[588] Ord. Vit. 674 D. “Habitatoribus hujus municipii quies et pax pene semper defuit, finitimique Cenomannenses, seu Normanni insistunt. Scopulosum montem anfractus Sartæ fluminis ex tribus partibus ambit, in quo sanctus Cerenicus venerandus confessor tempore Milehardi Sagiorum pontificis habitavit.”
[589] In local belief, Saint Cenery on his own ground seems to have supplanted the Archangel himself as the weigher of souls.
[590] On surnames of places, see N. C. vol. v. p. 573.
[591] Ib. vol. ii. p. 233.
[592] Ord. Vit. 674 D. “Carolo Simplice regnante, dum Hastingus Danus cum gentilium phalange Neustriam depopulatus est, sanctum corpus a fidelibus in castrum Theodorici translatum est et dispersis monachis monasterium destructum.” Yet at a later time (see Ord. Vit. 706 D) Saint Cenery still possessed an arm of the eponymous saint, though monks of Seez, not of Saint Cenery, were its keepers; and there is still a bone or fragment of a bone under the high altar of the parish church which claims to be a relic of him.
[593] Ib. “Sanguinarii prædones ibi speluncam latronum condiderunt,” “scelesti habitatores,” &c.
[594] Unless Orderic’s words just quoted are mere rhetoric, we must infer that the site of the castle, and not the site of the present church, had been the site of the forsaken monastery. Well suited as the whole peninsula was for the purposes of a castle, the actual isthmus, where three small knolls rise above the general level of the hill, must have been the most tempting spot of all. On two of the knolls remains of its masonry are still to be seen, and the outworks reach far down the hill on its western side. The place seems to have been a simple fortress, with no town or village, beyond such houses as may have grown up around the castle.
[595] Orderic tells the story, 674 C.
[596] See the extract in the last page.
[597] N. C. vol. iv. p. 184.