§ 7.

This glorious period in the history of English monasticism closed with the disasters of the early part of the eleventh century. Canute and Edward the Confessor favoured and enriched many religious houses, and Edward, by his foundation of the abbey of Westminster, takes a foremost place among benefactors of the religious life in England. But, during this disturbed epoch, few new monasteries were founded, and the tendency to slackness in observance of the rule again appeared. The permanent triumph of monasticism was achieved after the Norman conquest. The Conqueror and his followers sought the salvation of their souls by the foundation of abbeys and priories on their new estates. The victory of Hastings was marked by the foundation of the abbey of Battle, the first of the long series of Norman monasteries in England. In the work of organisation ecclesiastics from the great abbeys of Normandy took, as was natural, the chief part. Two successive archbishops of Canterbury, Lanfranc, formerly a monk of Bec and abbot of St Stephen's at Caen, and Anselm, formerly abbot of Bec, were instrumental in giving the Benedictine order in England its pre-eminence under the early Norman kings.