I. ECCLESIASTICAL

Prince Pantagruel and his companions, pursuing their incomparable voyage, sailed three days and three nights without discovering anything, and on the fourth day made land. The Pilot told them that it was the Ringing Island; and, indeed, they heard afar off a kind of a confused and oft-repeated noise, that seemed at a distance not unlike the sound of great, middle-sized, and little bells rung all at once.

Commentators have been much exercised as to the city which the great Master of Allegory had in view when he described l'Ile Sonnante. Foolish commentators! As if even a small master of allegory, much less the great and illustrious Alcofribas Nasier, could, or would, mean any one town in particular! One might as well search for the man whose portrait he painted and called Panurge. He described all towns. For, in truth, every mediÆval city was an Ile Sonnante, and the greater, the richer, the more populous, the more powerful was the city, the louder and the more frequent were the jinglings and the janglings, the sonorous clang and the melodious peal, the chimings and the strikings, the music and the jarring of the thousand Bells. They rang all day long; they rang from the great Cathedral and from the little Parish Church; from the stately monastery, the nunnery, the College of Priests, the Spital, the Chantry, the Chapel, and the Hermitage. They rang for Festivals, for Fasts, for Pageants, for Processions, for Births, Marriages, and Funerals; for the election of city officers, for Coronations, for Victories, and for daily service; they rang to mark the day and the hour; they rang in the baby; they rang out the passing soul; they rang for the bride; they rang in memory of the dead; they rang for work to begin and for work to cease; they rang to exhort, to admonish, to console.

With their ringing the City was never quiet. Four miles out of London, the sound of the Bells rang in the ears of the downcast 'prentice boy who sat upon the green slopes of Highgate: the chimes of Bow struck merrily upon his ear above the tinkling of the sheep bell, the carol of the lark, and the song of the thrush. To him they brought a promise and a hope. What they brought to the busy folk in the streets I know not; but since they were a folk of robust nerves, the musical, rolling, melodious, clashing, joyous ringing of bells certainly brought for the most part a sense of elation, hope, and companionship. So, in this our later day, the multitudinous tripper or the Hallelujah lad is not happy unless he can make, as he goes, music—loud music—in the train and on the sands. So, again, those who march in procession do not feel complete without a braying band with drums great and small, banging and beating and roaring an accompaniment to the mottoes on their banners, and uplifting the souls of the champions who are about to harangue the multitude.

The Ile Sonnante of Rabelais may have been Paris—of course it was Paris; it may have been Avignon—there is not the least doubt that it was Avignon; it may also have been London—there can be no manner of question on that point. Rabelais never saw London; but so loud was the jingle-jangle of the City bells that they smote upon his ear while he was beginning that unfinished book of his and inspired the first chapters. London, without a doubt, London, and no other, is the true Ile Sonnante.

Of Plantagenet London there is much to be said and written. Place À l'Église! It was a time when the Church covered all. Faith unquestioning seemed to have produced its full effect. The promised Kingdom, according to eyes ecclesiastic, was already among us. What could be better for the world than that it should be ruled absolutely by the Vicar of Christ? Yet the full effect of this rule proved in the event not quite what might have been expected.

In London, says an observant Frenchman, there is no street without a church and a tree. He speaks of modern London. Of London in the thirteenth century, there was no street without its monastery, its convent garden, its College of Priests, its Canons regular, its Friars, its Pardoners, its sextons, and its serving brothers, and this without counting its hundred and twenty parish churches, each with its priests, its chantries, its fraternities, and its church-yard. The Church was everywhere; it played not only an important part in the daily life, but the most important part. Not even the most rigid Puritan demanded of the world so much of its daily life and so great a share of its revenues as the Church of the Middle Ages. There were already whispered and murmured questions, but the day of revolt was still two hundred long years ahead. Meantime the Church reigned and ruled, and no man yet dared disobey.

Let us consider, therefore, as the most conspicuous feature of Plantagenet London, her great religious Houses. We have seen what they were in Norman London. Already there were there in existence the Cathedral of St. Paul's, with its canons and priests, its army of singing men, clerks, boys, and servants—itself a vast monastic House; the Priory of St. Bartholomew; the House of St. Mary Overies; the Hospital of St. Katherine; the Priory of the Holy Trinity. After three hundred years, when we look again upon the map of London, and mark in color the sites of Monastery, Nunnery, Church, College, and Church-yard, it seems as if a good fourth part of the City area was swallowed up in ecclesiastical Houses. Not so much was actually covered by buildings of the Church, but at least a fourth of the City, counting the gardens and the courts and chapels, belonged to the Church and the religious Houses. Without such a map it is impossible to estimate the enormous wealth of the mediÆval Church, its power, and its authority. It is impossible to understand without such a map how enormous was that Revolution which could shake off and shatter into fragments a power so tremendous. Because, as was London, so was every other city. If London had a hundred and twenty churches, Norwich had sixty; York had forty-five. If the country all round London was parcelled out among the religious Houses, so all over the land, manors here, and estates there, broad acres everywhere belonged to the monks. But though their property was enormous, their power was far beyond that conferred by any amount of property, for they held the keys of heaven and kept open the gates of hell.

As for the vast numbers actually maintained by the Church, the single example of St. Paul's Cathedral—of course, the largest foundation in the City—will furnish an illustration. In the year 1450 the Society, a Cathedral body, included the following: the Bishop, the Dean, the four Archdeacons, the Treasurer, the Precentor, the Chancellor, thirty greater Canons, twelve lesser Canons, about fifty Chaplains or chantry priests, and thirty Vicars. Of inferior rank to these were the Sacrist and three Vergers, the Succentor, the Master of the Singing-school, the Master of the Grammar-school, the Almoner and his four Vergers, the Servitors, the Surveyor, the twelve Scribes, the Book Transcriber, the Book-binder, the Chamberlain, the Rent-collector, the Baker, the Brewer, the singing-men and choir-boys, of whom priests were made, the Bedesmen, and the poor folk. In addition to these must be added the servants of all these officers—the brewer, who brewed in the year 1286, 67,814 gallons, must have employed a good many; the baker, who ovened every year 40,000 loaves, or every day more than a hundred, large and small; the sextons, grave-diggers, gardeners, bell-ringers, makers and menders of the ecclesiastical robes, cleaners and sweepers, carpenters, masons, painters, carvers and gilders—one can very well understand that the Church of St. Paul's alone found a livelihood for thousands.

