p. 22.--The cupola which then surmounted it is
now gone; and the cap to the turret, which served as the staircase, has
strangely changed its shape.]
[Footnote 57: _Alien Priories_, I. p. 24.]
[Footnote 58: "Nam antea, sub tempore sex ducum vix ullus Normannorum
liberalibus studiis adhaesit; nec doctor inveniebatur, donec provisor
omnium, Deus, Normannicis oris Lanfrancum appulit. Fama peritiae illius
in tota ubertim innotuit Europa, unde ad magisterium ejus multi
convenerunt de Francia, de Wasconia, de Britannia, necne
Flandria."--_Duchesne, Scriptores Normanni_, p. 519.]
[Footnote 59: A question always existed, whether the Empress was really
buried here, or at the abbey of Ste Marie des Pres, at Rouen. Hoveden
expressly says, that she was interred at Rouen: the chronicle of Bec, on
the other hand, is equally positive in the assertion that her body was
brought to Bec, and entombed with honor before the altar of the Virgin.
The same chronicle adds that, in the year 1273, her remains were
discovered before the high altar, sewed up in an ox's hide.--Still
farther to substantiate their claim, the monks of Bec maintained that,
in 1684, upon the occasion of some repairs being done to this altar, the
bones of the empress were again found immediately under the lamp (which,
in Catholic churches, is kept constantly burning before the holy
sacrament,) and that they were deposited once more in the ground in a
wooden chest, covered with lead.
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