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Rh devoted to the monastic life, and lest family affection might interfere with his vocation and the sure hope of Paradise held out to the sobbing boy, his sorrowing parents sent him forever from their sight to spend his days at Saint-Évroul near the southern border of Normandy. Tonsured at ten, ordained a deacon at eighteen and a priest at thirty-two, he bore the burden and heat of the day under six successive abbots, until as an old man of sixty-six he laid down his pen with a touching peroration of prayer and thanksgiving to Him who had disposed these years according to His good pleasure. During this half century of poverty and obedience Ordericus had little opportunity to leave the precincts of the monastery, although on rare occasions we can trace him in England and at Cambrai, Rheims, and Cluni, and the materials of his history had to be gathered almost wholly from the well-stocked library of the abbey and from conversation with those who passed his way. These facilities were, however, considerable, for, remote as Saint-Évroul may seem in its corner of the pays d'Ouche, it was in constant relations with England, where it possessed lands, and with southern Italy, whither it had sent its members to found new convents; and like all such establishments it was a place of entertainment for travellers of all classes, priests and monks, knights and jongleurs, even a king like Henry I, who brought with them accounts of their journeys about the world and tales of great deeds in distant Spain, Sicily,