THE ABBOTS OF DALE. 97 
assigned to him for the aforesaid beds at his own costs as may 
“seem agreeable to himself. 
To have and to enjoy all and singular the aforesaid things 
to the aforesaid John in the manner and form abovesaid for the 
term of his life without impediment or contradiction of us or of 
our successors. Provided always that it shall not be lawful for 
the aforesaid John to give to anyone, sell, alienate, or pawn the 
aforesaid salts, bowl, mazers, spoons, cloths, or any parcel of them 
but that immediately after his decease they shall wholly remain 
and revert to us, our successors, and our monastery. 
In testimony whereof to the one part of this indenture remain- 
ing in the hands of the aforesaid John, we the Abbot and 
Convent aforesaid have affixed our common seal, but to the other 
part of the same writing remaining in our hands the aforesaid John 
has affixed his seal. 
Given in our Chapter House the twenty-eighth day of the month 
of October in the year of our Lord 1491. 
I have not been able to glean any additional particulars respect- 
ing Abbot Richard or his imbecile predecessor. 
With regard to the recorded works of this Abbot, if we may 
take “tectum summi chori” to include the clerestory, there is 
good reason to suppose that the jamb of a clerestory window still 
visible on the south side of the east end of the Abbey (the only 
part standing) is the work of Richard de Nottingham. This 
addition cannot be said to have improved the look of the building, 
for it necessitated the destruction of the acutely pointed gable by 
_ the heightening of the wall at the sides to meet the nearly flat roof 
of the period. ‘The traces of this alteration are clearly visible in 
the masonry. 
The last Abbot of Dale was John Bebe. Like his predecessor 
he was a Canon of the Abbey, and is first mentioned in the list of 
inmates of the house for 1491 as movéicius, when he must have 
been at least eighteen years old. Two years later he is given as 
-subsacrista and diaconus. In the Visitation of 1494 the following 
serious charge is recorded against him :— 
