It is rather extraordinary, that no one of the Lexovian bishops was ever
admitted by the church into the catalogue of her saints. Many of them
were prelates of unquestionable merit. Freculfus, in the ninth century,
was a patron of literature, and himself an author; Hugh of Eu, grandson
of Richard, Duke of Normandy, was one of the most illustrious
ecclesiastics of his day; Gilbert is described by Ordericus Vitalis as
having been a man of exemplary charity, and deeply versed in all
sciences, though it is admitted that he was somewhat too much addicted
to worldly pleasures, and not averse from gambling; and Arnulf, whose
letters and epigrams are preserved among the manuscripts of the Vatican,
was a prelate who would have done honor to St. Peter's chair.--All these
were bishops of Lisieux, during the ages when canonization was not
altogether so unfrequent as in our days. Arnulf particularly
distinguished himself by taking a leading part in the principal
transactions of the times. He accompanied the crusaders to the holy land
in 1147; five years subsequently he officiated at the marriage of Henry
Plantagenet with Eleanor of Guyenne, the repudiated wife of Louis le
Jeune, which was performed in his cathedral; he assisted at the
coronation of the same king, by whom he was shortly afterwards employed
in a mission of great importance at Rome; and he interposed to settle
the differences between that sovereign and Thomas a Becket; and though
he espoused the part of the prelate, he had the good fortune to retain
the favor of the monarch.
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