Ingulphus was at that very time indebted directly to the Conqueror, his early patron, for his abbacy.
See Martene Const. Canon. Reg. in "de Ant. Eccl. Ritibus," tom. iii., for full details.
This indulgence was, after all, not very luxurious, for, as Mr. Maitland remarks ("Dark Ages," 2nd edition, p. 406), "Many a scribe has, I dare say, felt what Lewis, a monk of Wessobrun, in Bavaria, records as his own experience during his sedentary and protracted labours. In an inscription appended to a copy of Jerome's Commentary on Daniel, among other grounds on which he claims the sympathy and the prayers of the readers, he says,—
"'Dum scripsit friguit, et quod cum lumine solis
Scribere non potuit, perfecit lumine noctis.'"
For whilst he wrote he froze, and that which by daylight he could not bring to perfection, he worked at again by the aid of the moonlight.