him of tyranny and oppression, put him in prison, answering his assertion of ecclesiastical privilege with the statement that he imprisoned, not the bishop of Bayeux, but the earl of Kent. There he languished for five years till William on his death-bed, against his better judgment, released him for ten years more of rule in Normandy. Yet, though Odo's eulogists admit that he was given overmuch to worldly ambition, the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life, they tell us of his vigorous defence of his clergy by arms as well as by eloquence, of the young men of promise whom he supported in the schools of Lorraine and other centres of foreign learning, of the journey to Jerusalem on which he met his death, of the great cathedral which he built in honor of the Mother of God and adorned with gold and silver and probably with the very Bayeux Tapestry which is the chief surviving monument of his magnificence.
With the twelfth century the type changes. To the monastic historian a bishop like Philip d'Harcourt, likewise of the see of Bayeux, may appear wise in the wisdom of this world which is foolishness with God,[1] but his wisdom shows itself in frequent journeys to Rome and persistent litigation in the duke's courts, not in battles and sieges, and he owes his appointment to his influence as Stephen's chancellor and not to blood relationship. Arnulf of Lisieux is another royal officer, versatile, insinuating, shifty, anything but truthful if we may be-
- ↑ Robert of Torigni (ed. Delisle), i, p. 344.
