A century later, the abbot of St. Georges was
compelled to appeal to the pope, in consequence of an attempt on the
part of his brethren at St. Evroul, to degrade his convent into a mere
cell, dependent upon theirs.--The chronicle of the abbey is barren of
events of general interest; nor do its thirty-one abbots appear to have
been men of whom there was much more to be said, than that they arrived
at their dignity on such a year, and quitted it on such another. Of the
monks, we are told that, in the fifteenth century, though their number
was only eight, the dignitaries included, the daily task allotted them
was greater than would in any of the most rigid establishments, in
latter days, have been imposed upon forty brethren in a week!
Inconsiderable as is the abbey, in an historical point of view, the
church of St. Georges de Bocherville is of singular importance, inasmuch
as it is one of the land-marks of Norman architecture. William, in his
charter, simply styles himself _Dux Normannorum_; it therefore was
granted a few years before the conquest. The building has suffered
little, either from the hands of the destroyers, or of those who do
still more mischief, the repairers; and it is certainly at once the most
genuine and the most magnificent specimen of the circular style, now
existing in Upper Normandy.
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