and the alteration in the latter case continued to be indicated by the
diæresis, which, till lately, separated the two adjoining
vowels.--Towards the latter part of the eleventh century, Caen is
frequently mentioned by the monkish historians, in whose Latin, the town
is styled _Cadomus_ or _Cadomum_.--And here ingenious etymologists have
found a wide field for conjecture: Cadomus, says one, was undoubtedly
founded by Cadmus; another, who hesitates at a Phoenician antiquity,
grasps with greater eagerness at a Roman etymon, and maintains that
_Cadomus_ is a corruption from _Caii domus_, fully and sufficiently
proving that the town was built by Julius Cæsar.

Robert Wace states, in his _Roman de Rou_, that, at the time
immediately previous to the conquest of England, Caen was an open
town.--


"Encore ert Caen sans Châtel,
N'y avoit mur, ny quesnel."--


And Wace is a competent witness; for he lived during the reign of Henry
Ist, to whom he dedicated his poem. Philip de Valois, in 1346, allowed
the citizens to surround the town with ditches, walls, and gates. This
permission was granted by the king, on the application of the
inhabitants, Caen, as they then complained, being still open and
unfortified. Hence, the fortifications have been considered to be the
work of the fourteenth century, and, generally speaking, they were
unquestionably, of that time; but it is equally certain, that a portion
was erected long before.