[140] P. 589.--"Notum sit universis Ecclesiæ Dei filiis, quod ego Joannes, Comes Auci, pro stipendio militum et servientium, quos tenui per guerram Regis, invadiavi maximam partem et optimam Thesauri Ecclesiæ S. Michaëlis de Ulterior-Portu, duos videlicet Textus prætiosos, et duo Thuribula prætiosa, unum calicem argenteum, et optimè deauratum; cappas caras viginti quatuor: casulam peratam et bonam: Præterea, tot et tantis gravaminibus præfatam Ecclesiam tam sæpè gravavi, quàm vices gravaminum numerare non possem: quare pro multis pauca, pro magnis parua, rependens, concedo, et in perpetuum do prædictæ Ecclesiæ, avenam et frumentum de Verleio, quæ pertinet ad Forestagium. Diligenter autem hæredes exoro, ne Ecclesias terræ suæ gravent, sed honorent et protegant. Et si quid eis pro salute animæ meæ et parentum meorum dedi, vel pro ablatis reddidi, in pace stabiliter tenere faciant: recordantes, quod ipsi morituri sunt: Sicut prædecessores nostri mortui sunt." PLATE LXVII. CHURCH OF ANISY. [Illustration: Plate 67. CHURCH OF ANISY, NEAR CAEN.] The present plate has been introduced into this work, with the view of exhibiting a Norman village church of unquestionable antiquity, having its walls, on either side, built of a coarse dark stone, fashioned like Roman bricks, and disposed in a zig-zag, or, as it is more commonly termed, a herring-bone direction. A similar disposition of the masonry is observable in a portion of the church of Perriers, the subject of the following plate: it is still more conspicuous at the neighboring church of St. Matthieu, already mentioned in this work.[141] The old church of St. Croix, at St. Lo, and the lower part of the east end of the church of St. Hildebert, at Gournai, exhibit the same peculiarity, which, according to Mr. Turner, likewise exists in portions of the outer walls of the castle at Arques, as well as in the keep of the castle at Falaise.[142] These various instances, all of them taken from structures which are beyond a doubt of Norman origin, will remove any hesitation as to the Normans having practised this mode of building. Still farther confirmation will be found in the English castles of Tamworth and Colchester, both of the same early æra:[143] the stones, in the latter, are disposed precisely as here figured: in the former, horizontal strata regularly alternate with the inclined, as if in imitation of various Roman remains.[144] And, indeed, that they were really constructed with such an intention, appears highly probable; as, according to Sir Henry Englefield, whose authority is unquestionable, the same style of masonry is seen at Silchester, which is most certainly a pure Roman relic: it is even stated, that the old walls of the city of Rome were so built.[145]