t sacrilege in the very
abbey that he had sworn to protect. His crime and his penitence are
together recorded in an instrument printed in the _Neustria Pia_.[140]

What is further known relative to the convent, is little and
unimportant. The most remarkable circumstance, is the extreme poverty to
which the monks were reduced in 1384; when, on being called upon to pay
the sum of forty-six shillings and eight-pence, they pleaded their utter
inability, and presented to the king the following piteous
remonstrance:--"Cette Abbaie, etant frontiere de l'Anglois, n'aiant ni
chateau ni defense, a ete arse et mise en un si chetif point, qu'il y a
peu de lieux ou nous puissions habiter, si ce n'est es demeurans des
anciens edifices, et es vieilles masures.......... Notre grande Eglise
est arse depuis trente ans, et une autre petite Eglise qu'avions depuis
refaite, a grand meschief est ruinee et chue jusqu'en terre, avec la
closture et tout le dortoir ars, ensemble nos biens et nos lits.... De
plus sommes endettez en Cour de Rome pour les finances dez Abbez
qu'avons eus en brief temps; et devons encore a plusieurs persones de
grosses sommes de deniers que n'avons pu, et ne pouvons encore
acquitter; dont c'est pitie.... finalement pour paier 10 livres sur les
56 livres demandees par le Receveur, avons engage nos Calices sans les
pouvoir retirer."

NOTES:

[138] _Description de la Haute Normandie_, I. p. 13.

[139] The whole of the passage is curious.--"Item in _Ulteriori Portu_
et in _Auco_ oppido; decimam denariorum de Vice-comitatibus, et in
utraque villa _quicquid abbas et monachi acquirere poterunt_. Quod si
homines Abbatis piscem, qui vocatur _Turium_, capiunt, totus erit S.
Michaelis: crassus piscis si captus fuerit, ala una et medietas caudae
erit monachis."--From this passage, it is plain what importance was
attached to the _crassus piscis_, under which denomination were probably
included the porpesse, the dolphin, and all kinds of cetaceous animals,
as well as the grampus. Ducange, with his usual ability and learning,
has brought together a considerable quantity of curious matter upon the
subject, under the word, _Craspiscis_. From him it appears that, in the
year 1271, the question was argued before the Norman parliament, to whom
such fish belonged, in the event of its being thrown upon the shore; and
the decision was in the following words.--"Quod consuetudo generalis est
in Normannia, quod, quando talis piscis inve