pulchrum: capilli albi et pulchri; lapis etiam unde percussus fuit albus; vas pulchrum et album; et aspicientibus rem adeo pulchram magnam faciunt admirationem." The first abbot of the convent was Lanfranc, a native of Italy, who had established himself in the neighboring monastery of Bec, where the fame of his talents had acquired him a most extensive celebrity; and the zeal with which he had applied himself to the task of education,[35] had increased it to a degree, of which, in these days, we have little idea. But he held the pastoral staff only a very short time, for he was, as early as the year 1070, translated to the more important post of Archbishop of Canterbury; and it was reserved to his successor, William de Bonne Ame, to have the honor of presiding over the community, at the period when John of Avranches, Archbishop of Rouen, assisted by his suffragan bishops, as well as by Lanfranc himself, with Thomas, his brother metropolitan, and many abbots, and a wonderful throng of people, performed the ceremony of the dedication.[36] The Conqueror's sons confirmed the various donations made to the abbey by their parent. The eldest of them, Robert, his successor in the dukedom, added the privilege of a fair and a weekly market at Cheux. William Rufus, the second, entered into a negociation with the monks, to re-purchase his father's royal ornaments, in exchange for the parish of Coker, in Somersetshire; but he died before the completion of the treaty; and this was finally carried into effect by Henry I. with one only difference, that Brideton, (now called Burton) in Dorsetshire, was substituted for Coker. It was Henry, according to the Abbé De la Rue,[37] who raised the superb monument over his father's remains; but Ordericus Vitalis expressly attributes the work to William Rufus.[38] Respecting its splendor, all writers are unanimous: the shrine placed upon the mausoleum, was a "mirificum memoriale, quod ex auro et argento et gemmis competentèr splenduit." The care of building the tomb was committed to a goldsmith at Caen, of the name of Otto, who had received from the Conqueror a grant of land in Essex; and whose descendants, under the name of Fitz-Othon, had the principal direction of the English mint, till the death of Thomas Fitz-Othon, the last of the family, in 1282.