24 Amesbury Church. Reasons for thinking that it 
might well be in the chapter-house. He says further that traces 
of a fire and of molten lead and charred materials were met with. 
These he attributes to the fire, which destroyed Lady Hungerford’s 
goods, and the part of the monastery in which she was lodged, in 
the fifteenth century, but they were probably the traces of Lord 
Hertford’s lead-melting operations, after the Dissolution. 
Considering the opportunities that there have been, for ascer- 
taining something about the monastic buildings, it is much to be 
regretted that so little has been made of them. Mr. Kemm says 
that “those friends who made a more minute record of the dis- 
coveries above-mentioned ”’ than himself, “‘ would do well to give a 
paper on them.” I don’t think the hint has yet been taken, but it 
may perhaps still be not too late. I was once, I believe, shown a 
rough plan of this very find. 
It seems to be clear that, in the early part of the 17th century, 
before 1620, other interments were found, adjoining the Abbey 
House, though they were not properly noted, and fanciful theories 
were founded on the discoveries, and, in 1662, some of these are 
again noticed. 
I said, above, that I thought, if the present Church is to be con- 
sidered as, in any sense, monastic, some other explanation will have 
to be found than to suppose it the principal Church of the Priory. 
A theory, very soon, occurred to me, founded on the peculiarity 
of the order of Fontevraud, which might possibly afford a solution 
of the difficulty, and I give it, for what it may be worth, without, 
at all, assuming that it is the right solution. 
John Stevens, in his addition to Dugdale’s Monasticon, quoting 
apparently from a French History of monastic orders. says :—? 
“The Order of Fontevraud is looked upon as a Singularity in 
the Church, and some think it strange to see an Abbess exercising 
equal Authority over Religious Men and Women; but the same 
1 Since this paper was read, Mr. Edward Kite has published, in Wiltshire 
Notes and Queries (No. 27, September, 1899, page 114) the first part of ‘‘ Notes 
on Amesbury Monastery, with an account of some discoveries on the site, in 
1860.” 
? Hdition of 1723, vol. 2, page 248. 
