Our pious knight forsook the world, and with a few companions devoted himself to building a small monastery on his own estate at Burneville, near Brionne. The church was consecrated, and its founder received benediction from his bishop, who ordained him a priest and made him abbot of the little community. Herluin was very diligent in learning to read, and achieved this mighty task without neglecting any of the work which he imposed upon himself day by day. Soon he grew famous in all that part of Normandy for his sanctity and great wisdom in explaining the Bible. But it was discovered that the site of his flourishing young establishment was not well chosen; an abbey must possess supplies of wood and water, and so the colony was removed to the valley of a small stream that flows into the Lisle, near the town of Brionne. In the old speech of the Normans this brook was called a beck; we have the word yet in verse and provincial speech; and it gave a name to the most famous and longest remembered perhaps of all the Norman [Pg225] monasteries. Mr. Freeman says: "The hills are still thickly wooded; the beck still flows through rich meadows and under trees planted by the waterside, by the walls of what was once the renowned monastery to which it gave its name. But of the days of Herluin no trace remains besides these imperishable works of nature. A tall tower, of rich and fanciful design, one of the latest works of mediæval skill, still attracts the traveller from a distance; but of the mighty minster itself, all traces, save a few small fragments, have perished.... The truest memorial of that illustrious abbey is now to be found in the parish church of the neighboring village. In that lowly shelter is still preserved the effigy with which after-times had marked the resting-place of the founder. Such are all the relics which now remain of the house which once owned Lanfranc and Anselm as its inmates.
"In this valley it was that Herluin finally fixed his infant settlement, devoting to it his own small possession."
"By loving this world," he said, when he pleaded for his poor peasants in Gilbert of Brionne's court—"By loving this world and by obeying man I have hitherto much neglected God and myself. I have been altogether intent on training my body, and I have gained no education for my soul. If I have ever deserved well of thee, let me pass what remains of life in a monastery. Let me keep thy affection and with me give to God what I had of thee."