MYNCniN BUCKLAND PRIORY. 3 



the demesne Fonds tliat supplied with their babitual and 

 constant diet the successive Brethren and Sisters of the 

 House. 



It is to thiä very Interesting Community that I am 

 about to dh-ect the attention of my reader. And in pre- 

 senting bim with a history of Buckland Priory, I may 

 remind bim that 1 am introducing bim to an entirely new 

 and different aspect of INIonastic Life and Conventual 

 Usage from those with whicli I have in previous pages 

 endeavoured to make bim familiär. The System of the Hos- 

 pital itself was unlike all others save one, as I shall presently 

 attempt to show. And, in addition to this, it is specially 

 to be noted that we have here a feature which even in that 

 Order was not elsewhere to be seen in England. Mynchin 

 Buckland was both a Priory and a Preceptory. Tbc lattei* 

 was a normal example of a Hospitalars' Commandry ; the 

 former was the sole instance in the kingdom of its peculiar 

 class. It was a Community of Women, and the only one 

 that the Order possessed. As such, its history presents us 

 not only with a subject of the greatest local interest, but 

 with an unique chapter in monastic annals at large. It is 

 at once a new scene to the student of olden days, and one 

 of which no county but Somersetshire can furnish him 

 with an example. 



Before I enter into the vicissitudes of this attractive 

 place, it will be necessary to give my reader a brief outline 

 of the Order to which it belonged. We should otherwise 

 be likely to meet with obscurities in the story which a few 

 •words of previous explanation would avall to prevent. 



The Order of Knights Hospitalars began and took its 

 name from a Hospital founded at Jerusalem, and its chief 

 objects were the defence of the pilgrims on their road 

 thither, and the care and maintenance of thcm during their 



