A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



known, but in late life he speaks of his high birth, his great connexions, and 

 his large resources.' Others mention his handsome person, the charm of his 

 manner and his conversational powers. He spent his early years in the 

 splendid abbey of Fecamp in Normandy, and was probably there as a young 

 postulant when the Conqueror kept his Easter at this monastery in 1067.* 

 Here in process of time he became prior, or sub-prior.^ In 1088 he was 

 promoted to be abbot of Ramsey, then one of the wealthiest religious houses 

 in England, and it was while occupying this important position that he 

 managed to obtain the abbacy of the new minster at Winchester for his 

 father, Robert Losinga, and the bishopric of Thetford for himself. Anselm 

 was not the man to pass over unnoticed the irregularity in the appointment 

 of Herbert to the East Anglian bishopric, especially when it was a burning 

 question in all the churches of Europe whether a bishop could be considered 

 canonically a bishop of any see to which he had not been duly invested with 

 his ring and staff by the pope of Rome. Moved by the primate's persuasion, 

 or urged by his own convictions, Herbert decided to make his peace with 

 the pope, ask forgiveness, and in the meantime resign his staff into the hands 

 of the king. The next thing we hear is that Herbert slipped away to Rome, 

 and there receiving formal investiture at the hands of Pope Urban II was 

 back again in England in April, 1095. From this year the title of bishop of 

 Thetford disappears. Herbert and his successors in the East Anglian see 

 became from henceforth bishops of Norwich. 



Bishop Herbert had the instincts of a reformer and the practical ability 

 and tenacity of purpose necessary for the carrying out of his schemes ; also 

 he was a man who could bide his time. 



During the years when the preaching of the first crusade on the 

 continent was rousing the most phlegmatic to every kind of wild fanaticism, 

 the contagion of religious frenzy seems to have had no effect upon the 

 Norfolk people, high or low. It may be inferred that the bishop set his face 

 against the crusading madness ; he had his own work to do, and he gave 

 himself to that in earnest. 



Norwich, which by this time had become from its position the chief 

 town in the diocese, was chosen as the seat of the bishopric in place of 

 Thetford, which could not claim equal advantages, and in the first instance 

 had, or so it would seem, been chosen rather for want of a better site than for 

 any peculiar fitness. But Norwich, with all its qualifications, possessed no 

 church which could be made the cathedral church of the diocese. So it 

 happened that the first act of Bishop Herbert, after the selection of Norwich 

 as the seat of the bishopric, was the establishment of the great monastic 

 house in which, as at Rochester, Durham, and elsewhere, the bishop of the 

 diocese took the place of abbot. Here the parochial clergy were summoned 

 to appear before their bishop at the annual synods, to give an account of 

 themselves and to hold their deliberations under their bishop's eye. 



To the building of this great religious foundation all the magnates of 

 the shire were invited to contribute each according to his power, much in 

 the same way that in our own time the wealthy classes are subscribing to 



' Goulburn, Life and Letters of Herbert Losinga, ep. xxviii, vol. i, 46. 



'Freeman, Norm. Conf. iv, 87 et seq., where there is a good account of Fecamp. 



• In Anthony Bek's book in the Lincoln Archives, he is s.iid to have been 'Monachus et Subprior.' 



220 



