Fecamp appeared desolate and decaying to its visitors, but they
recollected that its very desolation was a voucher of the antiquity from
which it derives its interest. It claims an origin as high as the days
of Caesar, when it was called _Fisci Campus_, being the station where
the tribute was collected.
It is in vain, however, to expect concord amongst etymologists; and, of
course, there are other right learned wights who protest against this
derivation. They shake their heads and say, "no; you must trace the
name, Fecamp, to _Fici Campus_;" and they strengthen their assertion by
a sort of _argumentum ad ecclesiam_, maintaining that the _precious
blood_, for which Fecamp was long celebrated, corroborates and confirms
their tale. A chapel in the abbey church attests the sanctity of this
relic. The legend states that Nicodemus, at the time of the entombment
of our Saviour, collected in a phial the blood from his wounds, and
bequeathed it to his nephew, Isaac; who afterwards, making a tour
through Gaul, stopped in the Pays de Caux, and buried the phial at the
root of a fig-tree[30].
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