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Val-ès-dunes then, placed a little to the west of that river, comes within the true Normandy, though it is near to its outskirts. The Teutonic Norman was beaten on his own ground, but the Frenchman at least never made his way to the gates of Bayeux or Coutances.
Geoffrey of Mowbray, Bishop of Coutances, appears once in Domesday as Bishop of Saint-Lo, but it must not therefore be thought that he had his bishopstool in the town so called, or that the great church of Saint-Lo was ever the spiritual head of the peninsular land of Coutances. There is indeed every opportunity for confusion on the subject.
Body stone built into W. wall of vestry. The whole of the Norm. work is unusually rich for a small country church, but it may possibly be accounted for by the fact that Lullington at the Conquest, amongst other good things, fell to the share of Geoffrey of Coutances, who perhaps brought here his staff of continental workmen, as the figures on the capitals of the doorway are known to occur also at Coutances and Caen.
He sprang from a race of valvassors or bannerets, of the diocese of Coutances, in the Lower Normandy: the castle of Hauteville was their honorable seat: his father Tancred was conspicuous in the court and army of the duke; and his military service was furnished by ten soldiers or knights.
We hoped to see the Fete Dieu at Caen. Why not push on to Coutances, where the Fete was still celebrated with a mediaeval splendor? From thence to the great Mont, the Mont St. Michel, it was but the distance of a good steed's galloping we could cover the stretch of country between in a day's driving, and catch, who knows? perhaps the June pilgrims climbing the Mont.
Two years had passed away since his last visit, and Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, was again a visitor in England, this time the guest of the new primate of the conquered country, Archbishop Lanfranc, a native of Pavia, and formerly abbot of the famed monastery of Bec in Normandy, to whom the king had been greatly indebted for his services as negotiator with the Court of Rome, while the conquest was in deliberation.
Rouen, by its home and foreign trade, is one of the most important towns of the kingdom; the numerous manufactories which it contains, have caused it to be surnamed the Manchester of France . Rouen, is the see of an archbishopric, whose metropolitan church has for suffragans the bishoprics of Bayeux, Evreux, Seez and Coutances.
The two justiciars, William of Warenne and Richard of Bienfaite, after summoning the earls to answer in the king's court, with the aid of Bishop Odo and the Bishop of Coutances, who was also a great English baron, raised an army of English as well as Normans, and went to meet Earl Ralph, who was marching westwards. Something like a battle took place, but the rebels were easily defeated.
After these priors came eleven abbots: Durement, Abbot of Fécamp, later Bishop of Coutances; Benel, Abbot of Courcelles; De Conti, Abbot of Sainte Catherine; Dacier, Abbot of Saint Corneille of Compiègne; Frique, Abbot of Bee; Jolivet, Abbot of Saint Michael's Mount in Normandy; Labbé, Abbot of Saint George de Bocherville; Leroux, Abbot of Jumièges; Du Masle, Abbot of Saint Ouen; Moret, Abbot of Préaux; and Theroude, Abbot of Mortemer.
Lo, Coutances, and Carentan likewise sent deputies to Dieppe to recognize the authority of Henry IV. But Henry had no idea of shutting himself up inside Dieppe: after having carefully inspected the castle, citadel, harbor, fortifications, and outskirts of the town, he left there five hundred men in garrison, supported by twelve or fifteen hundred well-armed burgesses, and went and established himself personally in the old castle of Arques, standing, since the eleventh century, upon a barren hill; below, in the burgh of Arques, he sent Biron into cantonments with his regiment of Swiss and the companies of French infantry; and he lost no time in having large fosses dug ahead of the burgh, in front of all the approaches, enclosing within an extensive line of circumvallation both burgh and castle.
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