80 PAPERS, ETC. 



flourished in perfection, it is probable that I possess a veiy 

 interesting proof. I have in my coUection a Psalter, with 

 a litanj of the Saints and other prayers, written in the 

 latter part of the thirteenth or the beginning of the four- 

 teenth Century, most beautifuUy executed and undoubtedly 

 by an English scribe. A calendar is prefixed, singularly 

 valuable, together with the litany, for the number of 

 English Saints which it records. Nearly at the end of 

 the book, which is of what would now be called small 

 duodecimo size, and has two hundred and forty three 

 leaves, is an Illumination consisting of a scroU on which 

 is inscribed "Jon Taunton. MS." It is not unlikely that 

 this charming volume, unless it were the work of the famous 

 Abbat of Glastonbury himself, who was a great lover of 

 books, was produced in the scriptorium of Taunton Priory ; 

 and, if so, the House had no reason to be ashamed of its 

 penman. That the Community were possessed of a library of 

 some importance is evident from the fact that Leland, who 

 visited the Priory within a short period of the suppression, 

 although, as usual, he is unhappily silent about the edifice 

 itself, noticed three uncoramon books in the coUection of 

 the Canons, the " Chronicon Ivonis," " Philaretus de 

 Pulsibus," and " Theophilus de Urinis," * representatives 

 of the literature and science of the mediasval age. 



I am also in possession of a very interesting relic which 

 was found about thirty-five yeara ago, during the process 

 of removing an accumulation of mud in the bed of the 

 Tone, within a few hundred yards from the site of the 

 Priory, and which has been in my custody for the far 

 greater part of the intervening period. It is a leaden 

 buUa of Pope Sixtus IV., who occupied the chair of S. 



* Lei. Collect,, tom. iii., p. 153. 



