ABBOTS OF CROYLAND which Thurcytel had left so richly endowed, in the time of Egelric's successor, Godric, about 1010. This Egelric must not be confused with the Peterborough abbot of the same name, who became Bishop of Durham and made the great causeway from Deeping to Spalding in 1052, probably to give work to the peasantry in the year of the dreadful famine, 1051.
On so treacherous a foundation the monks wisely built in wood rather than stone when possible, but they had no preservatives for wood in those days, hence, in 1061, Abbot Ulfcytel had to rebuild the wooden erections which were attached to the monastery. He was greatly helped by the famous Waltheof, Earl of Northampton and Huntingdon, and when, on the false accusation of his infamous wife Judith, sister of William I., Waltheof was beheaded at Winchester, the monks got leave from the Conqueror to have his body buried at Croyland. In 1076 Ingulphus became abbot, and, owing to the carelessness of some plumbers—an old and ever-recurring story—the whole of the buildings were again burnt down and the library of 700 MSS. destroyed. It is to the Chronicle of Ingulphus that we owe most of our knowledge of the early history of Croyland, and even if the Chronicle were written three centuries after his death, it still contains much sound and reliable information. Certainly after the fire his building was patched up for a generation, and the Abbot Joffrid, a man of extraordinary learning, zeal, and skill, built in 1109 what may well be called the third abbey. Most of Thurcytel's work which had escaped the fire was taken down, and the foundations carried down to the gravel bed below the peat. Of this building, which was carried out by Arnold, a lay monk and a very skilful mason, the two western piers and arch of the central tower remain, but an earthquake in 1113 damaged the nave, and when in 1143 it was partly burnt down again, for the third time, Abbot Edward restored it. King Henry had sent for Joffrid (or Geoffrey) from Normandy. Among other remarkable deeds he sent four learned monks to give a course of lectures on grammar, logic, rhetoric and philosophy in a barn which they hired in Cambridge, or Grantbridge as it was then called. Sermons were also preached there in French and Latin, both by the monk Gilbert and by the abbot himself, of whom we are told that, though his numerous hearers understood neither language, the force of his subject and his comely person excited them to give amply
