love pure minds, more than glittering vestments; knowing that the best remuneration for doing well, is to enjoy a clear conscience. Moreover, if at any time the laudable kindness of the abbat either desires, or feigns a desire, to modify aught from the strict letter of the rule, they are ready to oppose such indulgence, saying, that they have no long time to live, nor shall they continue to exist so long as they have already done; that they hope to remain stedfast in their purpose to the end, and to be an example to their successors, who will transgress if they should give way. And, indeed, through human weakness, the perpetual law of which is that nothing attained, even by the greatest labour, can long remain unchanged, it will be so. But to comprise, briefly, all things which are or can be said of them,--the Cistertian monks at the present day are a model for all monks, a mirror for the diligent, a spur to the indolent. [Sidenote: [A.D. 1100.] HERBERT, BISHOP OF NORWICH.] At this time three sees in England were transferred from their ancient situations; Wells to Bath, by John; Chester to Coventry, by Robert; Thetford to Norwich, by Herbert; all through greater ambition, than ought to have influenced men of such eminence. Finally, to speak of the last first: Herbert, from his skill in adulation, surnamed Losinga,[368] was first abbat of Ramsey, and then purchased the bishopric of Thetford, while his father, Robert, surnamed as himself, was intruded on the abbey of Winchester. This man, then, was the great source of simony in England; having craftily procured by means of his wealth, both an abbey and a bishopric. For he hood-winked the king’s solicitude for the church by his money, and whispered great promises to secure the favour of the nobility: whence a poet of those times admirably observes, “A monster in the church from Losing rose, Base Simon’s sect, the canons to oppose. Peter, thou’rt slow; see Simon soars on high; If present, soon thou’d’st hurl him from the sky.[369] Oh grief, the church is let to sordid hire, The son a bishop, abbat is the sire. All may be hoped from gold’s prevailing sway, Which governs all things; gives and takes away; Makes bishops, abbats, basely in a day.”