ouen, the first seems to be that of
St. Gervais, instituted by the second Duke Richard in 1020, which was
given with the church of the same name to the monks of the Abbey of
Fecamp. It is still held in June in the Faubourg Cauchoise. The Foire
du Pre was next founded in 1064 on the day after the Ascension by the
great Duke William, under the auspices of the Priory of Notre Dame du
Pre which his wife had built in the suburb of Emendreville across the
river, where St. Sever now stands. The church itself took the name of
Bonne-Nouvelle when the Duchess heard, as she was praying there, that
the Victory of Hastings had made her Queen of England. Within its
walls were buried the Empress Matilda, and the hapless Prince Arthur
of Brittany. It was burnt down in 1243, and struck by lightning in
1351, destroyed during the siege by the English in 1418, and rebuilt
only to be destroyed again by the Calvinists in 1562. In 1604 it was
rebuilt for the last time, but the rights of jurisdiction and of the
fair given it by William the Conqueror were only surrendered to the
town of Rouen in 1493. In 1070 the Fete de l'Immaculee Conception,
called the Fete aux Normands, was celebrated for the first time in
memory of a vow after a safe voyage. The Confrerie de la Conception,
sometimes called Le Puy, was founded in connection with this, with the
poems that were written each year in honour of the Feasts, which gave
rise to the jocund office of the Prince des Palinods, of whom we shall
hear more later. Their first poem, written by Robert Wace (the author
of the "Roman de Rou," who was born in Jersey in 1100 and died at the
age of 84 in England) was called "L'Establissement de la feste de la
conception, dicte la Feste as Normands."

The most famous Fair of all was founded a little later by Guillaume
Bonne Ame, forty-eighth bishop of Rouen, when he transported the body
of St. Romain in a new and precious shrine from the church of St.
Godard to the Cathedral. At this first procession in 1079 both William
the Conqueror and his wife assisted. The change had been necessitated
by the great crowds of people who had come every year to receive
pardons and indulgences at the shrine of the famous guardian saint of
the city, and who thronged into the neighbouring field, called the
Champ-du-Pardon to this day. When the saint's body had been removed to
the Cathedral, the Foire du Pardon was held in his honour in the same
open space, and the whole ceremony was