The same equipment was necessary in every other religious foundation. Not a monastery but had its great and lesser officers and their servants. In every one there were the bell-ringers, the singing-men and boys, the vergers, the gardeners, the brewers, bakers, cooks, messengers, scribes, rent-collectors, and all complete as was St. Paul's, though on a smaller scale. It does not seem too much to estimate the ecclesiastical establishments as including a fourth part of the whole population of the City.

The London monasteries lay for the most part either just within or just without the City Wall. The reason is obvious. They were founded when the City was already populous, and were therefore built upon the places where houses were less numerous and ground was of less value.

Let us, in order to visit them all, make a circuit within the City Wall, beginning from the Tower on the East.

The first House at which we stop is the Priory of Crutched Friars, that is, Crossed Friars. They wore a cross of red cloth upon their backs, and carried an iron cross in their hands. The order of the Red Cross was founded by one Conrad, of Bologna, in the year 1169. Some of the Friars found their way to London in the middle of the next century, and humbly begged of the pious folk a house to live in. Of course they got it, and many houses afterwards, with a good following of the citizens. This monastery stood behind Seething Lane, opposite St. Olave's Church. The site afterwards became that of the Navy House, and is still marked by the old stone pillars of the entrance and the open court within. This court is now a receiving house for some railway. Beyond this, on the other side of Aldgate, stood a far more important monastery, that of the Holy Trinity. The site of the place is marked—for there is not a vestige left of the ancient buildings—by a mean little square now called St. James's Square; a place of resort for the poorer Jews. This noble House was founded by Matilda, wife of Henry I., in 1109, for regular Canons of the Order of St. Augustine. The Priory, enriched by many later benefactors, became the wealthiest and most splendid in the City. Its Prior, by virtue of his office, and because the old Knighten Guild had given their property to the Priory, was Alderman of Portsoken ward; the monastery was exempted from ecclesiastical jurisdiction other than the Pope's; its church was great and magnificent, full of stately monuments, carved marbles, and rich shrines; the House was hospitable and nobly charitable to the poor.

The beautiful old church of St. Helen, filled with monuments curious and quaint, was formerly the Church of the Priory of St. Helen. This nunnery was founded by William Basing, dean of St. Paul's, in the reign of Richard I. The church, as it now stands, consists of the old Parish Church and the Nun's Chapel, formerly separated by a partition wall. The Leathersellers' Company acquired some of their ground after the Dissolution, and the old Hall of the Nunnery, afterwards the Leathersellers' Hall, was standing until the year 1799.

On the north of Broad Street stood the splendid House of Austin Friars; that is, the Friars Eremites of the Order of St. Augustine. The House was founded by Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford, in the year 1253. It rapidly became one of the wealthiest Houses in the City; its church, very splendid, was filled with monuments. Part of it stands to this day. It is now used by the Dutch residents in London. The quiet courts and the square at the back of the church retain something of the former monastic arrangement and of the old tranquillity. The square is certainly one of the courts of the monastery, but I know not whether the Refectory or the Library or the Abbot's House stood here.

The next great House following the wall westward was that of St. Martin's le Grand, of which I have already spoken. It was a House of Augustine Canons. It formed a Precinct with its own Liberty. William of Wykeham was its most famous Dean. In the sanctuary Miles Forrest, one of the murderers of the two Princes in the Tower, died—"rotted away piecemeal." The Liberty survived long after the Dissolution.

Adjoining St. Martin's was the great Foundation of the Grey Friars.

They were Franciscans. Who does not know the story of St. Francis and the foundation of his great order? They were the Preachers of the poor. The first Franciscans, like the Buddhist priests, lived upon alms; they had no money, no endowments, no books, no learning, no great houses. Those who came to England—it was in the year 1224—nine in number, of whom only one was a priest, were penniless. They first halted in Canterbury, where they were permitted to sleep at night in a room used by day as a school. Four of them presently moved on to London, where they hired a piece of ground on Cornhill, and built upon it rude cells of wattle and clay with their own hands. Already the Dominicans, their rivals—Preachers of the learned and the rich—had obtained a settlement in Oxford. The Franciscans stayed a very short time on Cornhill. In the year 1225 one John Ewin bought and presented to them a piece of ground north of Newgate Street, whither they removed. Their austerity, their poverty, their earnestness, their eloquence drew all hearts towards them. And, as always happens, their very popularity proved their ruin. Kings and queens, great lords and ladies, strove and vied with each other to show their love and admiration for the men who had given up all that the world can offer for the sake of Christ and for pity of their brothers and sisters. They showed this love in the manner common with the world. They forced upon the friars a portion of their wealth; they made them receive and enjoy the very things they had renounced. It is a wonderful record. First, the citizens began. One Lord Mayor built a new choir for their church, with a splendor worthy of the order and of the City; another built the nave to equal the choir; a third built the dormitories—no more wattle and daub for the dear friars; other citizens built Chapter House, Vestry House, Infirmary, and Refectory. Their Library was given by Dick Whittington, thrice Mayor of London. Then came the turn of the great people. Queen Margaret thought the choir of the church should be still more splendid, and added to it or rebuilt it. Queen Isabel and Queen Philippa thought that the nave should be more splendid, and with the help of the Earl and Countess of Richmond, the Earl of Gloucester and his sisters, Lord Lisle and others, built a new nave, 300 feet long, 89 feet broad, and 64 feet high. Here were buried, as in ground far more sacred than that of St. Paul's or any acre of ordinary consecration, Margaret, wife of Edward I.; Isabel, wife of Edward II.; Joan of the Tower, Queen of Scots, daughter of Edward II.; Isabel, daughter of Edward III.; Beatrice, daughter of Henry III.; and an extraordinary number of persons great and honorable in their day. What became of their monuments and of the church itself belongs to Tudor London.

