on hearing that the pope was dead, flew to Rome, and nominated the bishop of Braga, who had been excommunicated at Beneventum by the same pope the previous year, to be pope, changing his name from Bourdin to Gregory ; on which Gelasius retired from the city. On the day before the calends of May, Matilda, queen of the English, departed this life at Westminster, and was becomingly buried at the monastery there. At this period, many of the Normans, forsaking the fealty which they had sworn to king Henry, and having no fear of retribution, betook themselves to Louis, king of the Franks and his principal men, who were the enemies of their natural lord. In this year died Robert, earl of Mellent. The above-named pope Gelasius came by sea to Burgundy, and his arrival soon became known throughout Gaul. On the seventeenth day before the calends of February, he sent a letter throughout Gaul to the archbishops, bishops, abbats, secular clergy, and principal men, complaining that he had been expelled with violence by the emperor from Rome, and that the bishop of Braga, an excommunicated person, had been thrust into the Apostolic See ; at the same time, exhorting them to prepare themselves by their assistance in common to avenge the cause of the mother Church. These letters having been circulated throughout the provinces, all the men of influence were aroused, together with the middle classes, to go to meet the successor of the Apostles, and prepared with every possible effort to be present at the council, which he declared he would hold at Rheims at the time of Mid-Lent. In this year, a certain church having been dedicated at a town in England, called Momerfield, by Geoffrey, bishop of Hereford, as the people were returning home who had attended the dedication, after the serenity of the weather which had previously prevailed, on a sudden a most violent tempest arose, attended with thunder ; some persons were struck with lightning and perished, while unable to get away from a place in which they had taken shelter. They were five in number, namely, three men and two women, one of which last was struck by a thunderbolt and killed, while the other woman was shockingly smitten from the navel down to the soles of her feet, and perished, enveloped in flames ; the men alone with difficulty escaped with their lives, while their five horses were destroyed by the lightning. 208 ANNALS OF EOGEB BE HOVEBEN. A.D. 1118.