Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/436

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honourable title of mothers of the house. Like all the saints and scholars of his day, he had a crowd of correspondents of all classes; amongst them we see Countess Ida of Boulogne and the Conqueror's renowned daughter Adela. And throughout his life and letters we see constant signs of the daily intercourse which, as naturally followed on the circumstances of the time, was ever going on between Normandy and England. The endless going to and fro between the two countries strikes us at every step. There was an interchange of men; if many Normans found their way to England, some Englishmen found their way to Normandy. Bec had already begun to give bishops to England. Lanfranc had placed two monks of his old house in the episcopal chair of Rochester. The second of them, the famous Gundulf, had been, when at Bec, the familiar friend of Anselm, who spoke little himself, but who listened to the great teacher, and wept at his touching words. On the other hand, in the house of Bec itself there were monks who were English of the Old-English stock, monks whom Lanfranc thought fit to call back to their own land and to the monastery of which he was the spiritual father. *