poem on the subject written by the monk Abbo, and which lasted for thirteen months. In the course of this siege the Normans filled up the ditch which separated them from the walls by the bodies of their slaughtered prisoners. The mode of warfare adopted by the invaders was entirely novel. Their fleets entered the estuaries of rivers and ascended them almost to their source, predatory bands landing on either bank to ravage the surrounding country. From the great rivers they proceeded up the lesser streams, which led them into the heart of fertile districts. They would seize on some island suited for their purpose, where they fortified themselves and spent the winter. In this way whole provinces, even those most remote from the sea-coast, were devastated, and that so entirely that, says one writer, “not a dog was left to bark in them.” The inhabitants deserted their villages and fields at the first alarm, and fled to the woods; towns were sacked and given to the flames, and the churches and monasteries which were supposed to contain the greatest treasures were the first objects of attack. “What else is now to be seen,” says the author of the “Romaunt of the Rose,” “but churches burnt and people slain? The Normans do as they please, and from Blois to Senlis there is not an acre of wheat left standing.” Another monkish historian thus describes what was passing under his own eyes: “Not a city, not a town, not a village but has in its turn felt the barbarity of the heathen men. They overrun the whole country, and their cabins form great villages where they keep their miserable captives in chains.” The desolate tracts of country thus laid waste became the resort of packs of wolves, which prowled about unmolested; it seemed, says one historian, as if France were abandoned to the wild animals.