MUCHELNEY ABBEY. 85 



kingdom than the careful transcript and accurate publica- 

 tion of the Episcopal Registers. It would go far to furnish 

 lists of the several abbats, priors, and other officers of 

 many conventual bodies, as Avell as of the rectors and 

 vicars of parish churches and chapelries. In fact it would 

 present the antiquary with a clear and truthful picture of 

 ecclesiastical matters at large duiüng any given period, and 

 would constitute of itself a parochial history for the entire 

 district. Possessed of such an authority, the student 

 might read without difficulty, and in the most assuredly 

 conclusive of all possible ways, the successive changes 

 which have eventuated in every locality, the consccutive 

 annals of every parish, too insignificant perhaps for the 

 notice of the so-called county history, but not less inter- 

 esting on that account to the individual incumbent, land- 

 owner, native, or casual resident. I am persuaded that, 

 notwithstanding what Dr. Archer has done in a similar 

 field of research, which may be found in the second volume 

 of Hearne's Chronicle of Walter Hemingford, pp. 585-638, 

 the preparation and publication of such a work, so far as 

 the Registers at Wells could furnish the materials, 

 would be one of the best and most useful labours on 

 which the funds of our Society could possibly be em- 

 ployed. 



The history of Muchelney seems, so far as we can gather 

 it, to have been one of not unfrequent trouble. The 

 Abbat was disseised, or dispossessed, of bis lands and other 

 possessions, by the king's command, as I find by an entry 

 in the Great Roll of the 3rd year of K. John. We know 

 not the particulars, except that he had to pay three marks 

 of gold, or thirty marks of silver, to regain possession. It 

 does not appear to bave been an ordinary fine, but con- 



