomb, far from the heavy pillars and massive arches of his own Bayeux, among the light and gorgeous enrichments with which the art of the conquered Saracen knew how to adorn the palaces and churches of the Norman lords of Palermo.2

But though the appointments of Malger and Odo might bode but little good for the cause of ecclesiastical reformation, it is certain that a great movement was at this time going on in the interior of the Norman Church. The middle of the eleventh century was, in Normandy, the most fruitful æra of the foundation of monasteries. The movement in that direction, which had begun under Richard the Fearless, was continued under Richard the Good, and it seems to have reached its height under Robert and William. A Norman noble of that age thought that his estate lacked its chief ornament, if he failed to plant a colony of monks in some corner of his possessions. No doubt the fashion of founding monasteries became, in this case, as in other cases earlier and later, little more than a mere fashion. Many a man must have founded a religious house, not from any special devotion or any special liberality, but simply because it was the regular thing for a man in his position to do. And as an age of founding monasteries must also be an age in which men are unusually eager to enter the monastic profession, we may infer that many men took that profession

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1 On these works of Odo see Will. Gem. vii. 17; Ord. Vit. 665 A. Orderic's words might seem to assert a more complete rebuilding of the cathedral than those of William. Orderic says, Ecclesiam sanctæ Dei genitricis Mariæ a fundamentis cœpit, eleganter consummavit." William has only, Pontificalem ecclesiam in honorem sanctæ Dei genitricis Mariæ novam auxit." Perhaps this means that he rebuilt it on a larger scale. It was consecrated, like many other Norman churches, in 1077. Ord. Vit. 548 D. Compare the many dedications of English churches in 1238-1239. See Matt. Paris, 449, 481, 522, Wats.

2 Ord. Vit. 765 C.

3 Ord. Vit. 460 A. "Quisque potentum se derisione dignum judicabat, clericos

aut monachos in suâ possessione ad Dei militiam rebus necessariis non sustentabat.” So also Will. Gem. vii. 22. *“ Unusquisque optimatum certabat in prædio suo ecclesias fabricare, et monachos qui pro se Deum rogarent rebus suis locupletare." Each adds a long list of the foundations of the time. The expressions "clerici" and "ecclesias fabricare" would seem to apply to parish churches also. But not many parish churches of so early a date exist in Normandy. The great mass seem to have been built or rebuilt in the next century.

This seems recognized by William of Jumièges (vii. 22). Roger of Montgomery founded monasteries, "indignans videri in aliquo inferior suis comparibus."

on them out of mere imitation or prevalent impulse, without any true personal call to the monastic life. Still, though movements of this sort may end in becoming a mere fashion, they never are a mere fashion at their beginning. The Norman Benedictine movement in the eleventh century, the English Cistercian movement in the twelfth century, the still greater movement of the Friars in the thirteenth century-we may add the revulsion in favour of the Seculars in the fourteenth century, and the great Jesuit movement in the sixteenthall alike point to times when all classes of men were dissatisfied with the existing state of the Church, and were filled with a general desire for its reformation.1 The evil in every case was that the monastic reformations were never more than temporary. Some new foundations were created, perhaps even some old ones were reformed; the newly kindled fire burned with great fervour for a generation or two; a crop of saints arose, with their due supply of legends and miracles. But presently love again waxed cold; the new foundations fell away like the elder ones, and the next age saw its new order arise, to run the same course of primitive poverty and primitive holiness, degenerating into wealth, indolence, and corruption. Still there is a special charm in beholding the early years, the infant struggles, the simple and fervent devotion, of one of these religious brotherhoods in the days of its first purity. And, among the countless monasteries which arose in Normandy at this time, there are two which call for special notice at the hands of an historian whose chief aim is to connect the history of Normandy with that of England. The famous Abbey of Bec became the most renowned school of the learning of the time, and, among the other famous men whom it sent forth, it gave three Primates to the throne of Augustine. Thence came Lanfranc, the right hand man of the Conqueror-the scholar whose learning drew hearers from all Christendom, and before whose logic the heretic stood abashed-the courtier who could win the favour of Kings without stooping to any base compliance with their will—the ruler whose crozier completed the conquest which the ducal sword only began, and who knew how to win the love of the conquered, even while rivetting their fetters. Thence too came also the man of simple faith and holiness, the man who, a stranger in a strange land, could feel his heart beat for the poor and the oppressed, the man who braved the wrath of the most terrible of Kings in the cause at once of ecclesiastical discipline and of moral righteousness. Such are the truest claims of Anselm to the reverence of later ages, but it must not be forgotten that, if Bec sent forth in Lanfranc the great reformer of ecclesiastical discipline, it sent forth also in his successor the father of

1 Compare the remarks of Giraldus on the characters of the different orders in his time. It. Kamb. i. 3 (p. 41 Dimock).

ABBEYS OF BEC AND SAINT EVROUL.