All those who visit London are recommended by the guide-books to see the famous Blue-coat School. The main entrance is at the end of a narrow lane leading north from Newgate Street. On the right hand of the lane stands a great ugly pile built by Wren twenty years after the Great Fire. This is Christ Church, and it stands on part of the site of the old church of the Grey Friars. At the Dissolution, Henry VIII. made their church into a parish church, assigning to it the two parishes of St. Nicolas Shambles and St. Ewin, together with the ground occupied by the Monastery. The church within is as ugly as it is without. One shudders to think of the change from the great and splendid monastic church. On the other side of the lane is an open space, a church-yard now disused. The old church covered both this open space and the area of the modern church. Behind it stood the cloisters, the burial-ground, and the monastic buildings of the House, covering a great extent of ground. Those who go through the gate find themselves in a large quadrangle asphalted. This is now part of the boys' play-ground; their feet run every day over the old tombs and graves of the Grey Friars' burial-ground; the soil, though not accounted so sacred as that within the church itself, was considered greatly superior to that of any common church-yard. Most of the dead were buried in the habit of the Grey Friars, as if to cheat Peter into a belief of their sanctity. On the south of the quadrangle two or three arches may be observed. These are the only fragments remaining of the cloisters. The view of Christ's Hospital after the Great Fire of 1666 shows the old courts of the Abbey. The church formerly extended over the whole front of the picture; the buildings now seen are wholly modern; the cloistered square was the church-yard; the Hall stood across the north side of the first court; beyond were the courts appropriated to the service of the monks; the cells, libraries, etc., were round the great court and the small courts on the right. The Franciscan House is gone; the Friars are gone. Let us not think, however, that their work is gone. On the contrary, all that was good in it remains. That is the quality and the test of good work. It is imperishable. If you ask what is this work and where it may be found, look about you. In the prosperity of the City; in the energy, the industry, the courage, the soberness of its people; in whatever virtues they possess, the Franciscans have their share; the Grey Friars, who went straight at the people—the rough, common, ignorant people—and saved them from the destruction of those virtues which built up this realm of Britain. The old ideas change; what is to-day faith becomes to-morrow superstition; but the new order is built upon the old. It was a part of the training necessary for the English people that they should pass under the teaching of the Friars.

In the south-western corner of the City Wall were lodged the Dominicans or Black Friars.

These, the Preaching Friars, came to England two years before their rivals, the Franciscans. Their first settlement was in the country lane which now we call Chancery Lane. After a residence there of fifty years they removed to this corner of the town, which was, so to speak, made for them—that is, the City Wall which formerly ran straight from Ludgate to the river was pulled down and rebuilt farther west along the bank of the Fleet. Within the piece of ground thus added the Black Friars settled down, and because the ground had not formerly belonged to the City, it now became a Precinct of its own, enclosed by its own wall, with its four gates not amenable to the City and pretending to a right of Sanctuary. Edward I. and his Queen Eleanor were great benefactors to the Dominicans. Of the church and the stately buildings of the proud order not a trace remains. In the Guildhall Museum may be seen a drawing of some ruined vaults belonging to the Abbey, which were discovered on enlarging the premises of the Times some years ago. There is nothing above-ground. The Dominicans, however, never succeeded in winning the affections of the people to the same extent as the Franciscans. They were learned; they insisted strongly on doctrine; but they were harder of heart than the Grey Friars. It was the Dominicans who encouraged the planting of the Inquisition.

All these Houses were within the walls. Without were others, as rich and as splendid. South of Fleet Street, between Bridewell Palace and the Temple, was the House of the Carmelites, called the White Friars. These also were an Order of Mendicants. The Fratres BeatÆ MariÆ de Monte Carmelo sprang from the hermits who settled in numbers on the slopes of Mount Carmel. They were formed into an order by Almeric, Bishop of Antioch, and were first introduced into Europe about the year 1216, by Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem. They got their house in London from Edward I.; but their chief benefactor was Hugh Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire. They, too, had their Sanctuary, afterwards called Alsatia. This privilege was not abolished till the year 1697.

Beyond the Carmelites were the Templars, but the suppression of the Order removed them from the scene in the year 1310.

The Priories of St. Bartholomew and of St. John belong to Norman London. On the north of Bartholomew's, however, stood the house of the Carthusians. The Carthusian Order was a branch of the Benedictine Rule, to which the Cluniacs and Cistercians also belonged.

The house of the Salutation of the Mother of God—which was its full title—was founded in the year 1371 by Sir Walter Manny. Those who know their Froissart know that gallant Knight well and can testify to his achievements; how he entreated King Edward for the citizens of Calais; how he rescued the Countess of Montfort besieged in the castle of Hennebont, and, for his reward, was kissed—he and his companions—not once, but two or three times, by that brave lady; these and many other things can be told of this noble Knight. Not the least of his feats was the foundation of this House of Religion.

When we speak of the Plague of London we generally mean that of 1664-65. But this was only the last, and perhaps not the worst, of the many plagues which had visited the City. Thirteen great pestilences fell upon the City between the years 1094 and 1625—in the last year 35,000 died. That is to say, one plague happened about every forty years, so that there never was a time when a recent plague was not in the minds of men. Always they remembered the last visitation, the suddenness and swiftness of destruction, the desolation of houses, the striking down of young and old, the loss of the tender children, the sweet maidens, the gallant youth. Life is brief and uncertain at the best; but when the plague is added to the diseases which men expect, its uncertainty is forced upon the minds of the people of every condition with a persistence and a conviction unknown in quiet times when each man hopes to live out his three score years and ten.

In the year 1347 there happened a dreadful plague. It began in Dorsetshire and spread over the whole of the south country, reaching London last. After a while the church-yards were not large enough to hold the dead, and they were forced to enclose ground outside the walls. The Bishop of London, therefore, bought a piece of ground north of Bartholomew's, called No Man's Ground, which he enclosed and consecrated, building thereon a "fair chapel." This place was called the Pardon Church-yard. It stood, as those who know London will be interested to know, beyond the north wall of the present Charter House.

Two years later, the plague still continuing, Sir Walter Manny bought a plot of thirteen acres close to this church-yard, and built a chapel upon it—it stood somewhere in the middle of the present Charterhouse Square—and gave it for an additional church-yard. More than fifty thousand persons were buried here in one year, according to Stow; but the number is impossible, unless the whole of London died in that year. There used to be a stone cross standing in the church-yard with the following inscription:

Anno Domini 1349, regnante magna pestilentia, consecratum fuit hoc coemiterium in quo et infra septa presentis monasterii sepulta fuerunt mortuorum corpora plus quam quinquaginta millia praeter alia multa abhinc usque ad presens: quorum animabus propitietur Deus. Amen.

The old Pardon Church-yard afterwards became the burial-place of suicides and executed criminals. To this sad place the bodies of such were carried in a cart belonging to St. John's Hospital; the vehicle was hung over with black, but with a St. John's Cross in front, and within it hung a bell which rang with the jolting and the shaking of the cart—a mournful sight to see and a doleful sound to hear.

Twenty-two years later, when there had been upward of a hundred thousand persons buried in the new church-yard, Sir Walter Manny, now grown old and near his end, bought ten acres more, which he gave to the ground, and established here a House of Carthusians, called the Salutation. At first he thought of making a college for a warden, a dean, and twelve secular priests. On the advice, however, of Simon Sudbury, Bishop of London, he abandoned that project and established a House of Carthusians.

