He loved God with all his might,

And holy kirk and soothe and right.

And that there might be a lasting record of his prowess in battle and skill in war, his good and learned mass-priest Alefricus Diaconus, had written before he died, and in the same old English tongue, a goodly book of the deeds of Hereward, the great soldier; and albeit this goodly book, by some evil chance, hath disappeared, Hugo Candidus and Robert of Swaffham, two right learned monks of the abbey of Peterborough, have put the substance of it, and such portions as could be found, into their treatise intituled, De Gestis Herewardi Inclyti Militis.

APPENDIX.

Note A.—(Page [5].)
FOUNDATION OF ELY ABBEY.

Ely Abbey was founded by Ætheldreda in A.D. 673. She was the first Abbess. Her right of rule over the Isle of Ely itself was derived from her husband, Tonbert, a prince of the Gyrvii or Fen people. This monastery rose to great importance—passed through various vicissitudes—incident to the times of invasion and conflict—was heroically defended at various periods—submitted to the power of Duke William, was converted into a Bishopric in 1109—Hervey being its first prelate—and shared the fate of other monastic houses in the reign of Henry VIII., when its revenue amounted to about £13,000 per year, at the present value of money.[[259]]

Note B.—(Page [5].)
THE LEGEND OF S. LUCY.

Saint Lucia was a native of Syracuse; her hand was sought in marriage by a young nobleman whose suit she refused, whereupon her lover complained that her beautiful eyes haunted him day and night; she cut them out and sent them to him, begging to be allowed to persue her religious aspirations unmolested, hence she is often represented with the balls of her eyes laid on a dish; perhaps her eyes were defaced or plucked out—though her present “Acts” make no mention of any such circumstance. In many places her intercession was particularly implored for distemper of the eyes, (for, as a recompense for this self abnegation, Heaven restored her eyes making them more beautiful than before).

Her chief offence may have been that she bestowed the whole of her large wealth on the poor instead of sharing it with her suitor who accused her to the governor of professing Christianity and in consequence she suffered in the Diocletian persecution. She appears to have died in prison, of wounds, on 13th December, 304, A.D. In the 6th century she was honoured at Rome among the most illustrious virgins whose triumphs the church celebrates, as appears from the Sacramentary of St. Gregory, Bede, and others. Her festival was kept in England, till the change of religion, as a holiday of the second rank on which no work but tillage or the like was allowed. Her body remained at Syracuse for many years. She is often represented with a palm branch in one hand and a burning lamp in the other, expressive of her name which means Light, in Greek, λύκη. “Notes Ecclesiological and Historical on the Holy Days,” London, 1864, also “Lives of the Saints,” by Rev. Alban Butler.