27 



the city are also the subject of bequests, as well as the lepers in the 

 lazar houses and the prisoners in the Castle, on Ouse-bridge, and in 

 the prisons of the Archbishop and St. Peter. Numerous bequests also 

 occur to the 52 parish churches which York contained before the 

 Reformation and to the four mendicant orders. Of these the Domini- 

 cans were established where the Railway Station now stands ; the 

 Carmelites between Stonebow Lane and the Foss ; the Franciscans 

 between the Ouse and Castlegate ; the Augustinians between the 

 Guildhall and St. Leonard's landing. Almost every page of the 

 Testamenta shows the popularity of these orders, and that not only 

 with the commonalty, for persons of rank and opulence express in 

 their wills a desire to be buried in their churches. Mr. Wellbeloved 

 has also collected various notices of the Anchorites or Ankers, in 

 Latin reclusi or reclusw^ men and women who lived a perfectly 

 secluded life, either in some part of a church so contrived that Divine 

 Service might be seen, or in some small building or oratory attached 

 to the church. In some cases the seclusion was so strict that a lock 

 was placed upon the cell, and even the entrance closed with masonry. 

 All the Anchorites mentioned in the Testamenta were females. There 

 are also bequests to Gilds and Crafts, and others having reference to 

 pilgrimages, either to the Holy Land or to shrines within the island. 

 In the later wills there are traces of the existence of heretical opinions 

 among the contemporaries of the testators, as they make the unusual 

 declaration that they die in the Catholic faith. In 1428 John Pigott, 

 Esq., of York, leaves ten marks for sustaining the war against the 

 heretics in Bohemia. 



Oct. 4. — The Rev. J. Kenrick read some remarks on specimens 

 of the so called Kimmeridge Coal Money, presented by Dr. Smart, of 

 Northiam. The stratum from which they are derived is composed 

 of a bituminous shale, of which an extensive bed exists on the Dorset- 

 shire coast, used by the lower classes as a substitute for pit coal. The 

 specimens, however, to which the name of coal money has been given, 

 are found only in a limited locality in the Isle of Purbeck. They 

 consist of flat circular pieces with bevelled and moulded edges from 

 1^ inch to 2^ inches in diameter, and from ;^ to | of an inch in thickness. 

 They have on one side a small pivot hole and on the other a square 

 hole or two or three round holes, and they are now generally admitted 

 by antiquaries to be the nuclei or circular waste pieces which were 

 left and thrown aside in the process of turning by the lathe. The 

 Kimmeridge coal appears to have supplied to the Romano-British 