The Cistercian Order was founded by one Stephen Harding, originally a monk of Sherborne. He is said by William of Malmesbury to have left his convent and to have gone into France, where he practised "the Liberal arts" until he fell into repentance, and was received into the monastery of Molesmes, in Burgundy. Here he found a little company of the brethren who were not content with the Rule of the House, but desired instruction and a rule more in accordance with their Founder's intention. They seceded, therefore, and established themselves at Citeaux, then entirely covered with woods. This is their manner of life set forth by the Chronicler:

Certainly many of their regulations seem severe, and more particularly these: they wear nothing made with furs or linen, nor even that finely spun linen garment which we call Staminium;[8] neither breeches, unless when sent on a journey, which at their return they wash and restore. They have two tunics with cowls, but no additional garment in winter, though, if they think fit, in summer they may lighten their garb. They sleep clad and girded, and never after matins return to their beds; but they so order the time of matins that it shall be light ere the lauds[9] begin; so intent are they on their rule, that they think no jot or tittle of it should be disregarded. Directly after these hymns they sing the prime, after which they go out to work for stated hours. They complete whatever labor or service they have to perform by day without any other light. No one is ever absent from the daily services, or from complines, except the sick. The cellarer and hospitaller, after complines, wait upon the guests, yet observing the strictest silence. The abbat allows himself no indulgence beyond the others—everywhere present—everywhere attending to his flock; except that he does not eat with the rest, because his table is with the strangers and the poor. Nevertheless, be he where he may, he is equally sparing of food and speech; for never more than two dishes are served either to him or to his company; lard and meat never but to the sick. From the Ides of September till Easter, through regard for whatever festival, they do not take more than one meal a day, except on Sunday. They never leave the cloister but for purpose of labor, nor do they ever speak, either there or elsewhere, save only to the abbat or prior. They pay unwearied attention to the canonical[10] services, making no addition to them except for the defunct. They use in their divine service the Ambrosian chants[11] and hymns, as far as they were able to learn them at Milan. While they bestow care on the stranger and the sick, they inflict intolerable mortifications on their own bodies, for the health of their souls.

When we consider this death in life, this, suppression of everything which makes life, this annihilation of aims, ambitions, and natural affections, this destruction of love, emotion, and passion, this mere monotony of breathing, this wearisome futility and vanity, this endless iteration of Litanies; when we remember that hundreds of thousands in every Christian country, men and women, voluntarily entered upon this life, knowing beforehand what it was, and that they patiently endured it, we can in some measure realize the intensity and the reality of the torments which they believed to be provided for the vast majority of mankind. There grew up, in the course of years, rich monks and luxurious monks; but in the early days of each order there was the austerity of the Rule. And though here and there we find a brother who rises to a spiritual level far above the letter of his Order, the religion of the ordinary brother was little more than the fear of Hell, with a sense of gratitude to the Saints for snatching him out of the flames.

Most of the brethren, again, of the new and more austere Orders, until they became rich, were simple and illiterate. They wanted a rule of life which should give them no chance of committing sin; like women, they desired to be ruled in everything, even the most trivial. At dinner, for instance, they were enjoined to drink with both hands, and to incline the head when served; in church they were not to clinch their hands or to stretch out their legs; the whole day was mapped out for them as it is for boys at school. From primes (the daybreak service) till tierce, spiritual exercises; from tierce till sext, and from nones till vespers, manual labors; once every day private prayer at the altar; silence in the cell; to ask for what was wanted after nones; no conversation in the chapter, the cloisters, or the church; from November till Easter conversation on the customs of the Order; afterwards on the Gospels, and so on. The effect on the common nature would be to produce a breathing machine, incapable of thought, of action, of judgment, with no affections, emotions, or passions. The holy brotherhood becomes a troop of slaves engaged upon a round of trivial duties, kept at a low stage of vitality by scanty food and short sleep. They cease after a while to desire any change; they go on in meekness and submission to the end, their piety measured by their regularity. Now and then among them is found one who frets under the yoke. Either he wants new austerities, like Stephen Harding, or he rises in mad revolt, and before he can be suppressed commits such dreadful sins of rebellion and blasphemy as leave little doubt that after all his pains and privations his chances in the next world are no better than those of the foul-mouthed ruffler outside, whose life has been one long sin, whose death will be caused by a knife in a drunken fray, whose body will be carried in the black cart with the bell to Pardon Church-yard, and whose soul, most certainly, will be borne to its own place by the hands of the Devil to whom it belongs.

There must have been in every convent such times of madness and revolt, even though the vital powers were kept low with poor and scanty food. It is not every man who can be thus changed into a slave and a praying-machine. The noblest souls must break out from time to time; only the ignoble sink contentedly day by day into lethargic, passive, mechanical discharge of the rules; their mouths mechanically mumble the litanies; the sacredness falls out of the most holy acts and words by reason of their familiarity; they drop into second childhood in the vigor and strength of manhood. If the walls of the convent could speak, what tales would they tell of madness and despair and vain rage and drivelling idiocy! One thing, however, came to the relief of these poor men in every order; it was the gradual relaxation of the Rule, until, by the Dissolution, the laws of the Founder had passed into forms and words, and the House, enriched by benefactions, had become a pleasant club, consisting of none but gentlemen, where certain light duties removed the tedium of an idle life.

For two hundred years this House of the Salutation continued. There remains no record of that long period; no record at all. There is no history of those poor souls who lived their dreary lives within its walls. The monks obeyed the Rule and died and were forgotten. Nay, they had been forgotten since the day when they assumed the hood. The end of the Carthusians came in blood and prison and torture; but that belongs to Tudor London.

The accompanying view (p. 130) of the Charter House after the Dissolution, and when Sutton had altered it for his new Foundation, is useful in showing the arrangement of the older monastic buildings. Chapel, cloisters, courts, bowling green, kitchen garden, and "wilderness" are all exactly as the monks left them, though most of the buildings are of later date. The founder, Sir Walter, lived to see only the commencement of his work. He died the year after his House was established, and was buried in the chapel, he and his wife Margaret, and many other gallant knights and gracious ladies, who thus acknowledged, when they chose to be laid among the dust and ashes of the poor folk who had died of the plague and those who had died by the gibbet, their brotherhood with the poorest and the humblest and the most unfortunate.

