RELIGIOUS HOUSES they should hold all their lands with sac and soc, tol and team, infangenthef, and with all liberties, free customs and acquittances.' To judge by the charter of Henry III in 1242, which is identical with that of John,^ they can have made no further acquisitions of land for some time, though they may have received grants of money, such as thirty marks given to the hospital by Richard de Wendover in 1250 for the establishment of a chantry/ The house, however, does not seem to have been rich, and the ordinance of the Legate Ottobon ° about 1267, that the number of eight brothers and sixteen sisters was not to be exceeded must have been intended to benefit the hospital. In 1275 King Edward exempted it from payment of the twentieth,' and in 1290 he exacted no payment for the grant of an annual fair for which the brothers had petitioned.* They had asked at the same time that their charters might be con- firmed without fees as they were poor.^ The statutes of Legate Ottobon and Richard, abbot of Westminster,*" to which reference has already been made, form the basis of all subsequent ordinances for the house. The rule of St. Augustine was to be read four times a year in English before the brothers and sisters ; a chapter was to be held every Sunday, when faults were to be corrected ; the brothers and sisters were to confess once a week and communicate four times a year ; all were to be present at the services, and after there should be no drinking or meeting of the brothers for talking ; obedience to the head was enjoined, and anyone found rebellious, drunken, or contentious, after a second offence was to be punished at the will of the abbot ; no brother was to eat, drink, or sleep in the town or suburb, except in a religious house, or in that of the king or of a bishop ; silence must be observed at meals, of which there were to be only two a day ; the brothers were to eat with the master, and food and drink should be the same for all ; the sisters were to have a double allow- ance of bread and ale on St. James's Day ; the clothes worn by brothers, chaplains, and sisters were to be of one colour, russet or black ; sisters or brothers guilty of incontinency were to receive corporal punishment ; the guardian of the spiritualities should have a companion in his ' Rot. Chart. Johan. (Rec. Com.), 1 1 jb.
- Cal. of Chart. R. i, 269.
' Newcourt, Jiepert. Eccl. Lond. i, 662. Cardinal Ottobon speaks of the many masses the house was bound to celebrate. Cott. MS. Faust. A. iii, fol. 319^ Mbid. fol. 319^. ' Cal. of Close, 1272-9, p. 262. ^ Pari. R. (Rec. Com.), i, 57a. They asked for a fair of four days, but the king gave them one of seven, beginning on the vigil of St. James. Plac. de Quo IVarr. (Rec. Com.), 477. ' Pari. R. i, <^-]a. "Cott. MS. Faust. -A. iii, fol. 319^-21. work of keeping the ornaments and oblations ; oblations were to be shared by all the members of the house. The injunctions mad; after a visitation in 1277 by the sub-prior and two monks of St. Peter's** are almost identical, but there are one or two alterations and additions which are not without significance : if any brother be found contentious or drunken, correction shall be given on the following day, and not postponed until the next chapter ; no brother shall eat or drink at any hour with the sisters, nor shall the brothers enter the sisters' house, or the sisters that of the brothers. In other ordinances, apparently about the same date,*^ it was enjoined that the vigil after the death of a brother or sister was to be kept without drinking or unseemly noise, that the sisters were not to bequeath goods without the prior's leave, while certain punishments were prescribed in the case of the brothers and sisters quarrelling and striking one another. Conclusions might be drawn from these in- junctions not very flattering to the house, and perhaps with justice, since there can be no doubt about the general laxness of administration and conduct prevailing there in the early fourteenth century. At a visitation of the abbot of Westminster in 1317*^' it was found that the master had not held the Sunday chapter, and through his fault the sisters and lay-brothers had not communicated four times a year. He was also accused of having special beer made for himself and one of the brothers, John de Attueston, but he denied that this had been given to any but visitors. The charges against Attueston, who was then prior, were more serious : it was said, and evidently with truth, that he refused to give an account of the goods of the hospital received by him though he had sworn to do so, that he had divided the oblations offered on the feasts of St. James and St. Dunstan between himself and the master, and that he was in the habit of getting drunk and then of using abusive language to the brothers and sisters, and of disclosing the secret business of the chapter. In 13 19 the abbot had to enjoin *^ the obser- vance of the rule as to weekly chapters and the brothers and sisters receiving communion four times a year. He also ordered that the present number of three brothers and six sisters should " Ibid. fol. 316. " Ibid. fol. 317. "* Doc. of D. and C. of Westm., Westm. pare. 2, box I. "Ibid. Ord. of W. abbot of Westminster. These appear to be the same as those dated February, 1322, in Cott. MS. Faust. A. iii, fol. 321-3. In the latter, however, there is an interesting addition. The abbot has heard that the rule has been broken by which married persons cannot become professed without the consent of the husband or wife, and orders such people to be expelled, fol. 323. 543
