TAUNTON PKIOEY. Ö 



canonical ceutre — which our various repositories of MSS. 

 yet possess, and which, though existing in roUs and regis- 

 ters, are entirely lost to the wovld of students at large. 

 A veiy few pages would be sufficient to contain the infor- 

 mation, meagre in amoimt and with little pretensions to 

 accuracj, which has hitherto been committed to the press ; 

 and I accordingly feel considerable pleasm'e that the result 

 of my labours enables me to place before my reader a 

 series of annals, which extend along a duration of several 

 centuries, and, whether they refer to the donations of bene- 

 factors without or to the more private affairs of the House 

 within, iinite in furnishing him with a far clearer and more 

 comprehensive knowledge of the subject of our present 

 research than we have of most other establishments of a 

 similar kind. To do tliis at last for Taunton Priory has 

 indeed been a labour of reverential love, and is the only — 

 yet withal, happily for me, precious — mode that I possess of 

 showing alike my recollection of days and persons gone and 

 past away, since the spot was first endeared to me, and 

 my gratitude for the Suggestion of many a good thought 

 and high endeavour which the sacred locality has inspired, 

 — influences whose power can never end save with the last 

 moments of a life which they have not a little availed to 

 colour. 



Let my reader imagine himself seated on the fragrant 

 sward, and think, as his eye travels over the rieh and 

 varied scene before him, that he is listening to what 1 

 have to communicate from the stores examined and col- 

 lected for him from many a ponderous volume, thickly- 

 written roll and faded charter, and placed at length in his 

 eecurc possession. 



The House dcrivcd its origin from the piety and munifi- 

 cence of William GyfFardc, Bishop of Winchester and 



