Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/499

there; wherever abuses were found, the entry expands to a statement of them and the measures taken for their remedy. Consequently one may not infer that the blameworthy or abominable conditions recorded in the particular instance obtained universally in Normandy. Occasionally Rigaud records in more detail the good condition of some monastery. A few instructive extracts may be given.

"Calends of October (1248). We were again at Ouville (Ovilla). We found that the prior wanders about when he ought to stay in the cloister; he is not in the cloister one day in five. Item, he is a drunkard, and of such vile drunkenness that he sometimes lies out in the fields because of it. Item, he frequents feasts and drinking-bouts with laymen. Item, he is incontinent, and is accused in respect to a certain woman of Grainville, and also with the wife of Robertot, and also with a woman of Rouen named Agnes. Item, brother Geoffrey was publicly accused with respect to the wife of Walter of Esquaquelon who recently had a child from him. Item, they do not keep proper accounts of their revenues. We ordered that they should keep better accounts."^[1]

Such an entry needs no comment. But it is illuminating to observe the strictness or leniency with which Rigaud treats offences. Doubtless he was guided by what he thought he could enforce.

Apparently near the Ouville priory, the archbishop was scandalized by the priest of St. Vedasti de Depedale, who was convicted of taking part in the rough ball-play, common in Normandy, in which game, as might easily happen, he had injured some one. "He took oath before us that it again convicted he would hold himself to have resigned from his church."^[2] Rigaud did not approve of these somewhat too merry games for his parish priests, who were not angels. The archbishop finds of the priest of Lortiey "that he but rarely wears his capa, that he does not confess to the penitentiarius, that he is gravely accused concerning two women, by whom he has had many children, and he is drunken."^[3]

Rigaud enters the cases of other parish priests as follows:

"We found that the priest of Nigella was accused as to a woman, and of being engaged in trade and of treating his father despitefully, who is patron of the church which he holds, and that

1. Reg. vis. p. 9.
2. R. V. p. 10.
3. R. V. p. 18.