56 HF.RMITS, FORDS, AND RRIDOK-CHAPELS. 



Translation. 



" We make known to all by these presents that on the 23rd day 

 of the month of June, 1491, in the cathedral church of Ely, the 

 Divine Office having been solemnly celebrated, we received the 

 Profession of John Thomson, hermit of the causeway of Erith 

 (Cambridgeshire), and have invested him with the hermitical 

 habit, and laid upon the same John, then and there, our injunc- 

 tions, charges, and agreements. And whereas the same John hath 

 nothing of his own whereby he is able to live, except he be suc- 

 coured by the faithful in Christ, devoted to God, and to gifts and 

 alms of charity. And whereas we believe that as often as we stir 

 up the minds of the faithful to the exercise of this kind of piety by 

 the alluring gifts of indulgences, they are the more inclined to do 

 them, ' De Dei igitur,' etc. ' Cunctis Christi fidelibus de peccatis, 

 suis,' etc. Therefore they who shall contribute food or any other 

 things for the sustenance of the said John shall have ten days of 

 indulgence ; but to them who shall contribute silver, or any of their 

 goods, or who shall assign or bequeath a subsidy of charity towards 

 the reparation of the bridge and common way there, we, by these 

 presents, graciously grant forty days of indulgence as often as they 

 shall perform the same during the life of the said John. In testi- 

 mony of which, etc. Given in our palace of Ely, on the day, 

 month, and year above written, and in the fifth jear of our 

 translation.' — (Bp. Alcock's Register, p. 72.) 



Another extract from the same Register gives us the exact form 

 of words used by the hermit in making his Profession. 



Translation. 

 " The 25th day of the month of February, a.d. 1493, the same 

 lord bishop, in the Hall of Gonvyll, Cambridge, dedicating or 

 consecrating a certain chapel there, and in Pontificals celebrating a 

 solemn mass there, Robert Mitchell and John Smith, neither of 

 them being joined in matrimony, were professed under the form 

 of words following :— ' I, Robert Michyll, not joined in matrimony, 

 promise and vow to God and the Blessed Mary, and to all saints. 