The modern visitor to London, when he has seen great St. Bartholomew's, is taken up a street hard by. Here, amid mean houses and shops of the lower class, he sees standing across the road St. John's Gate, a place already as well known to him and as frequently figured as St. Paul's itself. This is the gate—and it is nearly all that is left—of the great Priory of St. John of Jerusalem.

It was founded in the year 1100, and therefore belongs to Norman London. Its founder was Jordan Briset, a Baron of the Realm, and Muriel, his wife. They had already founded a priory for nuns close by Clerkenwell. A church of some kind was certainly built at the beginning, but the great Priory Church, one of the most splendid in London, was not dedicated till the year 1185, and then by no less a person than by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, then in England in quest of aid and money for another Crusade.

In its Foundation the brethren took the vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty. They were to have a right to nothing but bread, water, and clothes. They begged their food; on Wednesdays and Fridays they fasted; a breach of their first vow was punished by public flogging and penance; no women were to do any offices at all for them; they were to be silent, never to go about alone; they were to be the servants of the sick and poor; they were valiantly to defend the Cross. "Receive," says the ritual of admission, "the yoke of the Lord: it is easy and light, and thou shalt find rest for thy soul. We promise thee nothing but bread and water, a simple habit of little worth. We give thee, thy parents and relations, a share in the good works performed by our Order and by our brethren, both now and hereafter, throughout the world. We place, O brother, this cross upon thy breast, that thou mayest love it with all thy heart, and may thy right hand ever fight in its defence! Should it happen that in fighting against the enemies of the faith thou shouldest desert the standard of the Cross and take to flight, thou wilt be stripped of the holy sign according to the statutes and customs of the Order, as having broken its vows, and thou wilt be cut off from our body."

This poor, valiant, and ascetic society became in two hundred years enormously rich and luxurious. By its pride and its tyranny it had incurred the most deadly hatred of the common people, as is shown by their behavior during the insurrection of Wat Tyler and John Bull. The first step of the rebels in Essex was to destroy a fair manor-house belonging to the Knights Hospitallers, and to devour and waste the stores of food, wine, and clothes contained in it. On their way to London they destroyed another manor belonging to the Knights, that of Highbury. After they had burned and pillaged Lambeth and the Savoy, they went in a body to St. John's Priory and destroyed the whole of the buildings, church and all. And they seized and beheaded the Grand Prior, who was also Treasurer of the Realm. The church soon rose again, and the monastic buildings were replaced with more than the ancient splendor, and the luxury of the Knights was in no way diminished by this disaster. The Gate itself, part of the later buildings, now belongs to the English Knights of St. John, who have established an ambulance station close beside it and maintain a hospital at Jerusalem. The very beautiful crypt of the church still stands and may be visited. Part of the walls of the mean modern church also belongs to the old church.

On the north side of the Priory and adjacent to it lay the twin Foundation of Briset, the Priory of Black Nuns. Its church, at the Dissolution, became the Parish Church of St. James Clerkenwell. Jordan Briset and his wife were buried in this church.

The Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem was situated at first outside Bishopsgate, close to St. Botolph's Church. This ancient Foundation, of which our Bethlehem Hospital is the grandchild, was endowed by one Simon Fitz Mary, Sheriff in the year 1247. It was designed for a convent, the monks being obliged to receive and entertain the Bishop of Bethlehem or his nuncio whenever either should be in London. It is said to have become a hospital within a few years of its foundation. In the year 1347 the brethren were all engaged in collecting alms. This was one of the lesser Houses, though it survived the rest and became the great and splendid Foundation which still exists. A little farther north, and on the opposite side of Bishopsgate Street, stood the great House of St. Mary Spital—Domus Dei et BeatÆ Virginis—founded in the year 1197 by Walter Brune and Rosia his wife. It was originally a Priory of Canons Regular. At some time in its history, I know not when, it was converted into a hospital, like its neighbor of Bethlehem. It would be interesting to learn when this change became even possible. It must have been long after its foundation, when the old prayer-machine theory had lost something of its earliest authority, and, in the face of the mass of human suffering, men began to ask whether the machinery engaged in iterating litanies might not be made more useful in the alleviation of suffering. For whatever cause, the House of God and the Blessed Virgin became St. Mary Spital, and at the time of the Dissolution there were no fewer than one hundred and eighty beds in the House. Near St. Mary Spital was Holywell Nunnery. On the south side of Aldgate, outside the wall, stood the famous Abbey of St. Clare, called the Minories, founded by Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, in the year 1293, for the reception of certain nuns brought over by his wife, Blanche, Queen of Navarre, who were professed to serve God, the Blessed Virgin, and St. Francis.

There is a church, one of the meanest and smallest of all the London churches, standing in the ugliest and dreariest part of the City, called the Church of the Holy Trinity, Minories, which is often visited by Americans because the arms of Washington are to be seen here; and by antiquaries, because the head of the Duke of Suffolk, executed on Tower Hill, is preserved here. The north wall of this church is part of the wall of the Clare Sisters' Church, and is all that remains in that squalid place of the noble Foundation.

Sir Walter Manny's Carthusian House was not the only Foundation arising out of the great Plague of 1348. On the north-east of the Tower arose at the same time a very stately House, dedicated to the Honor of God and the Lady of Grace. It began exactly in the same way as the Carthusians', by the purchase of a piece of ground in which to bury those who died of the plague. John Corey, Clerk, first bought the ground, calling it the Church-yard of the Holy Trinity. One Robert Elsing gave five pounds, and other citizens contributing, the place was enclosed and a chapel built on it. Then Edward III., remembering a certain vow made during a certain tempest at sea, in which he was only saved by the miraculous interposition of the Virgin Mary herself, built here a monastery which he called the House and King's Free Chapel of the Blessed Virgin of Grace—"in memoriam Gratiarum." The House obtained the Manor of Gravesend and other rich benefactions. There is little history that I have discovered belonging to it. The people commonly called it either New Abbey or Eastminster, and when it was surrendered its yearly value was £546, equivalent to about £10,000 a year as prices now obtain.

On the south side of Thames, besides St. Mary Overies already noticed, there were two great Houses.

The first of these, St. Thomas's Hospital, was founded in the year 1213 by Richard, Prior of Bermondsey, for converts and poor children. He called it the Almery. Two years afterwards the Bishop of Winchester, Peter de Rupibus, now founded the place for Canons Regular. After the Dissolution it was purchased by the City of London for a hospital for the sick and poor.

