TAUNTON PRIORY. 59 



instrument is still to be found among the MSS. at Lam- 

 beth, and from it I have copied all that is now leglble.* 

 Many words have entirely perished from tlie combined 

 influence of neglect and damp, and a single touch would be 

 sufficient to remove many more. It commences with 

 praise of the sincere devotlon and rellgious excellence of 

 the Community, and grounds upon these reasons the honors 

 and concessions which follow, removing from them and 

 each of them all ecclesiastical sentences, censures, and 

 punishments, and proceeding to confer on the Prior and 

 his successors the favours which have been already enume- 

 rated. The document is of special interest not only to the 

 historian of Taunton Priory, but to the Student of monastic 

 annals in general. For although it veas not uncommon to 

 grant to the Heads of the more important Rellgious 

 Houses the privilege of using the Paramenta Pontificalia, 

 which consisted, as we learn from the Ritualists, of sandals, 

 amice, albe, girdle, pectoral cross, stole, tunic, dal- 

 matic, gloves, mitre, ring, stafF, and maniple, and of giving 

 Episcopal Benediction in the Church and Refectory, it is 

 the only instance with which I am acquainted, and 1 am 

 not alone in this particular, of a Prior being authorised to 

 promote to Minor Orders the inmates of his own Com- 

 munity. This, however, is distinctly stated — " Canonicos 

 quoq' et chorales dicti monasterli ad minores ordines 

 promouere libere ac llcite ualeatis." 



Another bull accompanied this in favour of the Priory. 

 This document foUows the one just quoted in the volume 

 wherein it and many othcrs have some ages ago been 

 together tliough looscly mounted. Unhappily it is in 

 even worse condition than its predecessor, while both of 



* MSS. Lambeth. No. G43, art. 13. 



