Vaucelles is at this time the largest of the five parishes that compose the suburbs of Caen. It is separated from the town by the great canal of the Orne, the formation of which has somewhat circumscribed its limits; for these formerly extended into the Rue St. Jean, and included the hospital, called the Hôtel Dieu, as well as that which derives its name from the Conqueror. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the presentation to the living of Vaucelles lay alternately between the two royal abbeys of Caen. Queen Matilda, previously to the year 1066, purchased a moiety of the patronage and of the tythes, together with a mill at Montaigu, and gave them to her abbey of the Trinity; and about eleven years afterwards, Ralph, the curate of Vaucelles, the hereditary proprietor of the other half, ceded his share to the abbey of St. Stephen, on condition of being himself received into that monastery. The latter establishment, within less than one hundred and fifty years, obtained the exclusive patronage, upon the consideration of their making the nuns an annual payment of twenty sols, and ninety-six bushels of barley. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the parish of Vaucelles was in the hands of lords of its own; among whom, the most conspicuous were the Fitz-Herberts. An illegitimate son of Prince Henry, afterwards Henry I. by a daughter of Robert Corbet, was the origin of this family. To his own name, Herbert, he added that of Fitz-Henry: his sons became Fitz-Herberts; and each of their descendants, in every successive generation, commonly adopted the baptismal appellation of his respective father, by way of a family name; till, towards the close of the thirteenth century, the whole of them agreed upon Fitz-Herbert as a patronymic. Their possessions were extensive in Caen and the neighborhood; and the records of those early times make frequent mention of their riches and liberality. Thus, according to the Abbé De la Rue, from whom these historical particulars are derived, this noble family, still represented in our own country by the Earls of Pembroke, was not only derived from the town of Caen, but had an origin different from what is assigned to it by Dugdale, Collins, and Edmondson.[27] The first of the family noticed in England, appears to have lived in the time of King Stephen. In 1302, Vaucelles seems to have become exempt from all feudal conditions. It was in that year, that Philip le Bel sent William de Gilly to Caen, to liberate his own vassals and those of the lords, and to grant them all the privileges of burghers.