Note 106 — EDITOR'S PREFACE.

The curious History of the Monastery of Vezelay, by Hugh of Poitiers (translated in Guizot, Collection des Mémoires), though it twice mentions Becket, stops just short of this excommunication, 1166. Vezelay boasted to be subject only to the See of Rome, to have been made by its founder part of the patrimony of St. Peter. This was one great distinction: the other was the unquestioned possession of the body of St. Mary Magdalene, "l'amie de Dieu." Vezelay had been in constant strife with the Bishop of Autun for its ecclesiastical, with the Count of Nevers for its territorial, independence; with the monastery of Clugny, as its rival. This is a document very instructive as to the life of the age.