LIFE OF AN ABBOTT. ELEVENTH CENTURY Now I, Ingulf, the humble servant of St. Guthlac and his monastery of Croyland, a native of England and the son of parents who were of the most beauteous city of London, being in my tender years destined for the pursuits of literature, was sent to study first at Westminster and afterwards at Oxford. After I had made progress beyond most of my fellows in mastering Aristotle, I clothed myself down to the heels with the first and second Rhetoric of Tully. On growing to be a young man, I loathed the narrow means of my parents and daily longed ... to leave my parental home, sighing for the palaces of kings or princes.... Just at this time, William, ... who was then as yet duke of Normandy only came over with a great retinue of followers to London.... Enrolling myself in the number of these, I exerted myself in the performance of all kinds of weighty business ... and becoming a very great favourite with him, returned with him to Normandy (p. 147). Being there appointed his secretary, at my own will I ruled the whole of the duke’s court, incurring thereby the envy of some.... Just then it was noised about ... that many archbishops of the Empire, together with some other of the princes of the land, were desirous ... to proceed on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Upon this several of the household of the duke, both knights as well as clerks, among whom I was the first and foremost, with the ... goodwill of our master, the duke ... taking the road for Germany, being more than thirty horsemen in number ... joined his lordship of Mentz[23].... In company with their lordships, the bishops, there were reckoned seven thousand persons, who prosperously traversed various regions, and at last arrived at Constantinople. Here, addressing our prayers to its emperor, Alexius[24], we saw the Saint Sophia, and kissed its sanctuaries, so infinite in number. Departing thence and taking our way through Lycia, we fell into the hands of Arabian robbers, and being plundered of an immense amount of money, and many of us being put to death, only escaped with the greatest difficulty and at the extreme peril of our lives, and at length joyously made our entrance into the much longed for city of Jerusalem. We were received by Sophronius, the then Patriarch, a man venerable for his grey hairs, and most holy and most upright, with a great crash of cymbals and an immense blaze of torches at the most divine church of the most Holy Sepulchre, a solemn procession being formed of Latins as well as Syrians. What prayers we here uttered, what tears we shed, what sighs we heaved, the inhabitant thereof, our Lord Jesus Christ alone knoweth ... (p. 148).