TAUNTON PKIOllY. 71 



liospitality which tlie rule alike of Religion and of tlieir 

 Order 'did so mucli to foster. 



There can be little doubt that the great entrajice gate- 

 way of the Monastery was in Canon Street, so called after 

 tlie diguitaries of the House, and in which the massive 

 foundations of ancient edifices, not improbably belonging 

 to them, have repeatedly been discovered. How far the 

 buildings extended towards the east and south we have no 

 means of knowing, save by the indications ah'eady referred 

 to. There is, however, on the left band of the visitor as 

 he enters the fields, a large and picturesque barn, contain- 

 ing some work of the sixteenth Century, but in which have 

 been inserted by the questionable dictate of modern taste, 

 several ornamental details of imcertain derivation. [_See 

 the Plates.l This may be taken as the limit of the Conven- 

 tual buildings in the northern direction. 



Notwithstanding the silence of historians and the ab- 

 sence of manuscript authority on the subject, it is next to 

 certain that the Conventual Church, like miütitudes of 

 similar structures, was a favourite place of sepulture. The 

 only asserted instance which I have met with is unfortu- 

 nately founded on error, It is that of Jasper Tudor, duke 

 of Bedford and earl of Pembroke, the half brother of King 

 Plenry VI., who died in 1497, and, by bis will, dated the 

 15th of December, 1495, is said to have ordered bis 

 body to be interred in this monastery, and also that a 

 monument should be erected over it, and that forty pounds 

 a year should be paid out of bis lands for four priests to 

 pray for ever for the health of bis soul, and for the souls 

 of his father, of Katharine, sometirae Queen of England, 

 bis mother, of Edmund, earl of Eichmond, his brother, 

 and of all other his predecessors.* It was Keynsham, 

 however, and not Taunton, which was thus selected. 

 * Dugd. Bar. ii., 242. 



