A HISTORY OF LONDON prior barely a month before, was left to adminis- ter the house.^' This can have been no light task, for not only had great distress been caused by the ravages of the plague, but also the monas- tery was impoverished by the extravagance of the late abbot, the frauds of his associates, and the wastefulness of his relatives.'** The prior, how- ever, evidently had the confidence of the house, for the monks in their necessity elected him abbot. Together with certain other brethren he sold jewels and ornaments of the church to the value of £t, 15 1 3J. 2)d}-^ for the relief of the more pressing needs, and for his own part he refused to receive the customary gifts on his accession, and presented the garden called the ' Burgoyne' to the convent. Details of his rule at Westminster are not known, but the chroni- cler speaks of his love and care for the house, and the zeal with which he extirpated certain ' insolences, abuses, singularities, superfluities, and malices ' which had crept into the monas- tery ; '^^ while another writer states that he speedily paid off the debts of his predecessor and recalled the brethren to saner and more honour- able counsels. By the summer of 1354 the good fame of the abbey had so far recovered that a certain Austin canon from Waltham Holy Cross, who desired to lead a stricter life than he found possible in his own community, petitioned for admittance at Saint Peter's."" In 1362 Langham was promoted to the sec of Ely, but throughout a somewhat stormy career he appears never to have lost his affection for Westminster."' The completion of the cloisters and the erection of various other conventual buildings were probably paid for out of the residuary estate which he left to the fabric of the monastery,^'* and he gave to the monks a library of nearly a hundred volumes, as well as vest- ments and church furniture. '^^ The new abbot, Nicholas Litlington, was un- doubtedly a vigorous administrator ; already as a simple monk he had three times secured to the '" D. & C. Westm. 'Niger Quatemus,' fol. 80 ; Gasquet, The Great Pestilence, 97. "" Cott. MS. Cleop. A. xvi, fol. l6a. '" D. & C. Westm. ' Niger Quatemus," fol. 80. "» Cott. MS. Claud. A. viii,fol. 67. "' Ibid. Cleop. A. xvi, fol. i6a. "' D. & C. Westm. Press 6, Box 4, parcel 33. "' Diet Nat. Biog. "' Sir G. G. Scott, Gleanings, 206 et seq. "* D. & C. Westm. 'Niger Quatemus,' fol. 146 d. et seq. The most highly valued of the volumes were chiefly glossed copies of various canonical and apocry- phal books of the Bible. There was also a volume of ' Pope Innocent on the Decretals,' St. Bernard's ' De Consider.itione,' ' The Consolations of Philoso- phy,' the 'Sentences ' of Peter Lombard, St. Augus- tine's ' De Civitate Dei,' the first part of the ' Speculum Historlale,' Bede's ' Gesta Anglorum,' and sever.il volumes of St. Thomas Aquinas. All the volumes are valued in francs. prior and convent the guardianship of the abbot's temporalities during vacancies, he had consider- ably improved some of the abbey estates, and he had been associated with Langham in the oversight of the finances of the monastery at the death of Simon de Bircheston ; '^° after his election he showed equal energy in carrying out the enlargements of the monastic buildings which Cardinal Langham's bequests had made possible, and in pleading the cause of the abbey before Parliament when the rights of sanctuary had been violated.'" But the period of his rule was a time of no little turmoil in the monastery. On 10 August, 1378, two gentlemen named Shackle and Hawley who had escaped from the Tower and taken sanctuary at Westminster were pursued thither by their enemies; one of the fugitives was captured, and the other escaped to the choir of the church, where he was overtaken and slain at the moment when the gospel was about to be read at high mass. The service ceased immedi- ately, but the mischief was already done, and the abbey, which had never before been violated, was polluted with the blood of Hawley and of one of the servants of the church who had at- tempted to stop the fray."* Apparently the abbot did not bestir himself to procure the recon- ciliation of the church, for in December the king wrote to him remonstrating at the cessation of all services and distributions and the misapplication of alms, and urging him to remedy the matter."' The privilege of sanctuary which had thus been infringed was one of the most valued rights of the abbey ; in his defence of it Abbot Nicholas quoted charters of Edgar and Saint Edward, but its real origin is doubtful ; it was probably pre- scriptive, and based on a common consent and necessity in days when justice was primitive and summary. In a Westminster manuscript of the fifteenth century occurs the oath taken by a fugitive on admission. In the first place he must say truthfully why he came, then he must swear to behave properly and faithfully while there, to submit to all corrections and judgements of the president, and to observe all contracts which he might make while in sanctuary ; if he came there on account of debt, he was to satisfy his creditors at the earliest opportunity, and without garrulous or insolent words ; he was to promise not to sell victuals in sanctuary without special leave of the archdeacon, not to receive any fugitive or suspect person at his table, not to carry defensive weapons nor go out of sanctuary without permission, not to defame any of his fellow fugitives in any way, nor, "« Cott. MS. Claud. A. viii, fol. 69 ; cf. Cal. of Pat. 1334-8, p. 556; D. & C. Westm. 'Abbots' (Acct. R. of N. Litlington), and Anct. Correspon- dence (P.R.O.), Ivi, 88. '" Cott. MS. Claud. A. viii, fol. 69. '" D. & C. Westm. 'Niger Quatemus,' fol. 88./. "' Rymer, Foedera (Rec. Com.), iv, 52. 444
