Eglise de Bayeux Pasteur
Rendi l'âme à Son Créateur
Et lors en foillant la place
Devant le grant autel de grâce
Trova l'on la basse chapelle
Dont il n'avoit esté nouvelle
Ou il est mis en sépulture
Dieu veuille avoir son âme en cure,--Amen."
This inscription is engraved as prose: verse is very frequently written in this manner in ancient manuscripts, which custom, as Joseph Ritson conjectured, arose "from a desire of promoting the salvation of parchment." I must also add, that the initial letters are colored red and blue, so that the whole bears a near resemblance to a manuscript page.
There is another epitaph, engraved in large letters, upon the exterior of the southern tower, which is an odd specimen of the spirit of the middle ages. It is supposed to have been placed there in the twelfth century.