The churches of Caen have never had any pretence to episcopal dignity, and it is curious that this city, richer in great churches than any town in Normandy, should never have been raised to a bishopric, more especially considering the number of cathedral towns which beside such a city as this rank as hardly more than large villages, and yet which, because they possess one church of importance, must take precedence of Caen and other bishopless cities. Apart from its ecclesiastical dignity, however, Caen should be visited because it is a town both ancient and beautiful, and in memory of the great duke, who, English sovereign though he was, yet seems to come before us much more vividly in Normandy than in England. It was the Conqueror who made Caen--perhaps not as it is to-day, but at any rate as it was in the Middle Ages. Caen, or Cadomum as the Normans found it, was a tiny parish lying on the outskirts of the Bessin district, burnt probably by the first Norman invaders, and likewise included in Rolf’s conquests, but of too little importance either to be harmed by the one or benefited by the other. Then arose the discussion about William’s marriage with Matilda, the dispensation granted by the Pope for their breach of canonical law and the conditions under which William might keep his wife--that the duke and the duchess should each build an abbey church and foundation within the town of Caen, that of William to serve for men, that of Matilda for women; and forthwith the little town became a centre of attraction, alive with workmen, visited no doubt from time to time by the duke and duchess themselves in order that they might see how the work was going forward. The Abbaye aux Dames was the first to be consecrated. Matilda wished to hurry on the work, probably, as one writer says, from feminine impatience to complete her task. The church finished under her auspices, however, was too quickly erected to be more than a fragment, “simply so much as was necessary for the devotions of the sisterhood, ” and its real completion belongs to a day later than the time of Matilda, though her original plan was in all probability carried out to the end. William, however, took his time over the building of his church, and watched it to the finish. It was consecrated, with the exception of the two western towers, by Lanfranc in 1077, and stands to-day, in its strength, simplicity and majesty, a fitting and lasting memorial of the man who ruled England and Normandy and kept them with hand of iron.