A church like this, so ancient, so renowned, and so holy, could not fail to enjoy peculiar privileges. The abbot had complete jurisdiction, as well temporal as spiritual, over the parish of St. Ouen; in the Norman parliament he took precedence of all other mitred abbots; by a bull of Pope Alexander IVth, he was allowed to wear the pontifical ornaments, mitre, ring, gloves, tunic, dalmatic, and sandals; and, what sounds strange to our Protestant ears, he had the right of preaching in public, and of causing the conventual bells to be rung whenever he thought proper. His monks headed the religious processions of the city; and every new archbishop of the province was not only consecrated in this church, but slept the evening prior to his installation at the abbey; whence, on the following day, he was conducted in pomp to the entrance of the cathedral, by the chapter of St. Ouen, headed by their abbot, who delivered him to the canons, with the following charge,--"Ego, Prior Sancti Audoeni, trado vobis Dominum Archiepiscopum Rothomagensem vivum, quem reddetis nobis mortuum."--The last sentence was also strictly fulfilled; the dean and chapter being bound to take the bodies of the deceased prelates to the church of St. Ouen, and restore them to the monks with, "Vos tradidistis nobis Dominum Archiepiscopum vivum; nos reddimus eum vobis mortuum, ita ut crastinâ die reddatis eum nobis."--The corpse remained there four and twenty hours, during which the monks performed the office of the dead with great solemnity. The canons were then compelled to bear the dead archbishop a second time from the abbey cross (now demolished) to the abbey of St. Amand[96], where the abbess took the pastoral ring from off his finger, replacing it by another of plain gold; and thence the bearers proceeded to the cathedral. These duties could not be very agreeable to portly, short-winded, well-fed dignitaries; and consequently the worthy canons were often inclined to shrink from the task. In the case of the funeral of Archbishop d'Aubigny, in 1719, they contented themselves with carrying him at once to his dormitory; but the prior and monks of St. Ouen instantly sued them before the parliament, and this tribunal decreed that the ancient service must be performed, and in default of compliance, the whole of their temporalities were to be put under sequestration: it is almost needless to add, that a sentence of excommunication would scarcely have been so effectual in enforcing the execution of the sentence.