MTNCHIN BUCKLAND PßlORY. 5 



intendence, and accounted for the overplus to the Prior at 

 Clerkenwell. Lands, therefore, could only be given to 

 the Order through the Prior, and not to any Single Com- 

 mandry, that being deemed in law incapable of receiving 

 them, as the officers were but " obedientiarii," officials, 

 deputed by the Prior as his representatives and receivers. 

 Their system was, accordingly, entirely difFerent from 

 those of other Orders, that of the Temple excepted. 

 Instead of each being independent, and having the care 

 of its own individual interest, all were so many subject 

 brotherhoods, each acknowledging one general head, and 

 contributing its portion to the general treasury. 



This will be sufficient to give the reader a notion of the 

 early history of the Order and its mode of government. 

 We will now proceed to our immediate subject. Let me, 

 however, premise that considerable errors have arisen from 

 the identity of its name with that of numerous other 

 localities possessed of a similar cognomen. This has, 

 unhappily, tended to confuse and falsify, and so to render 

 worse than useless, even the few and very meagre notices of 

 it which have hitherto been committed to the press. There 

 is hardly one of the previous writers who has not mistaken 

 it more or less for the Abbey of Buckland in the County 

 of Devon. One has identified it with Buckland S. Mary 

 in Somersetshire. And, stränge to add, even the learned 

 Sir Henry Chauncy, in his History of Hertfordshire, has 

 described an imaginary Buckland Monastery in that county, 

 and has given in connection with it some of the earlier 

 facta in the history of our House. It has not been 

 hitherto, however, nor is it now my desire, to dwell upon 

 other men's omissions or mistakes. A much more agree- 

 able and valuable task is mine, to which I contentedly and 

 gladly turn. 



