[166] In the notes to Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle [vol. iii. § 8-9] we read:—“About this tyme the order of Cysteaux was fyrst brought into Englande by one Walter, that founded the first abbey of that religion at Ryuall.” The question, however, has been set at rest by the extracts already given from the Chronicles of Tinterne, in which the date of their appearance in Englande is fixed at the beginning of the twelfth century, regnante Henrico primo.
[167] Quidam monachi dicunt omnes esse monachos qui in paradiso erant, vel potius nullum ibi esse non monachum.
[168] Mox ut mortuus fuero, cucullam Ordinis Cisterciensis mihi induite, et ne fiat me vivente, diligentissime cavete. MS. Roy. Lib. 7. A. III. ap. Fosbroke, 173.
So—when the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be;
But when the devil got well, the devil a monk was he.
[169] It appears, however, that the books so carefully transcribed in the monasteries were seldom understood, or even perused, by the higher clergy; for it is told that Lewis Beaumont, bishop of Durham, 1317, understood not a word of either Latin or English. In reading the bull of his appointment to that see—which he had been taught to spell for several days before—he stumbled upon the word metropolitice, which he in vain endeavoured to pronounce; and, having hammered over it a considerable time, at last cried out in his mother tongue, “Soit pour dite! Par Seynt Lowys, il ne fu pas curteis qui ceste parole ici escrit.”—Robert de Greystanes. Anglia Sacra, 1. 761., as quoted by Craik, 1. 137.
[170] Sketches of the History of Literature and Learning in England, vol. i. p. 69. By Geo. L. Craik.
[171] See Fosbroke. Dallaway’s Heraldic Enquiries.
[172] Henniker, Norman Tiles.
[173] Cowel, Mosaic Work, apud Fosbroke.
[174] The Signor left the banks of the Wye the day after relating the preceding anecdote, or the narrator would have shared another experiment with him. “While at Derby, however, it is related that such was the wonderful power of his imitative faculties, that he far outsoared the violins when playing in alt, whose masters laid them down in the orchestra in astonishment at being so entirely eclipsed by a human voice. They next played a hunting song, in which the signor appeared to equal advantage. The rich and mellow tones of the French horn were as successfully imitated, as the still finer and more distinct ones of the violins; and in some shakes he quite enraptured his audience. They then played a full piece together, which was such a grand display of his talents, that the admiration and delight of his auditors could go no further—they seemed electrified by his powers.”