466 The Rev. E. H. Pearce [May U, 



Archdeacon of the Monastery of Westminster, let on lease to John 

 AVaryn, batcher, of Westminster, 132 muttons — "multones" — 3 rams 

 and 1C8 ewes, of the average value of 20^/. each, to be fed and kept 

 safe and sound till Ash Wednesday next ; and there follows a state- 

 ment of the terms upon which the tenant of the sheep may acquire 

 any or all of them. You see that the Archdeacon's servants make 

 the bargain, and I wondered for a time whether the sheep were his 

 or theirs, till I turned the parchment over and found on the back : 

 " indentura AVillelmi Colchester de ouibus suis ad firmam dimissis." 

 To-day our beloved Archdeacon has indeed a large and devoted flock, 

 but, as far as his colleagues know, he does not graze sheep in his 

 back-garden. 



The third measure taken by the Convent to mark its satisfaction 

 with Colchester's conduct of its affairs was more exceptional. I 

 give the recM'd of it as it exists in the vellum volume which we call 

 "Liber Niger Quaternus " (f . 86 b), a fifteenth century copy of an 

 earlier black paper register compiled by a very active monk called 

 Roger Ivyrton, or Cretton, who entered our House in 1384-5. It 

 says : — 



"On 2.5 Sept. 1382 there was granted to brother AV. Colchester 

 Archdeacon of Westminster a chamber with that part of the Garden 

 which belongs to the Lady Chapel together with a pension of six 

 marks [£4] and an additional monk's allowance ["corrodium"] such 

 as is enjoyed by the seniors ; but on condition that if the said 

 AYilliam be promoted to any prelacy elsewhere, the pension, the 

 allowance and the chamber are to revert to the Convent." 



It is more than probable that these chambers lay on the south 

 side of Little Cloisters, where to this day there is an alternation of 

 old doors and old windows that suggests a row of almshouses. The 

 site of his garden is more problematical, for the Lady Chapel is to 

 the north of Little Cloisters. 



if anyone asks what were the conditions in which each brother 

 lived by himself, the answer can be given with a fair abundance of 

 detail. We have a strip of frail paper,* 3 ft. 7 in. x 5J in., which 

 deals with the post-mortem distribution of the effects of one whom 

 Colchester must have known long and well — Richard Excestr', who 

 said his first Mass in 1361-2 (the same year as Colchester), and 

 became Prior in 1377 ; he resigned the office, as we saw, in 1382, 

 and retired into simple monk-hood again, though he was given 

 precedence after the Prior till his death in 1397. His modest 

 belongings are divided (like the items of a modern auctioneer's 

 catalogue when the sale takes place by order of the executors "on 

 the premises ") according to the rooms ; and we gather that he has 

 an atda where he receives his friends, with a special welcome for 

 those who can play chess (for he has a "tabularium cum famiria"): a 



* Mtm. 6603. 



