Note 537 — Chapter II · THE SAINTS’ DAYS

Osbert, Epist. i. op. cit. 55. “Et in hoc regno et in transmarinis partibus a nonnullis episcopis et abbatibus in ecclesiis Dei instituta est illius diei recordatio.” That the feast was introduced “in hoc regno,” i.e. England, by abbots but not by bishops, is clear from Osbert’s second letter, and from other evidence; and, therefore, his remark is true only of Normandy. Of the one English bishop whom he names as in favour of the feast, he can only say he was “de his sufficienter instructus” (op. cit. 58). Osbert has no knowledge of his having introduced the feast. By “transmarinæ partes,” British chroniclers of that period always mean Normandy and Brittany.