Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/263

 mation which he worked up into his ‘Narratio de fundatione Fontanis Monasterii in comitatu Eboracensi’ (Memorials of Fountains, vol. i.). Serlo's daily lectures to his pupils are said to have been the origin of his books. He probably died at Kirkstall about 1207.

Serlo is said to have written ‘De bello inter Scotiæ Regem et Angliæ Barones,’ a Latin poem printed by Twysden (Decem Scriptores, i. 331). Other works attributed doubtfully to him are ‘De Morte Sumerledi,’ ‘De Dictionibus Disyllabis,’ ‘De Dictionibus æquivocis,’ ‘De Dictionibus univocis’ (, Script. Illust. Brit. i. 198), and ‘De Differentiis Verborum’ (, l.c. p. 224). Several of these are extant in manuscript in different college libraries in Cambridge.

It is difficult, however, to distinguish the writings of Serlo of Fountains from those of three other men of the same name (, Descriptive Catalogue, vol. ii. Rolls Ser.). The first (fl. 960?) probably lived about the middle of the tenth century, and was a Benedictine of St. Augustine's, Canterbury. After a feud with monks of another house in that city, he wrote with great bitterness against monks in general a book called ‘Monachorum Libidines’ (, l.c. i. 136). He is said to have been bishop of Cornwall, but his name does not appear among those of the bishop of that diocese (, l.c. p. 175, but see, Regist. Sacr. Angl. p. 167). Other works doubtfully attributed to him are five books of commentaries on the Pentateuch, a treatise ‘de proverbiis,’ and a book of homilies (, l.c.).

The second, (1036?–1104), a Norman by birth, was perhaps at different times canon of Bayeux and of Avranches, monk of Mount St. Michael in Normandy, and chaplain to William, afterwards the conqueror of England (Hist. et Cart. Monast. Gloucestr. i. 10, Rolls Ser.). His patron was Odo [q. v.], bishop of Bayeux, half-brother of William, and, at the suggestion of Osmund, the chancellor, the king gave him the abbey of Gloucester, 29 Aug. 1072 (Cart. Monast. Gloucestr. l.c.) At the time of Serlo's appointment there were only two monks of full age in the house, but under his vigorous administration its prosperity was firmly established, and the number of monks raised to over a hundred ( Gesta Regum, ii. 512, Rolls Ser.;, Monast. Angl. i. 531–2; cf. Cartul. Monast. Gloucest. i. 58 seq.). Serlo rebuilt the abbey church and had it consecrated in 1100 (ib. pp. 11–12), but it appears to have been destroyed by fire shortly after. Serlo was a man of strong will and high personal character, and, after thirty-two years of able rule, died on 3 March 1104 (ib. p. 13; ii. 236). An epitaph upon him written by Godfrey of Winchester [q. v.], is extant (Cartul. Gloucestr. p. 13). To disentangle Serlo's writing and especially his verse from that of his friend, Godfrey of Winchester, seems impossible (Descriptive Cat. ii. 58, 69, 74, 97, &c.), but he perhaps wrote the treatise ‘Super Oratione Dominica,’ sometimes attributed to Serlo of Fountains (, Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 662 n.). There is also extant a letter which he wrote to William Rufus, informing him of a dream of one of his monks concerning the king's approaching death ( x. 781).

The third (d. 1147), called the Priest, lived under Henry I, and was the son of Syred the Smith and Leofleda (Cartul. Gloucest. i. 81;, l.c.; , l.c.). He was fourth dean of Salisbury, in what year is not known (, Fasti Eccl. Angl. ii. 612), and was first abbot of Cirencester in 1117 ( ii. 92, Engl. Hist. Soc.; Monast. Angl. vi. 176). Serlo and his mother sold their land in Gloucester to the abbey of St. Peter's in 1129, his son Bartholomew being a witness to the transaction (Cartul. Gloucest. i. 812). Serlo died at Cirencester in 1147.

[Authorities cited in the text.]

 SERMON, WILLIAM (1629?–1679), physician, born probably in 1629, was ‘nearly related’ to one Edmond Sermon, a native of Naunton-Beauchamp, Worcestershire. He seems to have gained his first medical experience ‘in the armies.’ About April 1666 his ‘occasions’ called him to Bristol, ‘and the physicians there leaving the city,’ owing to the plague, he was, by desire of the mayor, ‘shut up at the Mermaid Tavern upon the Back, and after that at Mr. Richard Winstone's house in the county of Gloucester, near the city aforesaid, in which infected houses,’ he says, ‘I continued the space of three months, and cured all of the Pest that took my Directions.’ He now obtained ‘a sufficient practice upon the worst of diseases,’ and remained at Bristol till 8 June 1669, when he was summoned to Newhall in Essex to attend George Monck, duke of Albemarle [q. v.], for dropsy. On 12 July Monck gave him a certificate of his cure, and Charles II, on 6 Aug., sent letters to the university of Cambridge requesting them to grant Sermon a medical degree (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1669, October to December, p. 441). In 1670 he accordingly graduated M.D.

On 9 Sept. 1669 an advertisement appeared in the ‘London Gazette,’ stating that Sermon had ‘removed from Bristol, and may