the dates commonly given are in every instance wrong". The English chronicler Matthew Paris says he came from Abbots Langley, although Paris mistakenly ascribes to his father the name Robert de Camera. Robert may have been a clerk although Sayers suggests that Paris' claim that Robert was a priest is probably correct, as is the likelihood that he later became a monk. As such, there are grounds for believing Nicholas to have been illegitimate. Nicholas had a brother called either Ranulf or Randall, a clerk in Feering, Essex. Paris is also the source for Nicholas' surname being Breakspear. Paris recounts a story that Nicholas was rejected by Abbot Robert de Gorron from taking his novitiate at the abbey, although as Poole points out, the story is demonstrably incorrect as Robert did not become abbot until 1151. Sayers, suggests that, true or not, during and after Breakspear's pontificate, "certainly St Albans fed upon the story of the local boy who had made good". William of Newburgh reports that Nicholas was too poor to receive anything more than a rudimentary education, and Brooke speculates that he travelled to France to learn the skills of a clerk. This was, he notes, a normal path to preferment in the 12th century, although it was more unusual for those that did so to have Breakspear's inauspicious background. He may have become a canon at the Augustinian priory in Merton, Surrey. Poole subscribes to this theory, citing a letter to Breakspear when pope in which he is reminded that "your worship was wont to speak" of Merton in conversation. Move to France and promotion The next point at which Breakspear can be positively identified is in the Southern French town of Arles, where he continued his studies in canon law, and probably under the masters of Roman law also. On completion of his studies he became a canon regular at the priory of , Avignon, around to the north. He was soon appointed prior and then abbot of St Ruf. While still a canon, in 1140 he appears to have written a charter in Barcelona. However, there appear to have been complaints that he was overly strict, and the monks rebelled. As a result, he was summoned to Rome; a temporary peace was established, but it was not long until the monks rebelled again. Breakspear may have visited Rome three times while at St Ruf—"each time