[36] Abbo's favourite epithet. They were without a head, for they knew not Christ, the Head of Mankind.
[37] In the Middle Ages and down to 1761 Montfaucon had a sinister reputation. There stood the gallows of Paris, a great stone gibbet with its three rows of chains, near the old Barrière du Combat, where the present Rue de la Grange aux Belles abuts on the Boulevard de la Villette.
[38] William the Conqueror was also known as William the Builder.
[39] The surname Capet is said to have originated in the capet or hood of the abbot's mantle which Hugh wore as lay Abbot of St. Martin's, having laid aside the crown after his coronation.
[40] A dramatic representation of the delivery of the papal bull, painted by Jean Paul Laurens, hangs in the museum of the Luxembourg.
[41] The possession of an oven was a lucrative monopoly in mediæval times. The writer has visited a village in South Italy where this curious privilege is still possessed by the parish priest, who levies a small indemnity of a few loaves, made specially of larger size, for each use of the oven.
[42] He was said to be "kind even to Jews."
[43] The indignant scribe is most precise: they walked abroad artatis clunibus et protensis natibus.
[44] The reformers always discover the nunneries to be so much more corrupt than the monasteries, but it is a little suspicious that in every case the former are expropriated to the latter. The abbot of St. Maur evidently had some qualms concerning the expropriation of St. Eloy, and wished to restore it to the bishop.