Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/38

24 bita, coniugium concessit; eo tamen modo quatenus Dux et uxor ejus duo monasteria construerent, in quibus singulas congregationes virorum ac mulierum coadunarent, qui ibi sub norma sanctæ religionis die noctuque Deo deservirent et pro salute eorum supplicarent. Paruit Dux Apostolicæ dispensationi et ædificaverunt duo monasteria in prædio, quod antiquitas Cadomum nuncupabat.

These two monasteries, or rather their churches, yet remain in proof of the atonement to which they were feign to submit, in order that they might merit to be admitted into the bosom of the Church, against whose precepts they had so grievously transgressed; but no papal bull attests that this penance was enjoined merely for marrying within the degrees of kindred.

The issue of this marriage were the four sons named above, and six daughters, Agatha, Constantia, Adeliza, Adela, Matilda, and Cecilia, although Orderic Vitalis twice enumerates only five in his History, first in the fourth book in the order they are put down above, omitting Matilda, and again in the seventh book, where he places Adeliza before Constantia. Agatha, the eldest daughter, was first betrothed to Harold, king of England, and afterwards to Alfonso, king of Leon and the Asturias, in 1068, who died on her journey to Spain a virgin, and whose body was brought back to her native soil, and interred in the cathedral of Bayeux. Adeliza, the second daughter, became a nun in the abbey of St. Leger-de-Preaux, of the foundation of Humphrey de Vieilles, father of Roger de Beaumont-le-Roger. Constantia was the wife of Alan Fergant, comte of Brittany, married at Caen in 1075, and deceased, without leaving issue, in 1090. Adela was the wife of Stephen, comte of Blois, afterwards of Chartres, married at Breteuil in 1081, and by him, slain in Palestine in 1101, mother of five sons, William, Theobald, Stephen, Henry, and Humbert; and of three daughters, Alice, wife of Miles, comte of Brai; Matilda, wife of Richard, earl of Chester; and Eleanora, wife of Ralph, comte of Vermandois. Cecilia was abbess of the Holy Trinity of Caen, and according to Ordericus Vitalis, received the veil from Arch- bishop John, at Fecamp, in the year 1075, and, after having been abbess for nearly fourteen years, died on the 13th of July, 1127. As the truth of this assertion has been controverted by the editors of the Gallia Christiana and the recent editor of the above historian, it seems advisable that