--We are told, too, that
at least eighteen or twenty acres, belonging to the grounds of the abbey
itself, were used as a vineyard as late as 1561.--At present, I believe,
vines are scarcely any where to be seen in Normandy, much north of
Gaillon.]
[Footnote 13: In a charter belonging to the monastery, granted by Henry
IInd, in 1159, (see _Neustria Pia_, p. 323) he gives the convent,
"integritatem aquae ex parte terrae Monachorum, et _Graspais_, si forte
capiatur."--The word _Graspais_ is explained by Ducange to be a
corruption of _crassus piscis_. Noel (in his _Essais sur le Departement
de la Seine Inferieure_, II, p. 168) supposes that it refers
particularly to porpoises, which he says are still found in such
abundance in the Seine, nearer its mouth, that the river sometimes
appears quite black with them.]
[Footnote 14: The following account of the destruction of the monastery
is extracted from William of Jumieges. (See _Duchesne's Scriptores
Normanni_, p. 219)--"Dehinc Sequanica ora aggrediuntur, et apud
_Gemmeticum_ classica statione obsidionein componunt.... In quo
quamplurima multitudo Episcoporum, seu Clericorum, vel nobilium
laicorum, spretis secularibus pompis, collecta, Christo Regi militatura,
propria colla saluberrimo iugo subegit.
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