The second, Bermondsey Abbey, though founded as early as 1081 by one Alwyn Childe, Citizen, and probably one of Fitz Stephen's thirteen conventual churches, and a most interesting House from many points of view, hardly comes within our limits. Portions of the Abbey were standing until the beginning of this century. All the then existing remains were figured by Wilkinson; I have not been able to find a fragment of it now remaining above-ground. Underground, vaults, arches, and crypts undoubtedly remain, and will be discovered from time to time as excavations are made for new buildings. These great Houses, all richly endowed with broad manors, devoured a good part of the whole country. Their schools, their learning, and their charities are matters of sentiment if not of history. For the time came when the school should become free of the monastery, and when the vast estates formed for the benefit of the monks should pass into the hands of the community. Charity to the poor is a thing beautiful in itself; better than to relieve the poor is to lessen the necessity of poverty.

But this long list of great Houses by no means exhausts the list. Besides these of the City, within it or else around it, were many others, not so rich, yet well endowed. He, for instance, who walks along the broad highway of Whitechapel and Mile End, if he continues his walk, presently arrives at a most interesting and venerable church. It is quite small, with a low tower; it stands in the middle of the road, and has a long, narrow church-yard, cigar-shaped, before and behind it. This is the Church of St. Mary, or Bow Church. It was formerly the Church of a nunnery founded at Stratford-le-Bow by William the Conqueror; it was augmented by Stephen, enriched by Henry II. and Richard I., and it lasted till the Dissolution. Let us remember that every new endowment of a monastic House meant the sequestration of so many acres of land; they were taken from the country and given to the Church; they could never be sold; the tenants could never acquire property or rise in the world; all the lands owned by convents, churches, or colleges were lands withdrawn forever (as it seemed) from the healthy change and chance of private property.

I do not think that Bow Church is mentioned in any of the London hand-books. There is yet another and a much more important and interesting Foundation which, I believe, is not recommended by any guide-book to the visitor. Yet Waltham Abbey Church is a place of the greatest interest. It may almost be ranked with Winchester, Westminster, Canterbury, Caen, and Fontevrault as regards historic interest. Moreover, it is at this day a place of singular beauty, and is approached, by one who is well advised and can give up to the visit a whole afternoon and evening, by a most beautiful walk. The name Waltham has been explained as the place of the wall. In that case, here was a "waste chester," a fortified enclosure found by the East Saxons when they overran the country, and left by them, as they left so many other places, to fall into decay. It seems most likely, however, that the name is Wealdham, the place of the forest.

The history of Waltham begins with a famous wedding feast. It is that of Tofig, the Royal Standard-bearer, and it caused the death of a king, because Hardeknut at this feast drank himself to death. The great Danish Thane built here a hunting lodge, the place being built in the midst of a mighty forest, of which vestiges remain to this day at Hampstead, Hornsey, and Epping. Now, Tofig held lands in Somersetshire as well as in Middlesex. And at a place called Lutgarsbury, which is now Montacute (mons acutus), a singular peaked hill, there lived a smith, who was moved in a dream to dig for a certain cross which, it was revealed to him, lay buried underground. He did so, and was rewarded by finding a splendid cross of black marble covered with silver and set with precious stones. When he had found it, he naturally thought it his duty to convey it to the nearest great monastery. In these days quite another course would suggest itself to the fortunate rustic. This smith of Lutgarsbury, therefore, placed the cross on the cart, and informed the oxen that he was going to drive them to Glastonbury, that holy House sacred to the memory of Joseph of Arimathea himself, and illustrious for its thorn flowering in midwinter. Miracle! The oxen refused to move. The parish priest, called in to advise, suggested Canterbury, only second to Glastonbury in sanctity. Still these inspired animals refused to move. Perhaps Winchester might be tried. There they had the bones of St. Swithin. No, not even to Winchester would they carry the cross. "Then," said the priest, "let them carry the cross to your master, Tofig, at Waltham." Strange to say, though Waltham had no special sanctity, the intelligent creatures immediately set off with the greatest alacrity in the direction of Waltham, a hundred and fifty miles away, and reached it after a ten days' journey, bearing the cross safely.

The story is preserved in a tract, De Inventione SanctÆ Crucis Walthamensis, and must be believed by all the faithful. Thane Tofig showed his sense of what was due to a miracle by building a church for the reception of the cross, and appointing two canons to serve the church. It is also said that at least sixty persons were cured by means of this miraculous cross, and that many of them continued to live near the church in order to testify to its powers. When, a few years later, Harold obtained possession of the estate, he built a larger and more splendid church on the site, and placed twelve instead of two canons in it, with a dean and school-master. The church was consecrated in the year 1060, in the presence of King Edward and Edith his Queen. On his way south to meet William, Harold stopped to pray before the cross. While he prayed, the head on the cross, which had before looked upward, bent forward, and so remained downcast. On the field of Senlac, Harold's cry was "The Holy Cross."

The body of the dead King was brought to the church and buried in the chancel. Only the nave remains, but there still stretches to the east a green space which was once the chancel, and somewhere under this green lawn lies the body of the last Saxon king.

William the Conqueror spared the Foundation. Henry II. replaced Harold's canons by monks of Rule. He is said to have rebuilt the church, but this is doubted. Probably some of the existing part, the nave, contains Harold's work, which was already Norman in character. When, in 1307, the body of Edward I. was brought from the north to be buried in Westminster, it lay for seventeen days in the Abbey Church of Waltham. And the place is full of historical memories, not only of kings, but of worthies. Cranmer here advised Henry VIII. concerning his divorce. Thomas Fuller here wrote his Church History. Foxe here wrote his Book of the Martyrs. The church now stands on the north side of a small and rather mean town; it is in the midst of a large church-yard planted with yew-trees, and set with benches for the old to sit among the tombs. The grave of King Harold, somewhere under the turf, has over it the circled firmament instead of the lofty arch; instead of the monkish litanies it hears the song of the lark and thrush; instead of the whisper and the hushed footfall of the priests there is the voice of the children playing in the town and the multitudinous sound of work in the streets hard by. A happy exchange!

In the Old Jewry there was established by Henry III.—a Jewish synagogue being their first house—a branch of a very singular order—the Fratres de Penitenti Jesu or Fratres de SaccÂ. They were mendicants of the Franciscan Rule, and were dressed in sackcloth to denote their poverty and their penitence. It was another and one of the last endeavors after a return to the early zeal and the first poverty of the Order. For a time the new brotherhood enjoyed considerable popularity; Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward I., took them under her protection and endowed the synagogue, which was all they had, with lands and houses. Unhappily the Council of Lyons, 1274, ordered that there should be recognized no other mendicant friars except the Dominicans, the Minorites, the Carmelites, and the Augustines. So one supposes that these Brothers, just as they were getting comfortable in their synagogue, and beginning to reap the fruits of their austerities, had to turn out again, because no one was allowed to give them anything, and so went back to the common Orders, who would not allow even the wearing of the sackcloth. One is sorry for the poor men so proud of their sackcloth and with such encouraging recognition already won.

