CHRONICLE OF DALE ABBEY. 17 
of boyhood and youth having been given by my father to serve 
God and His pious mother the Virgin Mary, took the habit in this 
place from the abbot, John Grauncort, a venerable father, deserv- 
ing of love from God and man, who was the the especial associate 
of the blessed Augustine of Lavendon.* These two in those days 
shone forth in the Order as Lucifer and Hesperus in the height of 
heaven. There were at that time men of this holy monastery 
spending their days without complaint before God, wearing the 
splendid robes of the virtues, having the countenance of angels, 
glowing with mutual charity, and serving devoutly the Lord Jesus 
Christ. Who may suffice to enumerate the virtues of brother 
_ Geoffrey de Guwell, of brother Roger de Derby and of the rest? 
It became such a father to have such sons. In the magnitude 
of their virtues, if I had the fluent loquacity of Homer or Maro, it 
would I think fail to be expressed. 
Four years and more (had I been) among them in their veteran 
congregation when a noble matron, the Lady Matilda de Salicosa 
Mara, the foundress of our church, whose mémory is in (our) 
benediction, came to us from the district of Lindsay,? old and full 
of days, because knowing the time of her vocation from this world to 
be rather quickly approaching she had disposed herself to commend 
her end to God by the prayers of such holy men. And the holy 
convent having been summoned before her on a certain day for 
the sake of discoursing, and mention having.been made of the first 
inhabitants of this place, she began the following narrative before 
them all : 
Open-your-ears, said she, to the words of my mouth, my 
dearly beloved sons, and I will tell you a tale—not a tale, but 
a circumstance which most certainly happened. 
There was a certain baker in Derby in the street which is called 
St. Mary’s. Moreover at that time the church of St. Mary} at Derby 
had a large parish, and the church of Heanor was subject to it, and 
achapel. And the said baker, being in a measure another Cornelius, 
Was a man religious and fearing God. So intent upon his good 
works, that whatever food and clothing beside his own and his 
children’s and the needful things of the house he could procure 
3 
