HG PAPERS, ETC. 



nected with some peculiar circumstances of which we are 

 ignorant. The record gives no explanation : 



" Abbas de Muclielneia debet iii marcas auri 

 vel xxx marcas argenti, pro habenda saisina Abbatiaä 

 suae et terra? suas et rerum suai'um, unde dissaisitus 

 fuit per praceptum regis." 



Mag. Rot. 3 Joh. b. Dors. et Sumers. 

 A little more than a Century afterwards the House was 

 in debt, perhaps for some additions to the Society 's build- 

 ings, or possibly from the carelessness or incompetence of 

 the officer entrusted with the funds. The evil does not, 

 however, appear to have been of greater magnitude than to 

 neccssitate the Bishop's permission to the Abbat and Con- 

 vent to superintend in their own person the expenditure 

 during one year : 



"Id. Sep. 1317. uns Ep'us concedit Abb. 



et Conv. de Muchelney, ut propter ass alienum 



officiu' Sacristarie p' unu' annum in manus suas 



recipiant et de fructibus ejusd' disponere." * 



It would appear also, from what we can derive through 



brief and obscure announcements, that the Abbey was 



repeatedly and, perhaps, sorely tried by endeavours to 



subject it to the neighbouring house of Glastonbury. 



William of Malmesbury gives us some particulars of one 



of these attempts which was made in the eleventh Century 



against the Abbats of Muchelney and Athelney. The 



one replied with jest, and the other with logic, but with 



doubtful success.f Nor is it by any means improbable 



that some, if not all, of those " visitations," to which I 



shall presently direct the reader's attention, were instituted 



* MS. Sari. 6964, p. 54. 



+ mtl. Malmesb. de Antiq. Glaston. Eccl. Ed. Gale, fol. Oxon, 1691, 

 tom. iii, p. 331. 