Again, there is not much in the modern Church of St. Giles in the Fields to suggest the past—a large stone church with a church-yard, standing in a miserable district, which for two hundred years has been the haunt of criminals and vagabonds. Yet here was one of the very earliest Houses of piety and charity. Here was perhaps the earliest hospital founded in this land of Britain. It was instituted by Queen Maud, wife of Henry I., as a lazar-house for lepers and other poor sick men. What became of the lepers when there was no house for them? They crept into empty hovels; they perished miserably, outcast, neglected. So long as they were strong enough to creep out they begged their bread; when they could no longer crawl, they lay down and died. Thanks to the good Queen, some of them, at least, were cared for in their last days. A sweet fragrance of thanksgiving lingers still about the slums of St. Giles. The poor lepers who lie buried in that squalid church-yard still uplift a voice of praise for those who remember the sick and all that are desolate and sore oppressed.

Nor is there at Charing Cross much to remind the visitor of the past. Yet here was a Foundation somewhat unusual of its kind. It was an "alien" House. The Chapel, Hospital, or House of St. Mary Rounceval was founded by William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, who gave certain tenements to the Prior of Rounceval, or de Roscida Valle, in the Diocese of Pampeluna, Navarre. It was a House for eleven brethren. Henry IV. suppressed all alien priories, this among the rest, but it was restored by Edward IV. as a Fraternity. After the Dissolution the site of the House was used by the Earl of Northampton for the palace which, under the name of Northumberland House, stood until the other day, the last of the river-side palaces.

Other great Houses are sometimes reckoned as London Houses, such as those of Barking, Wimbledon, Merton, and Chertsey; but these are outside our limits. Nor can I touch here upon any of the religious Foundations of Westminster.

We have seen that when we lay down the monastic establishments upon the map, they occupy a very considerable part of the area within the walls. But when we consider, in addition, the great number of smaller Foundations, the colleges, hospitals, and fraternities with Houses, the parish churches and the church-yards, we shall begin to understand that the space required for ecclesiastical buildings alone in the confined area of a mediÆval town gives a very fair idea of the power and authority of the Church.

After the Monasteries come the Colleges, so called, by which we must not understand seats of learning, but colleges of priests. There were several of these:

First, that of St. Thomas of Acon. The college was founded by Agnes, sister of Thomas À Becket. She endowed it with her father's property in London. It stood on the site of the present Mercers' Chapel, and was built on the spot where the new saint was born. The Mercers' Chapel, however, occupies only a portion of the splendid church which was destroyed in the Great Fire. The Foundation received many endowments, and at the Dissolution its income was nearly £300 a year, equal to twenty times as much of modern money. The City, naturally proud of its saint, observed a curious annual function in connection with this college. On the afternoon of the day when he was sworn at the Exchequer, the new Lord Mayor, with the Aldermen, met at this chapel and thence proceeded to St. Paul's, where first they prayed for the soul of Bishop William—who had been Bishop of London in the time of William the Conqueror. This done, they repaired to the tomb of Gilbert À Becket, in Pardon Church-yard, and there prayed for all faithful souls departed. Then they returned to St. Thomas Acon and made an offering. Nothing is said about the evening, but one hopes that the day was concluded in the cheerful manner common at all times with London citizens.

Next, the College of Whittington.

This noble and wealthy merchant rebuilt the Church of St. Michael, called Paternoster in the Royal, and attached to it a College of St. Spirit and St. Mary for a master, from fellows, clerks, conducts, and choristers, together with an almshouse for thirteen poor men. They were all bound to pray for the soul of Sir Richard Whittington and his wife, Dame Alice; also for those of Sir William Whittington and Dame Joan, his wife, the parents of the founder. The college was swept away at the Dissolution; the almshouse remained and was rebuilt after the Fire. They are now removed to Highgate, but a conventual feeling still lingers about the buildings at the back of the church.

Then follows St. Michael's College, Crooked Lane.

Sir William Walworth, the valiant Mayor who killed Wat Tyler, founded a college of one master and nine chaplains to say mass in St. Michael's Church, the choir and the aisles of which he rebuilt.

And there was also Jesus Commons.

This Foundation seems to have resembled that of All-Souls, Oxford, in that its fellows had no duties to perform except the services of their chapel. It is described as a fair house in Dowgate (no doubt built round a small quadrangle), well furnished with everything and containing a good library, all for the use of those who lived there—a peaceful, quiet place, without any history. One thinks of the day when it had to be dissolved, and the poor old priests, who had lived so long in the house, were driven forth into the streets. Not even submission to the king's supremacy could save the tenants of Jesus Commons. The house itself was pulled down and tenements built in its place.

A somewhat similar House was a small and very interesting Foundation called the Papey. It was a college for poor and aged priests. In any old map the church called St. Augustine Papey may be seen at the north end of St. Mary Axe nestled under the wall, with a piece of ground adjoining, which may have been a garden and may have been a burial-ground. We find the poor old priests taking part in funerals, and, I daresay, in any other function by which their slender provision might be augmented.

Next to the Colleges come the Hospitals. St. Bartholomew's, most ancient and richest, belongs to Norman London.

One who walks along the street called London Wall will chance upon a church-yard, on the north side of which still stands a fragment of the old wall. This church-yard, narrow and small, is surrounded on three sides by warehouses; on the fourth side it looks upon the street. On the other side of the street is a large block of warehouses, the monument of a most disgraceful and shameful act of vandalism. On this spot stood Elsing Spital. It was founded in the year 1329 as a priory and hospital for the maintenance of a hundred blind men by one William Elsing, its first Prior. On the dissolution of the religious houses, Elsing's Spital surrendered with the rest, and was dissolved. What became of the blind men is not known. Then they took the fine Priory Church, and having pulled down the north aisle—on the site of which houses were built—they converted the rest of the church into the parish church of St. Alphege, which had previously stood in Cripplegate. The site of the old church was turned into a carpenter's yard. The porch of St. Alphege remains of the ancient buildings. Of Sion College, which in course of time succeeded Elsing's Spital, we will speak in another place.

