tance, but I have not found anything to confirm Walbran's description of him as "Prior."

This book is a volume at present consisting of 118 leaves, size about 8 by 5 inches. The first three leaves are not numbered, then come leaves numbered in the original hand on the verso of each, 1, 2, 3, to 110, 102 being repeated, then in tens, 120 to 190, then, on the recto of each, 200, 201, 202, then eleven leaves not numbered. For present convenience all the leaves after 110 are now numbered in pencil consecutively down to 132, the last fifteen leaves being lost, as was noticed by Walbran in 1861; the actual number is, as stated above, 118. Capital letters from A to S are set on the tops of the leaves, A on 1 to 12, B on 12 to 24, and so on; the intention appears to have been to enter places under their initial letters, Aldfield under A, Baldersby under B, and so on, but this plan has not been adhered to with any consistency after the first few pages.

The cover is similar to that of the Bursars' book, but it is fast on, and the leaves are in good preservation. On the outside is written "Fountains Receipts & Disbursements, about the year 1454-No. 25." In the lining of the end cover is some interesting church music, some further particulars of which will be found on pp. 254, 255. Mr. Walbran has given a good account of the contents of this book in Vol. i, 149, note, and in Vol. ii, 104; they are of a very miscellaneous kind, and not written in an orderly fashion. The dates range from 1446 to 1458, thus beginning ten years earlier and ending one year earlier than the Bursars' books. The years are almost always expressed in Arabic figures, the units and tens only being given. These figures are sometimes used in the castings up, the pounds being expressed by three dots, the shillings by two, and the pence by one, thus, 3: 9: 7 ō, £3 98. 74d. The items are often 'run on continuously, not written clearly in columns, as they always are in the Bursars' books. All the accounts in both books are printed continuously in this volume, in order to economise space. In accordance with the general practice of the Surtees Society, contractions have, as a rule, been expanded, but in many cases it is impossible to

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say how a word would have been written if not contracted. Such words, therefore, have either been printed in some contracted form, or expanded conjecturally, and the printed forms represent nothing but what the Editor has thought most likely or convenient. When a word occurs again and again on the same page, being repeated, perhaps, in every line, it has seemed sufficient to print it in a contracted form, after giving it in full in the same connexion. So again it has seemed sufficient to print common Christian names in some shortened form, in order to save space. My own opinion is that all MSS. ought to be printed with the original contractions and not "expanded" in any case. The same opinion was expressed by the late Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy in 1878, in his Preface to the Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense. As he observes, 'Some erroneous extensions of abbreviated words are ludicrous, and show the danger of attempting to extend contracted words." And he gives a page and a half of examples of mistakes committed by Dugdale and other learned editors. It is said that very few people would read a document printed with contractions. I think that anyone who cared to read a Latin document at all might soon learn to read it with contractions, and would not be misled by wrong expansions.

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If we now compare the two books, we shall find that the Bursars' book is very neatly written in a regular, clerkly hand, as clear as print or a liturgical MS. This MS., as has been shown above, is in some parts defective. The Memorandum book is untidily written, but it is in sound condition; some leaves, however, have been purposely cut out. It is mainly concerned with dealings between Swynton and the Abbey servants and tenants, and it shows that wages were often paid, and rents, etc., received, in kind, as by live stock, textiles, etc., the estimated value being set down in money. Thus a debtor and creditor account was kept with each servant or tenant. Dealings of a similar kind appear to have been usual in Scotland in recent times. In a modern story, a minister relates his experience with the "merchant" who bought the spare produce of his glebe. "No money," he says, passed between us. It was a case of giffgaff, he receiving butter, eggs,

chickens and sometimes vegetables, and giving us their value in bread, groceries, feeding-stuffs, and seeds." 1

The whole of the period covered (1446-1459) comes within the time of Abbot John Grenewell, 1442-1470, and so within the reigns of Henry VI and Edward IV. The Bursars' book contains many records of the expenses incurred for the Abbot.2 In 1457-8 he went to Woburn and to Meaux, both daughter houses of Fountains, for the creation of new abbots, and from Woburn he went to Oxford to make provision for study, in probable connexion with which we note an allowance of £5 a year to a student. In the same year occurs a payment of 20s. 9d. at the baptism of a son of John Paslew, also 18d. to a man hired to show the Abbot the way, apparently to Crosthwaite. The Memorandum book records a payment of 2d. to one Tyrqwyte, who, when the Abbot went to Harlsey, in 1453-4, to baptise the son of Sir James Strangways, showed the party the way through a wood, and in the following year there were expenses at Ripon for the baptism of the son of Roger Ward. It appears to have been usual then, as now, to secure the services of great ecclesiastics either to baptise or to act as sponsors for the children of their friends. The Nevilles and the Percys were glad to engage the Priors of Durham for such occasions. Abbot Grenewell was perhaps at times in poor health, if we may judge from the many delicacies and medicines that were bought for him, as for instance, oysters, partridges, quails, pulvis vitalis, pulvis pestilenciæ, unguents, liquorice, and other medicines not described, as well as certain utensils. Some of these things were brought by messengers as presents, as also venison, fowls, apples, pears, plums, etc. The Prior of Newminster, another daughter house of Fountains, brought a present of "seal fish." Both "seal fish and porpoises occur in the Durham accounts, and were not, perhaps, considered to come under the Benedictine and Cistercian pro

