A HISTORY OF LONDON that house ; he was now forced, against his will, to accept promotion to Westminster."' Hardly any details are known of his rule here, however, and his very name has been almost eclipsed by that of his more famous successor, Gilbert Crispin. Gilbert was a Norman by birth and educated from a very early age in the abbey of Bee Hellouin under Anselm. The biographer of his family states that he had all the liberal arts at his finger ends, and that his life was so perfect as well in the sphere of action as in that of con- templation that Lanfranc, who must have known him as a young man at Bee, called him to be abbot of Westminster.^ There can be no doubt that Anselm thought most highly of the new abbot, for he wrote to him in the warmest terms of congratulation on his promotion, rejoicing that God had been pleased to make known to men his secret judgement of Gilbert, and that having brought him up in learning and wisdom, and nurtured him in holiness, he had now called him to be a shepherd of souls."* Crispin seems to have been a man of many- sided activity, for as well as his scholarly and literary tastes he apparently possessed administra- tive talents, and was also employed politically by the king.^^ His best-known writings are the ' V^ita Herluini,' the principal authority for the early history of the abbey of Bee, and the ' Dis- putatio Judaei cum Christiano,' which he sub- mitted to Anselm for approval.^' According to Pitts and others he also wrote homilies on the canticles, treatises on Isaiah and Jeremiah, and on the State of the Church, and several other works of a doctrinal or critical description.^' His administrative zeal is illustrated by the fact that he enlarged the camera of the monks so that clothing might be provided for as many as eighty brethren over and above the abbot, for whose wardrobe I o marks a year was in future to be set aside, with the stipulation that he should receive nothing further from the chamberlain.^^ A papal bull of doubtful authenticity ascribes to his influence also a grant of immunity from epis- copal jurisdiction, and although the details were in all probability invented to meet later troubles,'** the connexion of his name with the tradition shows that he left a general impression of vigorous government. It would seem, more- over, that he was an eager exponent of Christi- " Angl.-Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 350, and see letter of Willl,-im I to the abbot of Fecamp, printed in Widmore, History, App. No. II. " ' De nobili genere Crispinorum ' in Migne, Pij- trologiae, cl, 738. " Ibid, clviii, Letter xvi.
- Diet. Nat. Biog. and Eadmer, Historia (Rolls Ser.),
189. " Both printed by Migne. See Diet. Nat. Biog. " Customary (Hen. Bradsh.iw Soc.), ii, 149-50.
- • See infra.
anity to the Jews, and had one Jewish convert amongst his monks at Westminster.'^ After the death of Gilbert in 1 1 17 a vacancy of four years ensued,'^ during which the abbey seems to have suffered considerably from unauthorized alienations. The next abbot, Herbert, a monk of the house, was appointed in 1 12 1," and all his energies and all the influence of the king hardly availed to restore the house to prosperity. The reign of Stephen, more- over, brought fresh misery ; Gervase of Blois, Herbert's successor, was a natural son of the king, and a bad ruler. Within very few months of his consecration the chapter sent Osbert, the prior of the house, to the pope to obtain the canonization of the Confessor, but Innocent II replied that so im- portant a festival ought to be to the honour of the whole realm and therefore asked for by the whole people, consequently he postponed the cere- mony until sufficient testimony to the popular desire should be produced — probably a euphe- mism for the restoration of the order and good fame of the monastery, for at the same time the monks were exhorted to observe the rule and set a good example. There had evidently also been complaints as to alienations of the posses- sions of the church, and their recovery was committed to the bishop of Winchester." It was probably at this time that Innocent wrote to Gervase exhorting him to still the murmurs in the house, and to administer its goods with the counsel of the brethren. He was to try to recover the churches and tithes which had been dispersed without the consent of the chapter,'^ to banish strangers from sharing his secrets, to put down gatherings of knights and laymen in the monastery, to remember that ecclesiastical matters are altogether exempt from the secular arm, to try to be worthy of his calling, and to love the life of Christ-like poverty. The regalia of the Confessor and the insignia were not to be sold without common consent, and the brethren were to show canonical obedi- " ' Disputatio Judaei' in Migne, Patroloffae, cYix, 1005 seq. " Jng/.-Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 371 ; ii, 214. " Eadmer, Historia (Rolls Ser.), 291. " Magnum Rot. Seae. (Rec. Com.), 150, and Cott. MS. Faust. A. ill, fol. 75 </. '^ Wilkins, Conci.'ia, i, 418-19. In a I4th-cent. list of farms granted by various abbots the leases of seven manors and a church are attributed to Gervase, one lease to Gilbert, two im- portant ones to Herbert, and one to Laurence the successor of Gervase (D. & C. Westminster, Book No. I I, fol. 134). One at least of those granted by Gervase was in favour of his mother Dametta (ibid, fol. 147). At the same time, if the dates are to be even approximately relied on, the pope's warning occurs so soon after the promotion of Gervase as to point to a legacy of evil from the period of the vacancy with which Herbert had failed to cope. 436
