Introduction
After seizing the English crown in 1066, William the Conqueror appointed French clergyman as bishops and abbots across England. Many were contemptuous and greedy, few spoke English and some used gendarmes to enforce their French ways. William begged Guitmond of the Abbey of St Leufroi in Normandy to set a better example, but Guitmond said the problem went deeper than that.
“I AM averse [said monk Guitmond] to undertaking any ecclesiastical function for many reasons, which I am not willing, nor would it become me, fully to detail. In the first place, when I consider well the infirmities, both bodily and mental, which I continually suffer, I painfully feel my inability to undergo the scrutiny of the divine Judge, for even now I lament that in my daily struggles to keep the path of life I am in continual danger of erring from the truth. But if I cannot safely rule myself, how shall I be able to direct the course of others in the way to salvation?*
“Besides, after carefully considering all circumstances, I do not see by what means I can fitly undertake the government of a community whose foreign manners and barbarous language* are strange to me; a wretched people, whose fathers and near relations and friends have either fallen by your sword, or have been disinherited by you, driven into exile, imprisoned, or subjected to an unjust and intolerable slavery. Search the scriptures and see if there be any law by which a pastor chosen by enemies can be intruded by violence on the Lord’s flock.
* See also Samuel Smiles on An Unpopular Popular Reform.
* Old English was a descendant of Germanic languages, and therefore ‘barbarous’ in the sense that it came from a barbarian, i.e. not Roman, people. Norman French was a descendant of Latin, and thus a so-called Romance language.
Précis
When William the Conqueror asked Guitmond to come to England and soften the cruelties of Norman clergy the honest monk refused. He said he felt unfit to govern any man, and especially men whose ways and language were not his own. More, the way the conquest had been achieved meant that no man could bring good out of it. (59 / 60 words)
When William the Conqueror asked Guitmond to come to England and soften the cruelties of Norman clergy the honest monk refused. He said he felt unfit to govern any man, and especially men whose ways and language were not his own. More, the way the conquest had been achieved meant that no man could bring good out of it.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, besides, may, otherwise, ought, since, until, whereas.
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