peculiar value in relation to the question of the true
condition of the Monasteries at the Dissolution. Their witness is absolutely unimpeachable, and what they record may be taken as true. The visitations here given were made by officers appointed by the Council-General of the Order held yearly at Chmi. They deal chiefly with matters of finance. The details here are curious.
In 1262, Lenten Priory was found "loaded with debt." It owed £1,000, a serious sum in those days ; Thetford owed £420; Montacute, £300; Wenlock, £1,100. No irregularities are Com- plained of; on the subject of morality, the visitors are absolutely silent. The visitors of 1275.'76 are more particular. Various irregularities are reported of Monks Horton, a cell of Lewes. The Prior is reprimanded for not wearing leggings when he rode, and directed not to eat flesh in the houses of secular persons. Ber- mondsey, which thirteen years before had owed £177, had increased its debt to 4660, and diminished its number of monks from thirty- two to twenty. Five estates had also boon alienated by a former Prior, and it was burdened with an annuity of -Q100. Three years afterwards the debt was more than doubled, and the inmates re- duced to eighteen. Another estate had been sold. ".The condition of this house," say the visitors, "is simply deplorable." A monk at Thetford is found guilty of incontinency, and banished to a dis- tant convent. At St. Clare, a cell of St. Martin-des-Champs, a Prior and his colleague are found to lead "an immoral and in- continent life," and "everything had boon made away with."
Wenlock was found to be in a deplorable condition, its Prior being nothing less than a swindler. In coming into office, he debited the house with the value of two hundred beasts, one hundred much-cows, and three thousand sheep, which, he said, had been disposed of. As a matter of fact, they had never existed. By this and other devices, he created a fictitious debt, and put into his own pocket the money which he had raised to pay it off, This honest man was in hopes of becoming Bishop of Rocheater. The visitors on this occasion seem to have been " thorough."
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