144 Janet Armstrong," by Joseph Laing Waugh, in Chambers's Journal, Dec. 1st, 1916, p. 786.

2 See Index, under Abbot.

3 Bede relates how St. Cuthbert and his companions, when on travel and under stress of hunger, found "tria frusta delfininæ carnis": the metrical Life says Thre peces of porpas thar thai fande," 1. 1769.

b

hibition of the flesh of quadrupeds. Birds were not prohibited, and we find that they, as well as fish, were often procured, even during Lent. One may wonder how the flesh of marine mammalia could be made eatable, unless under conditions of Polar starvation, but medieval cookery books contain directions for the cooking and spicing of porpoise.1 And "seal fish" was specially provided for the Prior of Durham, as well as sent to the Abbot of Fountains. The Abbot was supplied with raisins, figs and nuts, and with vinum dulce and other wines; moreover, on one occasion at least, with panis inunctus, probably what we now call "bread and butter." On another occasion 500 sprottes were bought for him for 14d. These may have been cured sprats, or else fresh smelts; the quantity suggests the former as more likely. From time to time the Abbot sojourned at his manors and granges. He and his retinue were once at Baldersby manor for three weeks, and at another time he was at Brimham, supplied with fowls, etc., on the spot, and having his wine from the Abbey.

We have very few references to the church or its furniture; these matters would be in the special care of the sacrist, but we find mention of many subordinate buildings, the aula hiemalis, the lardarium hiemale, the coquina abbatis, the new dovecot, the barkhouse and bark-mill, the malt-mill, the smeltmill, the stabulum carectariæ, the stabulum parvum juxta stabulum commune, the porcaria or piggery, the lanaria or woolhouse, the rotaria or wheelwright's shop, mention also of mills and of smoke-houses (domus fumosa) at several granges. There is no mention of a slaughter-house, or of a butcher; sheep and

1 In the Daily Mail of February 19, 1918, appeared a letter from Mr. Herbert G. Ponting, F.R.G.S., in which he deprecates the waste of three or four hundred thousand carcases of seals this year, and the loss of so much valuable food to a hungry world. He writes from personal knowledge as follows:

"The fur seal is well known to be of much finer flavour than the hair seal, yet I have lived on the flesh of the latter for many months in the Antarctic and liked it well. A steak from a young hair seal is excellent, and I should certainly relish one to-day. As for fried seal's liver, like Kipling's fat-tailed sheep, He who never hath tasted the food, by Allah! he knoweth not bad from good.'.. And what about whale meat? I have often eaten it in Japan. It is delicious, not unlike juicy beef. Neither seal nor whale meat has the least trace of fishy taste."

Twelve porpoises and seals are mentioned in the provision for the installation feast of Abp. Neville in 1466.

cattle are constantly referred to in Swynton's book as being for the kitchen, or being sent to the kitchen, and hides, etc., coming from the kitchen, and it seems probable that they were killed in a yard adjoining, and the carcases and hides hung under the pentises therein. I am not aware that a slaughterhouse has ever been identified in any ancient monastic plan.

The mills were mostly water-mills, but there is mention of a windmill somewhere in the country. A hospitium at York is referred to more than once. On the occasion of an assize, Swynton and another had to remain at York for five days," in hospicio nostro." Mr. Walbran was doubtful whether these words referred to an inn, or to a house of their own (Vol. i, 149n). But we now find that the bursar paid for a pavement repairing at York, and for "hespes," also for a candelabrum, and for mowing at Thorpe, pro hospicio Ebor., whence it would appear that the hospice belonged to the Abbey. The wife of Tho. Jacson may have been the housekeeper, and there was also a cook at York.

Cottages, sheds, and other less important buildings were mostly constructed of timber, or of wattle and daub, and were thatched, but Swynton mentions 3,000 "sclates " (Yorkshire slates no doubt) being sent to Brangerhouse, and the same number to Galphayhouse; these houses would probably be stone-built. The Abbey church and principal monastic buildings would be roofed with lead.

For some time before the middle of the fifteenth century, the Cistercians had done away with their original institution of conversi or lay brethren, who were occupied in servile labours, and the monks employed, instead of them, a large staff of paid servants. At the end of the Memorandum book is a list of 117 Fountains servants in about 1456; here their names and particular occupations are set down. In the Bursars' book we have further information about them under the heads of Stipendia Operariorum, and Mercedes Famulorum, and Forestariorum, and it may be sufficient here to refer to these lists. The Abbot, the Prior, and other chief officers, had servants of their own, paid by the Abbey. All were men 1 Described in Hope's Fountains Abbey, p. 101.