"THERE are several circumstances which lead to an opinion that a general declension in diligence and zeal had taken place among the religious in England, much earlier than is usually supposed: for, in the first place, one only of those memoirs of their foundations and early histories, which were common to the northern houses, is continued beneath the reign of Edward I. 2ndly. If decay of zeal may be inferred from a diminution of influence, it will appear that although testamentary burials in the monasteries, even at the distance of forty miles or more, (as at Stanlaw from the parish of Rochdale, and at Furness from the neighbourhood of Gargrave) were frequent in the twelfth century, this practice almost entirely ceases in the next.-Again, in the æra at which the foundation of chantries became fashionable in Craven (from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century) only one (that of the Dawtre family) took place at Sallay Abbey and one at Bolton Priory; the rest were uniformly attached | to parish churches. And in general, whoever considers not only how few religious houses were founded after the reign of Edward I. but how few donations were made to those of earlier date, must be convinced that, long before the dawn of evangelical light under Wickliffe, some internal cause must have operated to produce this general cessation of bounty; and that can scarcely have been any other than a declension in the zeal and diligence of the religious themselves."-WHITAKER, Hist. of Craven,

"In these times there were few or no shops. Private families therefore, as well as the religious, constantly attended the great annual fairs, where the necessaries of life not produced within their own domains were purchased. In every year of this Compotus (of Bolton) there is an account of wine, cloth, groceries, &c. bought apud Setum Botulphum. Distant as Boston in Lincolnshire was, our Canons certainly resorted to the great annual fair held at that place, from whence the necessaries purchased by them might easily be conveyed by water as far as York.”—Ibid. p. 385.

WOOL was always dear in ancient times. Anno 1300, it sold for more than £6 a sack, while the price of a cow was 7s. 4d. The legal sack consisted of twenty-six stone of four. teen pounds each, i. e. nearly 5s. each stone. This was a very unusual price, and for the time it lasted would have the singular effect of rendering the wild moors and sheep walks belonging to the Canons equally valuable with their richest pastures.-Ibid. p. 385.

It also explains the change of arable land into sheep walks, so often and bitterly complained of in Henry VIII.'s time, and earlier.

CHIMNEYS were at this time extremely rare, and none probably but the masons employed about the Abbeys knew how to construct them. They were not introduced into farm houses in Cheshire till the middle of the seventeenth century. King, writing 1656, in his Vale Royal, says, In building and furniture of their houses, till of late years, they used the old manner of the Saxons; for they had their fire in the midst of the house, against a hob of clay, and their oxen under the same roof; but within these forty years they have builded chimnies." -The last farm house of this most ancient construction was remaining in the township of

"IT was then customary for the religious to have schools that bore the name of their respec

1324. Four pounds were the consideration for manumitting a Neife of Bolton Priory. A good horse at the same time sold for more than thrice the sum. Are we then to conclude that this was the comparative price of the two animals, or that the Canons were favourable to the emancipation of their slaves? I hope and believe the latter.-Ibid. p. 400.

"THERE was always money, or some other valuable consideration, paid to the King for leave to have a trial or judgement in any controversy (a case is instanced just before, where the Abbot of Egnesham owed a palfrey for having a trial concerning the right to two carucates of land, in King John's reign). And this, says a good antiquary (Dr. Brady) may be the reason why Glanvil so very often in his treatise of the Laws and Customs of England hath these words, Petens ac quærens perquirit breve, the demandant or plaintiff purchases a writ. 'Hence,' says he, 'it is probable at first came the present usage of paying 6s. 8d. where the debt is £40. 10s. where the debt is £100, and so upwards in suits for money due upon bond.' But it is certain, this was owing to King Alfred, who, when he had settled his courts of judicature, to prevent the arbitrary delays of justice, did order that, without petitioning leave from the King, writs of citation should be granted to the plaintiff to fix the day of trial, and secure the appearance of the other party.'"-KENNETT's Paroch. Antiq. vol. 1, p. 234.

"1208. THE young King (Henry III.) at Oxford, on March 30, issued out his precept to the sheriff of this and other counties, to take care that all Jews within their respective liberties should bear upon their upper garments, whenever they went abroad, a badge of two white tablets on their breast, made of linen cloth, or parchment, that by this token they might be distinguished from Christians."-Ibid. p. 263.

HENRY Earl of Warwick dying 1229, Philippa "his countess gave one hundred marks to the King, that she might not be compelled to marry, but live a widow as long as she pleased, or marry whom she liked best, provided he were a loyal subject to the King. Whereupon she took a husband the same year, one Richard

of divinity, another of philosophy, in which lat ter the disputing of bachelors has yet continued the name to the exercise of Augustines. The Benedictine schools for theology; the Carmelite schools for divinity and philosophy in the parish of St. Mary Magdalene. The Franciscan schools, &c. And there were schools appropriated to the benefit of particular religious houses, as the Dorchester schools, the Eynsham schools, the schools of St. Frideswide, of Littlemore, of Osseney, of Stodley, &c. The monks of Gloucester had Gloucester Convent in Oxford; the monks of Pershore in Worcestershire had an apartment for their novices in that house, &c. So the young monks of Westminster, of Canterbury, of Durham, of St. Albans, &c. The convent of Burcester were more especially obliged to provide for the education of students in the University, as they were of the Augustine order, who had this particular charge incumbent on them. In a general chapter held in the parish church of Chesthunt, 1331, strict commands were given for maintaining scholars in some University, as had been before decreed in their statutes made at Northampton, Huntingdon and Dunstaple. In another chapter at Northampton, 1359, it was ordained that every Prelate (i.e. Abbot or Prior) should send one out of every twenty of the canons to reside and study in the University; and if any prelate should neglect this duty, he should pay £10 for every year's omission. In a Chapter at Oseney, 1443, William Westkar, Professor of Divinity, stood up, and recited the names of those Prelates, and had the allotted fines imposed on them.-By rules sent from Pope Benedict (?) in the fifth of the pontificate, to the Abbot of Thornton and Prior of Kirkham, to be observed within the dioceses of York and Lincoln, the pensions for such students are expressed, £60 yearly to a master in divinity, to a bachelor £50, to a scholar or student in divinity £40, to a doctor of canon law £50, to a bachelor or scholar in civil law £35.

"So in the acts and constitutions of the Chapters of the Benedictine Order, there be frequent provisions for scholars to be maintained, one out of twenty monks at the University, with inquiries into such defaults, and penalties imposed for them. They had a prior of students to govern all the novices of their order at Oxford and Cambridge, where they had a doctor in each faculty of divinity and canon law, under whom their inceptors were to commence at the public charge of their respective monastery. The general colleges for this order were Gloucester in Oxford, and Monk's College, now Magdalene, in Cambridge.”—Ibid. vol. 1, p. 301-3.