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the whole dogmatic theology of later times. The third Metropolitan who found his way from Bec to Canterbury cannot compete with the fame of either of his great predecessors; yet Theobald lives in history as the first to discern the native powers of one whose renown presently came to outshine the renown of Lanfranc and of Anselm. The early patron of Thomas the burgher's son of London may fairly claim some reflected share of the glory which surrounds the name of Thomas the Chancellor of England, the Primate and the Martyr of Canterbury. By the side of the house which sent forth men like these the name of the other Norman monastery of which I speak may seem comparatively obscure. Yet the Abbey of Ouche or Saint Evroul has its own claim on our respect. It was the spot which beheld the composition of the record from which we draw our main knowledge of the times following those with which we have immediately to deal; it was the home of the man in whom, perhaps more than in any other man, the characters of Norman and Englishman were inseparably mingled. There the historian wrote, who, though the son of a French father, the denizen of a Norman monastery, still clave to England as his country and gloried in his English birth1-the historian who could at once admire the greatness of the Conqueror and sympathize with the wrongs of his victims, who, amid all the conventional reviling which Norman loyalty prescribed, could still see and acknowledge with genuine admiration the virtues and the greatness even of the perjured Harold. To have merely produced a chronicler may seem faint praise beside the fame of producing men whose career has had a lasting influence on the human mind; yet, even beside the long bead-roll of the worthies of Bec, some thought may well be extended to the house where Orderic recorded the minutest details of the lives alike of some of the saints and of the warriors of his time.

The tale of the early days of Bec is one of the most captivating in the whole range of monastic history or monastic legend. It has a character of its own. The origin of Bec differs from that of those earlier monasteries which gradually grew up around the dwellingplace or the burial-place of some revered Bishop or saintly hermit. It differs again from the origin of those monasteries of its own age which were the creation of some one external founder. Or rather it united the two characters in one. Bec gradually rose to greatness from very small beginnings; but, gradual as the process was, it took

1 Ord. Vit. 547 C. "Ego de extremis Merciorum finibus decennis Angligena huc advectus, barbarusque et ignotus advena callentibus indigenis admixtus, inspirante Deo Normannorum gesta et eventus Normannis promere scripto sum conatus." So 548 A. "De Angliâ in Normanniam tenel

lus exsul, ut æterno Regi militarem, destinatus sum." See also pp. 579-581. His father Odelerius was a priest of Orleans. Of the importance of these passages I shall have to speak again.

2 See Orderic, 492 B, and Appendix D.

place within the lifetime of one man. And that man was at once its founder and its first ruler. The part of Cuthberht at Lindisfarne, the parts of William and of Lanfranc at Caen, were all united in Herlwin, Knight, Founder, and Abbot. This famous man passed thirty-seven years of his life as a man of the world, a Norman gentleman and soldier. His father Ansgod boasted of a descent from the first Danes who occupied Neustria,1 that is to say, from the original companions of Rolf as distinguished from the later settlers under Harold Blaatand.2 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 loftier 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. He was 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, a wrong received from the Count had caused him to forsake his service. But presently the Count was engaged in 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 Gilbert sent Herlwin to the ducal court on an errand of 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." 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

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"Ducum Flandriæ," without the flourish about the Morini. Herlwin may thus have been, in the female line, a descendant of our Ælfred.

5 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 ulterius nisi soli Deo militaret."

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

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

HISTORY OF HERLWIN.

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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 in the secular world of Normandy, full, as it was in those 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,1 and where even monks used their fists in a way which would hardly have been becoming in laymen.2 The faith of Herlwin nearly failed him when he saw the disorder of one famous monastery; 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.3

Herlwin now, at the age of forty, retired from the world, and received the habit of religion from Herbert, Bishop of Lisieux.* Count Gilbert released him from his service, and seemingly released his lands from all feudal dependence on himself.5 Herlwin then began the foundation of a monastery on his own estate of Burneville near Brionne. 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."

6

1 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."

2 Milo, i. 266. 66 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."

3 Ib. i. 266, 267.

Will. Gem. vi. 9; Ord. Vit. 549 A. Herbert was Bishop of Lisieux from 1026

The church, when finished,

to 1050. He began to rebuild the cathedral, which was finished by his successor Hugh. No part of their work remains.

5 Milo, i. 264, 265. The release of the lands seems implied in the foundation of the monastery.

6 Will. Gem. vi. 9; Milo, i. 265. 7 Will. Gem. u. s. 66 '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. 423), 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

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