General History of Bath. 4 1 



In his renovation of the city he did not, of course, omit 

 the restoration of the Baths, which he so organized and 

 arranged as to attract large numbers of the sick. 



The Bishop died suddenly in 1122, but several years 

 before this, he had replaced the English Monks, whom he 

 stigmatised as barbarous and ignorant, with Norman church- 

 men, and restored to the monastery the lands which he 

 frankly confesses he had unjustly withheld. Freeman 

 speaks of his repentance as being geographical, for though 

 he made amends for his depredations at Bath, he made 

 none at Wells. 



The beauty of the Baths, as restored by de Villula, is 

 extolled in glowing terms by the author of the Gesta 

 Stephani, written in 11 38. " There is," says the Chronicler, 

 " a city distant six miles from Bristol, where, through hidden 

 channels, are thrown up streamlets of water, warmed without 

 human agency, and from the very bowels of the earth, into 

 a receptacle beautifully constructed, with chambered arches. 

 These form baths in the middle of the city, warm and 

 wholesome, and charming to the eye. . . . Sick per- 

 sons from all England resort thither to bathe in these 

 healing waters, and the strong also, to see these wonderful 

 burstings out of warm water and bathe in them." 



During the reign of Stephen, Bath was again 

 Development exposcd to the alarms of war. Robert the 

 of the Bishop, ojved his promotion to the post of 



'^System'^^ Deputy Abbot of Glastonbury, and the Bishop- 

 ric of Bath, to Henry of Blois, the King's 

 brother. It was not unnatural, therefore, that during the 

 dynastic struggle between Stephen and Matilda, the Bishop 

 should side with the King. Bristol was held by the Duke 

 of Gloucester, for the Queen, and thus a second time there 



