y. Neither Matilda the Queen, nor Matilda the Empress,
could have embroidered the details on the border, and neither could
have known so many facts as the Odo who was on the Council that
advised invasion, who rallied the troops at Senlac when William was
supposed to have been dead, who was made Regent of England, Count of
Kent, and Bishop of Bayeux. It was to the advice of this rich,
powerful, and intelligent prelate, that the new and feeble Duke Robert
had to trust in the first year of his reign in Rouen. With all the
vices of the Conqueror, Robert had neither his virtues nor his
strength. The difficulties which met him first came from a cause too
deep-seated for him to recognise either its value or its far-reaching
issues.

[Footnote 20: According to Wace, Odo had been taken in the Isle of
Wight and imprisoned in the "Tower of Rouen" for four years. See
"Roman de Rou," v. 14,298.]

I have already described how the first attempts of Norman peasants to
found a "commune" had been crushed with horrible brutality. The
movement now began again. It is perhaps possible that the very
pre-eminence of the Conqueror over all his barons helped to emphasise
the fact that the feudality which he employed for his own uses only,
and threw away when he had done with, was not to be an order of things
fixed by any eternal providence. When the King rose at one end of the
social framework the people naturally came into greater prominence at
the other.

The truce of God, insisted upon by William himself, had helped to the
same end. For every male of twelve years old swore to help the Bishop
to keep that truce, and by degrees his parishioners combined to
organise the safety of their town, "_ex consensu parochianorum_." They
used the resources for which all subscribed, and placed them under the
control of a "gardien de la Confrerie," or "_fraternarum rerum
custos_." While these associations preserved the peace of the towns,
the King was responsible for the peace of France. But the feeling of
independence and the strength of union grew steadily among the
citizens year by year. The rise of commerce, which has been already
noticed in Rouen, also contributed to this. As cities grew in wealth,
they became more and more desirous of escaping from feudal rapacity
and of regulating their own affairs by magistrates chosen by
themselves. In 1066 Le Mans had already done this. Ten years
afterwards Cambrai followed the example. Noyon, Beauvais, Laon,