Page:The ecclesiastical history of England and Normandy vol 2.djvu/308

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296
OBDERICUS VITALIS.
[B. VI. CH. X.

a double danger. This miracle is therefore not to be considered less than that of the resurrection of dead persons before related.

The venerable father Evroult was interred in a marble tomb of admirable workmanship in the church of St Peter, prince of the apostles, which he had built himself of stone. To this day many persons are there healed of their infirmities, and by the goodness of our merciful Redeemer the sorrowful find consolation. To Him be honour and power, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, throughout all ages! Amen.


Ch. X.Materials for history destroyed by the Northmen—Relics of saints dispersed—Those of St. Evroult translated to Orleans—The abbey deserted—Its restoration—Notices of public events—Letter of Abbot Warin, in the name of Hervey, bishop of Ely.

I have thus faithfully described the life of the holy father Evroult, inserting it in this work, as it was compiled by our predecessors, that the knowledge of so exalted a patron may profit the reader, and my labour and regard be pleasing to the Lord God, while I have endeavoured to publish the glorious actions of my nursing father to the praise of Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being. But, from the time that this illustrious man was taken from the world, who and what his successors were in the convent of Ouche for four hundred years, or what were the fortunes of the monks or the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, I am entirely ignorant. In the times which succeeded, as I have already distinctly stated on several occasions, bands of pirates issued from Denmark, first with Hasting for their leader, and afterwards Hollo, invaded Neustria, and ignorant of Christianity and of the pure worship of God, inflicted the most cruel disasters on the believing natives. They burnt Noyon and Rouen, and many other cities, towns, and villages, destroyed a number of monasteries of venerable sanctity, devastated a vast extent of country with their incessant ravages, and having either exterminated or driven out the inhabitants, reduced the towns and villages to utter solitude. In the midst of so much desolation, the defenceless monks, not knowing what to do, were often in the greatest terror;