410 



The point brought out here in this table is the great change 

 or decay during the fifteen years from 1525 to 1540. How, or 

 why, came tliis change ] After the deaths of the three clothiers, 

 Kent, Style, and Chapman, the city decayed somewhat says 

 Leland. When then did they die? The exact year when 

 Leland visited Bath is uncertain. His Commission to travel is 

 dated 1533, but his notes generally are not dated. Some part 

 of the Journal however is dated 1542. Bath was visited 

 three times, once when the notes were recorded — Itinerary, 

 Vol. ij., p. 57 ; again, when passing through only — Fol vij., 

 p. 87 ; and a third time when passing by — Vol. vij., p. 99. 

 The city is also mentioned in Vol. iij., p. 116. In the record 

 of his official visit, after noting the names of the three clothiers 

 and the decay of the city, the next paragraph speaks of the 

 *' late monasterie." As the dissolution of this occurred in 1539, 

 this entry must have been made after that date. But in the 

 next paragraph he says " The Prior of Bath told me," &c. ; 

 thus either the Prior continued to be known by that name after 

 the dissolution, or the allusion is to some earlier conversation. 

 The second is possible, as a few paragraphs further on, he 

 notes that " nine years sins " he saw the old church lying 

 ■waste and unroofed. The first is also possible as the Prior 

 had given him for a dwelling "a tenement in Stall Street, 

 wherein one Jeffry Stainer lately dwelled," being of the 

 yearly rent of twenty shillings. (Augment: off: Miscell : Bks. 

 245, / 109.^ Taking the case of Bath generally as above, the 

 entries as they have come to us must have been made after 

 1539, and may be fairly taken as made when dated viz. 1542, 

 Some references to the last documents herein considered will 

 help rather to confirm this. In the Subsidy for 1525 John 

 Kent is Mayor, but his name appears no more. In the Roll 

 for 1540, for the first collection Eobert Style is Mayor ; in the 

 second collection he is gone, and there then appears Joan Style, 

 widow. At the time of this second collection John Chapman 



