456 The Rev. E. H. Pearce [May 14, 



worked or Low many descriptions he has written wiUi his own hand, 

 for the information will be out of date at the next meeting of the 

 Chapter. I am merely going to construct a record of William 

 Colchester from documents which I have spelled out with Dr. Scott's 

 help. The story will atone for its dullness by being at least untold 

 before. 



William Colchester, as his name implies, was a Colchester man. 

 In his time, and for some considerable space after it, the customary 

 designation of a brother was his Christian name and a place name, 

 with or without the copula de ; in his earlier years he signed himself 

 William de Colchester, but the documents which concern him as 

 Abbot mostly speak of him as William Colchester. We are not, 

 however, left to guess-work as to the place of his origin. In old 

 age he busied himself with the endowment of anniversaries for the 

 good of his soul. Here is one* dated May 20, 1406, in which he 

 bargained with the Prior of St. Botolph, Colchester, and paid 40s. 

 to Henry lY.'s Clerk of the Hanaper to seal the bargain, that one 

 of the canon-chaplains of that Priory should say Mass every week, 

 at sixpence a week, for his soul and for those of his parents ; that 

 the Prior and Convent should observe his anniversary, again with 

 a memorial of his parents, in the parish church of St. Nicholas, 

 Colchester ; that a set sum should be distributed to the vicar, the 

 poor, and the prisoners in Colchester Castle ; and that the tomb of 

 his parents in St. Xicholas' churchyard should be kept in proper 

 repair. AYe may assume, then, that this was his native parish. But 

 he knew to a few yards the distance of Colchester from Westminster, 

 and how easy it might be for the Prior to accept his money and not 

 fulfil his conditions ; so in 1407, when he was arranging for his 

 anniversary at our Abbey, he inserted a clause in that deed f to the 

 effect that the Monk-Bailiff, who looked after the Westminster 

 estates, when he was inspecting property in Hertfordshire, should 

 proceed or send to Colchester and make sure that our Abbot's bequest 

 was being faithfully obeyed— as who should say : " I don't trust 

 these provincial priors further than I can see them." 



Also, from the grant | of another anniversary at the Abbey's 

 daughter-priory of St. Mary, Hurley, in Berks, we get to know that 

 his father's name was Reginald and his mother's Alice. He iiad 

 a sister who in 1389-90 was living in Cambridge, for his Receiver 

 gave a tip of 12d. to a man who came from my lord's sister at that 

 town : and we shall see that he had other connexions, some poor 

 enough to bring him a basket of poultry, some rich enough to receive 

 from him a present of jewellery. Clearly he sprang of a burgher 

 stock of no eminence, for whom the Church seemed the sphere in 

 which the career was most open to the talents. 



How he came to enter our Monastery we shall never know, for 



* Mun. 5259. f Muji. 5260 A. % Mun. 3571. 



