congregations of Regular Canons the most celebrated were those of the
Victorines and the Premonstratensians.

[Sidenote: Victorines.]

The abbey of St. Victor at Paris was founded in 1113 by William of
Champeaux, afterwards Bishop of Chalons. The Order came to consist of
about forty houses, and its members strove to keep the Augustinian
ideal of a parochial and monastic life. But the chief fame of the
abbey itself comes from its scholastic work, and it became known both
as the stronghold of a somewhat rigid orthodoxy and as the home of a
mystical theology which was developed among its own teachers.

[Sidenote: Premonstratensians.]

But by far the most important congregation of Canons Regular was that
of the Premonstratensians. Their founder, Norbert, a German of noble
birth, in response to a sudden conversion, gave up several canonries
of the older kind with which he was endowed; but finding that a
prophet has no honour in his own country, he preached in France with
astonishing success, and ultimately, under the patronage of the Bishop
of Laon in 1120, he settled with a few companions in a waste place in
a forest, where he established a community of Regular Canons and gave
to the spot the name of _Premontre--pratum monstratum--_the
meadow which had been pointed out to him by an angel. Almost from its
foundation the Premonstratensian Order admitted women as well as men,
and at first the two sexes lived in separate houses planted side by
side. The Order also began the idea of affiliating to itself, under
the form of a third class, influential laymen who would help in its
work. The Premonstratensian houses assimilated themselves to monastic