Herluin was not left alone in his enterprise; one companion after another joined him, and presently [Pg226] there was a busy company of monks at Bec. They subjected themselves to all sorts of self-denials and privations, working hard at building their new home, at ditching, gardening, or wood-cutting, and chanting their prayers with entire devotion. Herluin allowed himself one scanty meal a day, and went about his work poorly dressed, but serving God in most humble fashion. This was the story of many small religious houses and their founders, but we cannot help tracing the beginning of the abbey of Bec with particular interest for the sake of Lanfranc, who has kept its memory alive and made it famous in Norman and English history.
The story of this friar of Bec, who came to be archbishop of Canterbury, and whose influence and power were only second, a few years later, to William the Conqueror's own, reads like a romance, as indeed does many another story of that romantic age. He was born at Pavia, the City of the Hundred Towers, in Lombardy, and belonged to an illustrious family. He was discovered in early boyhood to be an uncommon scholar, and even in his university course he became well known by his brilliant talents and fine gift of oratory. He was looked upon as almost invincible in debate while he was still a school-boy, and when he left college it was supposed that he would give the benefit of his attainments and growth to his native city. For a little while he did stay there, and began his career, but he appears to have been made restless by a love of change and adventure, and a desire to see the world, and next we find him going northward with a [Pg227] company of admiring scholars, as if on pilgrimage, but in the wrong direction! The enthusiastic little procession crossed the St. Bernard pass into France and for some reason went to Avranches, where Lanfranc taught a school and quickly became celebrated. In spite of the more common profession or trade of fighting, there was never a time when learning or the profession of letters was more honored, and the Normans yielded to none of their contemporaries in the respect they had for scholars.
Lanfranc became dissatisfied with the honor and glory of his success at Avranches; and presently, in quest of something more deep and satisfying—more in accordance with the craving of his spiritual nature, left his flourishing school and again started northward. The country was very wild and unsafe for a solitary wayfarer; and presently, so the tradition runs, he was attacked by a band of robbers, beaten, and left tied to a tree without food or money or any prospect of immediate release. The long hours of the night wore away and he grew more and more desperate; at last he bethought himself of spiritual aid as a last resort, and tried to repeat the service of the church. Alas! he could not remember the prayers and hymns, and in his despair he vowed a pious vow to God that he would devote himself to a holy life if his present sufferings might be ended. In good season some charcoal burners played the welcome part of deliverers and Lanfranc, yet aching with the pinch of his fetters and their galling knots, begged to know of some holy house near by, and was directed to Herluin's hermitage and the humble brotherhood of Bec. [Pg228]