MORTAIN  , a small

town in the department of La Manche, France, the chief town of an arrondissement and seat of a sub-prefect . It is beautifully situated on a rocky hill rising above the gorge of the Cance, a tributary of the Selune . The parish church of St lvroult is a magnificent example of the transitional style of the early 13th century, with a massive tower of the 14th and a Norman doorway dating from the original collegiate church (1058) . Close to the town is the Abbaye-Blanche, founded as a Benedictine convent in 1105 and soon afterwards affiliated to Citeaux . The church is a perfect example of a Cistercian monastic church of the late 12th century, and portions of the 12th-century cloisters also survive . The population is between 2000 and 3000 . Mortain was, in the middle ages, the head of an important Comte, reserved for the reigning house of Normandy . In or about 1049 Duke William took it from his cousin William, " the warling," and bestowed it on his half-brother, Robert, thenceforth known as " count of Mortain," whose vast possessions in England after the Conquest (1066) gave name to " the small fees of Mortain," which owed less (knight) service than others . Robert was succeeded as count by his son William, who rebelled against Henry I., was captured at the battle of Tinchebrai (1106) and forfeited his possessions . Some years later, Henry bestowed the Comte on his nephew Stephen, who became king in 1135 . On Stephen's death (1154) his surviving son William became count of Mortain, but when he died childless in 1159 the Comte was resumed by Henry II . On the accession of Richard I .

(1889) -he granted it to his brother

John, who was thenceforth known as count of Mortain till he ascended the throne (1199) . With his loss of Normandy the comae was lost, but after the recapture of the province by the House of Lancaster, Edmund Beaufort, a grandson of John of Gaunt, was created count of Mortain and so styled till 1441, when he was made earl of Dorset . As the counts are often described as " earls " of Mortain (or even of " Moreton ") the title is sometimes mistaken for an English one . It has also, through erroneous spelling, been some-times wrongly derived from Mortagne-en-Perche . (J . H .