mandment of the pope for his penance, to give such goods as he hath ordained for his expenses, to poor men, and to make a new abbey in the honour of S. Peter, or to repair an old one, and to endow it sufficiently, and write to him that, by the same token that he chose me sometime to be his patron in Normandy, that he repair the abbey called Thorney in the west side of the city of London, which sometime I hallowed myself And let him set therein monks of good conversation: for from that place shall be a ladder stretching in to heaven, and angels descending and ascending, bearing up to heaven to our Lord the prayers of wise and devout men. And to him that ascendeth by that ladder, I shall open the gates of heaven, like as our Lord hath enjoined me by mine office, and I shall loose them that be bound, and receive them that be unbound. All this that thou hast heard of me, thou shalt write it and send it to King Edward,' which then was many a mile thence. And the messenger that came from this anker or recluse came to the presence of the king the same time that the bishops came from Rome. And when the king had received the letters that came from Rome with great reverence and read them, he thanked God that he was so clearly released of the bond of his avow. And then he commanded the letters of the recluse to be read. And when they were read, and he saw they were according to the letters that came from Rome, he humbly thanked God and S. Peter his patron, and incontinent disposed him to fulfil his penance, and began to repair the abbey that he was assigned to repair by the