That splendid Foundation which rears its wards on the south of the Thames, over against the Houses of Parliament, St. Thomas's Hospital, was founded in 1313 as an almery, or house of alms for converts and poor children; but two years later the House was refounded on a much larger scale. After the Dissolution, its site, then in Southwark, was purchased by the citizens of London. To sum up, London was as well provided with hospitals in the fourteenth century as it was with convents and religious houses. They were St. Bartholomew's, Elsing Spital, St. Giles Cripplegate, St. Mary Spital, St. Mary of Bethlehem, St. Thomas Southwark, and the Lazar House of Southwark.

These hospitals, it must be borne in mind, were all religious Foundations governed by brethren of some Order. Religion ruled all. From the birth of the child to the death of the man religion, the forms, duties, and obedience due to religion, attended every one. No one thought it possible that it could be otherwise. The emancipation of mankind from the thrall of the Church, incomplete to the present day, had then hardly yet begun. All learning, all science, all the arts, all the professions, were in the hands of the Church. It is very easy to congratulate ourselves upon the removal of these chains. Yet they were certainly a necessary part of human development. Order, love of law, respect for human life, education in the power of self-government, such material advance as prepared the way—all these things had to be taught. No one could teach them or enforce them but the priest, by the authority and in the wisdom of the Church. On the whole, he did his best. At the darkest time the Church was always a little in advance of the people; the Church at the lowest preserved some standard of morals, and of conduct; and even if the standard was low, why, it was higher than that of the laity.

When we see the Franciscans preaching to the people; the Carthusians cowering silent and gloomy in their cells; the Dominicans insisting on the letter of the Faith; kings and queens and great lords trying to get buried in the holy soil of a monastery church—let us recognize that, out of this discipline emerged the Londoner of Queen Bess, eager for adventure and for enterprise; the Londoner who was so stout for liberty that he drove out one king and then another king, and set aside a dynasty for the sacred cause; the Londoner of our own time, who is no whit inferior to his forefathers.

One other form of religious society must be mentioned—that of the Fraternity. There were Fraternities attached to every church. Those of the same trade in a parish—those of the same trade in many parishes—united together in a Fraternity—of the Blessed Virgin, of the Holy Trinity, of the Corpus Christi, of Saint this or that. All the Danes in London joined together to make a Fraternity—or all the Dutch. All the fish-mongers, or all the pepperers; they formed Fraternities—not yet trades-unions or companies—which had masses sung for the souls of their brethren; met in the churches on their Saint's Day; had solemn service and a procession and a feast. It is only by such a bond as this that any calling or trade can become dignified, self-respecting, and independent. The Fraternities were founded, for the most part, before the Companies. These could not have existed at all but for the impetus to union given by the Fraternities. Common action—the most important discovery ever made for the common welfare—was made possible, among those who would otherwise have been torn asunder by rivalries and trade jealousies, by the Fraternities.

Among the thirty-one who formed the goodly company which pilgrimized to Canterbury with Chaucer, twelve belonged to the Church. Was this proportion accidental? I think not. Chaucer placed in his company such a proportion of ecclesiastics as would be expected on such an occasion. The portraits of Chaucer are taken from the life: he saw them in the streets of London; in the houses; in the churches. It helps us to understand the City, only to read those portraits over again. Are they so well known that it is superfluous to do more than refer to them? Perhaps not. Let us take them briefly. There is the Prioress, who has with her a nun for chaplain and three priests. She is a gentlewoman, smiling, coy, dainty in her habits and in her dress; she is tender-hearted and fond of pets; the nun's wimple is plaited; on her arm she wears beads with a gold brooch—

She is lively, affectionate, and amiable, but she affects dignity as a Prioress should. Clearly the superior of an Order whose vows are not too strict, and whose austerities respect the weakness of the sex. Who does not know, at the present day, hundreds of gentle maiden ladies who might sit for the portrait of the Prioress?

Then comes the Limitour, one who held the Bishop's license to hear confessions, and to officiate within a certain district. This fellow is everybody's friend so long as he gets paid: the country gentlemen like him, and the good wives like him, because he hears confessions sweetly, and enjoins easy penance; he could sing and play; he could drink; he knew all the taverns; he was to appearance a merry, careless toper; in reality, he was courteous only to the rich, and thought continually about his gains. He kept his district to himself, buying off those who tried to practise within his limits. A natural product, the Limitour, of a time when outward forms make up all the religion that is demanded.

The Oxford Clerk has no benefice because he has no interest. All the money that he got he spent in books; his horse was lean; he himself was lean and hollow. He travels to foreign universities in order to converse with scholars.

The Monk was a big, brawny man, bald-headed, and his robe was trimmed with fur; a great hunter who kept greyhounds and had many horses. He was fat and in good point; he loved a fat swan best of any roast; he wore a gold pin with a love knot. Obedience to the Rules of his Order is not, it seems, ever expected of such a man.

The Town Parson, of low origin, a learned man who loved his people, and was content with poverty, and gave all to the poor, and was ever at their service in all weathers. The picture of the good clergyman might serve for to-day. His parish was wide, but he went about

The Sompnour, or Summoner, an officer of the Ecclesiastical courts, is only half an ecclesiastic. His portrait is pure farce.

Lastly, there is the Pardoner. He is the hypocrite. He carried sham relics about with him, and sold pigs' bones for precious and holy remains warranted to heal sheep and cattle, to bring good harvests, to prolong life, to bring increase of sowing.

If such pictures as these could be drawn and freely circulated, the first step was taken towards the Reformation. Only the first step. Before Reformation comes there must be more than the clear eyes of the prophets able to see and to proclaim the truth. The eyes of the people must be washed so that they, too, can discern the truth behind these splendid vestments and this gorgeous structure of authority.

Such, so great, was the power and the wealth of the Church from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. Every street had its parish church with charities and Fraternities and endowments; colleges, Houses for priests, almeries, hospitals, were scattered all about the City; within and without the wall there were fifteen great Houses, whose splendor can only be understood by the ruins of Tintern, Glastonbury, Fountains, or Whitby. Every House was possessed of rich manors and broad lands; every House had its treasury filled with title-deeds as well as with heaps of gold and silver plate; every House had its church crowded with marble monuments, adorned with rich shrines and blazing altars and painted glass, such as we can no longer make. Outside, the humblest parish church showed on its frescoed walls the warnings of Death and Judgment, the certainty of Heaven and Hell. And they thought—priest and people alike—that it was all going to last forever. Humanity had no other earthly hope than a continuance of the bells of l'Ile Sonnante.

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