The whole of Normandy would
scarcely furnish a more desirable situation. Under the prelacy of
Hellouin, Bec increased rapidly in celebrity, and consequently in the
number of its inmates: it was principally indebted for this increase to
an accidental circumstance. Lanfranc, a native of Pavia, a lawyer in
Italy, but a monk in France, after having visited various monasteries,
and distinguished himself by defending the doctrine of the real
presence, then impugned by Berengarius, established himself here in the
year 1042, and immediately opened a school, which, to judge from the
language of Ordericus Vitalis[58], seems to have been the first ever
known in Normandy. Scholars from France, from England, and from
Flanders, hastened to place themselves under his care; his fame,
according to William of Malmesbury, went forth into the outer parts of
the earth; and Bec, under his auspices, became a most celebrated resort
of literature. To borrow the more copious account given by William of
Jumieges--"report quickly spread the glory of Bec, and of its abbot,
Hellouin, through every land. The clergy, the sons of dukes, the most
eminent schoolmasters, the most powerful of the laity, and the nobility,
all hastened hither. Many, actuated by love for Lanfranc, gave their
lands to the convent.
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