FOOTNOTES:
[219] On this subject, see Huet, Origines de Caen, p. 299.—“Estreham est le nom d'un bourg situé à l'embouchure de l'Orne, et d'un autre dans le Bessin. Mr. Bochart le faisoit, venir d'Easter, Déesse des anciens Saxons. Et comme il avoit entrepris de rapporter les anciennes origines à la langue et à la doctrine des Phéniciens il prétendoit que cette Easter étoit la même qu'Astarté. Ses sacrifices se faisoient au commencement du printems; et de la vient que les Saxons appellerent Easter le mois auquel se célebre la Pâque. Skinnerus ne s'éloigne pas beaucoup de ce sentiment dans son Etymologique de la langue Angloise. Mr. Valois tire le nom d'Estreham du Latin Strata, et de l'Allemand Hamum, pour marquer une Demeure bâtie sur un chemin public, ou au bout d'un chemin public, comme si le bourg d'Estreham étoit sur un grand chemin, ou au bout d'un chemin public: et qu'il ne fût pas sur une extrêmité de terre qui ne mene à rien, ayant la mer d'un côté, et l'embouchure de la riviere d'Orne de l'autre: ou comme si tous les villages du monde ne pouvoient pas être censez terminer des grand chemins. Mais ces opinions sont détruites par l'ancienne orthographe du nom d'Estreham, qui est constamment écrit dans les vieux Titres, et par Mr. de Bras, Oistreham, pour Westerham, c'est-à-dire, Village Occidental: car il se trouve placé à l'West de l'embouchure de l'Orne.”
PLATE XCIX. AND C.
CATHEDRAL CHURCH AT SÉEZ.
Plate 99. Cathedral Church of Notre Dame, at Séez.
West Front.
The city of Séez, though dignified by being the seat of a bishopric, is in itself small and unimportant, its population not exceeding five thousand five hundred inhabitants. Of the early history of either the town or the diocese, little is known with certainty; and authors have scarcely felt it worth their while to exercise their ingenuity, or to display their learning, upon a subject ill calculated to add dignity to their researches. Those who have entered upon the inquiry, have given it as their opinion, that the Civitas Sagiorum, mentioned in the earliest Notitia Galliæ, as the fifth in rank among the cities of the province, Lugdunensis Secunda, was no other than the modern Séez; and, carrying their conjecture one step farther, they have inferred from locality, that the Sagii, otherwise called Saii, must have been the Sesuvii of Cæsar's Commentaries. Hence, in more modern Latinity, Séez has generally acquired the name of Sagium; though Ordericus Vitalis occasionally calls it Salarium, and Magno, Saius. In some maps it is likewise styled Saxia, whence an idea has arisen that it owed its origin to the Saxons; and that the words, Saii and Sagii, were in reality nothing more than a corruption of Saxones or Sassones.
The favorers of this opinion have brought Séez within the limits of the Otlingua Saxonia, a district in Normandy, whose situation and extent has been the subject of much literary controversy. The learned Huet, alluding to this very point,[220] observes, with great justice, that “it is more easy to tell what is not, than what is; and that, though the limits of bishoprics serve in general to mark the divisions of the ancient Gallic tribes, yet length of time has introduced many alterations. Able men,” he adds, “have been of opinion, that Hiesmes was originally an episcopal see, and that its diocese was afterwards dismembered into three archdeaconries; one of them fixed at Séez, a second at Lisieux, and a third at Bayeux.” Such, however, he says, is not his own belief; but he thinks that Hiesmes was originally the seat of the bishopric of Séez. A report to the same effect will be found in the Concilia Normannica; and it is adopted by Rouault,[221] who argues in its favor; first, that Séez was too insignificant, at the time of the preaching of the gospel in Neustria, to be dignified with the presence of a bishop; the apostles and earliest popes having directed that bishops should only be appointed to considerable towns: and, secondly, that Hiesmes was really then a place of importance, and probably continued so till the nineteenth year of the reign of King Henry I. of England, when that prince destroyed it, as a punishment upon the inhabitants for their revolt.
Ecclesiastical history refers the establishment of the bishopric of Séez to the fourth or fifth century. The earliest, however, of the prelates, of whom any certain mention is to be found, is Litaredus, whose name appears, under the title of Oximensis Episcopus, subscribed to the council of Orleans in 511. Azo, who succeeded to the mitre in one of the last years of the tenth century, erected the first cathedral that is upon record at Séez. William of Jumieges relates of him, that he destroyed the walls of the city, and with their stones built a church in honor of St. Gervais, the martyr, “ubi sedes episcopalis longo post tempore fuerat.” The same author tells that, in consequence of this church having been turned into a place of refuge by some rebels, about fifty years afterwards, Ivo, the third from Azo upon the episcopal throne, set fire to the adjoining houses for the purpose of dislodging them, and the church fell a victim to the flames. The act, though unintentional, brought upon the prelate a severe reprimand from the pope; and Ivo, to repair his fault, undertook a journey to his relatives and friends in Apulia and Constantinople, whence he returned, loaded with rich presents, by the aid of which he undertook the erection of a new church upon so large a scale, that “his successors, Robert, Gerard, and Serlo, were unable to complete it in fifty years.” The cathedral then raised is said to be the same as is now standing; and, according to what has already been recorded of the cathedrals of Lisieux and Coutances, there is nothing in its architecture to discredit such an opinion. The first stone was laid about the year 1053: the dedication took place in 1126. Godfrey, archbishop of Rouen, performed the ceremony in the presence of Henry, then duke, who, at the same time, endowed the church with an annual income of ten pounds.