the Abbot feared that, so far
away as Sussex seemed, his monks would be out of his reach and might
become but as other men. But at last the Conqueror himself joined his
prayers to those of William de Warenne, and in 1076 the Abbot of Cluny
sent the monk Lanzo and three other brethren to England, and to them
William de Warenne gave the little church of St Pancras especially
rebuilt for their use with the land about it, called the
Island, and other lands sufficient to support twelve monks. But the
Abbot of Cluny had no sooner agreed to establish his congregation in
England than he seems to have repented. At any rate he recalled Prior
Lanzo and kept him so long that William de Warenne, growing impatient,
seriously thought of transferring his foundation to the Benedictines;
but at length Prior Lanzo returned and all was arranged as was at
first intended. The monastery flourished apace and grew not only in
wealth but in piety. Prior Lanzo proved an excellent ruler, and the
Priory of St Pancras at Lewes became famous for its sanctity through
all England.

To the same William de Warenne Lewes owes the foundation or the
refoundation of its Castle the second centre about which the town
grew.

A glance at the map will assure us that Lewes could not but be a place
of great importance, increasing with England in wealth and strength.
The South Downs stand like a vast rampart back from the sea, guarding
South England from surprise and invasion. But this great wall is
broken at four different places, at Arundel in the west where the Arun
breaks through the chalk to find the sea, at Bramber where the Adur
passes seaward, at Lewes where the Ouse goes through, and at
Wilmington where the Cuckmere winds through the hills to its haven.
Each of these gaps was held and guarded by a castle while the level
eastward of Beachy Head was held by Pevensey. Of these castles I
suppose the most important to have been Lewes, for it not only held
the gap of the Ouse but the pass by Falmer and in some sort the
Cuckmere Valley also.

[Illustration: LEWES CASTLE]

But the great day of Lewes Castle was that of Simon de Montfort--I
shall deal with that later. Here it will be enough to point out that
only a fragment of the great building with its double keep, whose ruin
we see to-day, dates from the time of the first De Warenne, the rest
being a later work largely of Edward I's. time.

Let me now return to the Priory which, in the development of the t