of Hoxne, where he possessed property, and his father
before him.

Herbert had, we know, received his education in Normandy, and had taken
his vows at, and ultimately had risen to be prior of, the Abbey of
Fecamp in Normandy; and it was while vigorously administering this
office that he received an invitation from William Rufus to come to
England, being offered as an inducement the appointment of Abbot of
Ramsey.

And no doubt from this period the spiritual side of his duties must of
necessity have been somewhat neglected. From the position of prior of
Fecamp, his circle of power limited to the neighbourhood of his priory,
and his duties rounded by the due observance of the rules of his order,
he was given at once the administration of what was one of the richest
abbeys in England, and attained at once the power of a great feudal
lord. He was Sewer to William Rufus as well, an office endowed with fees
and perquisites, and so to Herbert came the temptation of accumulating
wealth for his own ambitious ends. It was not, however, the sin of a
small man: he introduced no personal element into his greed, but rather
thought of his party and his Church, although, of necessity, an
environment so purely temporal told on the spiritual side of his
character. It might be best to connect the links of the East Anglian
bishoprics here, although in the notes on the diocese the matter is gone
into at more length.

Herbert de Losinga was the first bishop of Norwich, to which town the
see was transferred in compliance with a decree of Lanfranc's Synod,
held in 1075, that all sees should be fixed at the principal towns in
their dioceses.

Felix was the first bishop of East Anglia, and fixed his see at Dunwich
in 630.

The see was divided by Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 669 into
those of Elmham and Dunwich; and these again were united under Wildred
in 870, and the see fixed at Elmham, and where it remained till 1070,
when Herfast, a chaplain of William the Conqueror's, moved his see to
Thetford.

Now, about this time, when Herbert was abbot of Ramsey and Sewer to
William Rufus, the see of Thetford was vacant, and Herbert gave the king
to understand that if he was appointed to the vacant bishopric, and his
father made Abbot of Winchester, he was willing and able to pay for such
preferment a sum of L1900: a part of his accumulated savings, no doubt,
and a very large amount for that time.

William II. made these appointment