Mr. George Tate on the Fame Islands. 247 



" two pots/' which, however, were stolen in a.d. 1430. One cup 

 they had which must have been a valued relic — a cup of *' mur " 

 or maple hooped with silver and gold, reported to have belonged 

 to St. Cuthbert. The monks had " trensors, horn spungs, zet- 

 lings, zett pans, frying pannes, kettills, kytts,'' which are still 

 household words in Northumbrian cottages. They lived well, 

 and their extensive culinary apparatus proves that cooking 

 formed no unimportant part of the business of life. Coals, from an 

 early period, had been probably their principal fuel, for though 

 they had a right for peats both from " Howburne '^ and " Dich- 

 end,'' there is no evidence of their having exercised it ; but in 

 the first account there is an entry for 20 chaldrons of coals ; 

 these are stated in other entries to have been procured from 

 North Sunderland. 



Amply provided for, and with abundance of leisure, it might 

 be expected, that these monks, who had generally been educated 

 in the cloisters of Durham, would have devoted themselves to 

 the instruction of the rude inhabitants of the county, or by study 

 have left a precious legacy of thought to after-times. So far, 

 however, as the rolls show, they taught no schools nor gave any 

 pubHc instruction; their prayers were sought, paid for, and 

 given. They however occasionally acted as physicians, for in 

 A.D. 1406, one of the masters is ordered, " that when any one 

 wants your medical assistance, let him send you a horse to ride 

 upon.*' The library of the Fame House furnishes a curious 

 and instructive catalogue ; it may be taken as a type of that of 

 a provincial monasteiy; it numbered more volumes than the 

 wealthier and larger Priory of Lindisfarne. In a.d. 1394, when 

 it was largest, it contained the following books : — two missals, 

 one of them in decay ; a gradal*; two antiphonarsf; an ordinal J; 

 two portifor8§; a psalter; a legend of the saints; the book of 

 sentences ; a book of decretals ; " a good book containing many 

 tracts, procured by D. James Crank ;" the life of St. Bartholo- 

 mew of Fame; a book containing thirteen tracts in thirteen quires; 

 the rule of St. Augustine ; another book of tracts ; meditations 

 and prayers; a book containing the miracles of St. Cuthbert ; two 

 books of services for the dead, with a treatise on the articles of 

 faith ; a book of miracles of St. Mary, the purgatory of St. 

 Patrick and other notable matters, by Robert de Bra. What a 

 miserable library for a leamed community ! It does not contain 



* Book contaiaing parts of the mass which were chanted responsiTely 

 by the choir. 



t Book containing services, one verse of which was chanted by the 

 priest, and another by the choir. 



X Book of Common Praver. 



§ Small portable copy ot the Ordinal. 



