--In the course of these incursions,
it is supposed that Neomagus was utterly destroyed by the invaders. None
of the medals dug up within the precincts of the town, or in its
neighborhood, bear a later date than the reign of Constantine; and,
though the city is recorded in the _Itinerary of Antoninus_, no mention
of it is to be found in the curious chart, known by the name of the
_Tabula Peutingeriana_, formed under the reign of Theodosius the Great;
so that it then appears to have been completely swept away and
forgotten.
The new town of Lisieux and the bishopric most probably arose together,
towards the close of the sixth century; and the city, like other
provincial capitals in Gaul, took the name of the tribe by whom the
district had been peopled. It first appears in history under the
appellation of _Lexovium_ or _Lexobium_: in the eleventh century, when
Ordericus Vitalis composed his history, it was called _Luxovium_; and
soon after it became _Lixovium_, and _Lizovium_, which, gallicised,
naturally passed into _Lyzieulx_, or, as it is now written, _Lisieux_.
The city was ravaged by the Normans about the year 877, in the course of
one of their predatory excursions from Bayeux: it again felt their
vengeance early in the following century, when Rollo, after taking
Bayeux by storm, sacked Lisieux at the head of his army on his way to
Rouen.
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