extend, that the number of its inmates amounted in a very short period
to three hundred or more. The arrival, however, of the Normans, under
Hastings, in 841, caused the dispersion of the nuns; and the same story
is related of the few who remained at Fécamp, as of many others under
similar circumstances, that they voluntarily cut off their noses and
their lips, rather than be an object of attraction to the lust of their
conquerors. The abbey, in return for their heroism, was levelled with
the ground, and it did not rise from its ashes till the year 988, when
the piety of Duke Richard I. built the church anew, under the auspices
of his son, Robert, Archbishop of Rouen; but, departing from the
original foundation, he established therein a chapter of regular canons,
who, however, were so irregular in their conduct, that within ten years
they were doomed to give way to a body of Benedictine Monks, headed by
an Abbot, named William, from a convent at Dijon. From his time the
monastery continued to increase in splendor. Three suffragan abbies,
that of Notre Dame at Bernay, of St. Taurin at Evreux, and of Ste.
Berthe de Blangi, in the diocese of Boullogne, owned the superior power
of the abbot of Fécamp, and supplied the three mitres which he proudly
bore on his abbatial shield. Kings and princes in former ages frequently
paid the abbey the homage of their worship and their gifts; and, in a
period nearer to our own, Casimir of Poland, after his voluntary
abdication of the throne, selected it as the spot in which he sought for
repose, when wearied with the cares of royalty. The English possessions
of Fécamp (for like most of the great Norman abbeys, it held lands in
our island) do not appear to have been large; but, according to an
author of our own country[33] the abbot presented to one hundred and
thirty benefices, some in the diocese of Rouen, others in those of
Bayeux, Lisieux, Coutances, Chartres, and Beauvais; and it enjoyed so
many estates, that its income was said to be forty thousand crowns per
annum. Fécamp moreover could boast of a noble library, well stored with