The Dissolution of the Priory. 137 



benefactors, but the Courtenays, and Wests, and Salisbury's, into 

 whose hands the manor of Christchurch came.* 



Like most other ecclesiastical buildings, we hear but little 

 of it till its dissolution. From its state we may be able to 

 judge of the general condition of the monasteries, and how 

 imperative was the change. 



Leland f tells us that the Priory possessed but one volume 

 a small work on the Old-English laws. Their own accounts 

 show us that the rules of St. Augustine had long been forgotten. 

 Drunkenness had taken the place of fasting ; and instead of giving 

 they now owed.J Tradition, too, adds that the brethren were 

 known in the town as the "Priory Lubbers." To this had the 

 Austin Canons sank. So it was throughout England. Abbot 

 and poorest brother were alike steeped in sensuality, and be- 

 nighted in ignorance. 



Of the last prior, John Draper, we catch some faint glimpse 

 in a letter from Robert Southwell and four other commissioners 

 to Cromwell, dated from Christchurch, the 2nd of December. 

 He appears to have been a man who trimmed his course with 



* For further information, especially on the fortunes of the De Redvers 

 family, and minor details, which I think would hardly interest the general 

 reader, see Brayley's and Ferrey's work on the Priory of Christchurch, 

 London, 1834, pp. 6. 11. 22 : and Warner's South-west Parts of Hampshire, 

 vol. ii. pp. 55-65, which, notwithstanding some errors, is a most painstaking 

 history. 



f Collectanea de Rebus Britannicis, Ed. Hearne, vol. iv. p. 149. 



I The possessions of the house were large, and brought in above 600/. a 

 year. Yet we find that the brethren were in debt in every direction. At 

 Poole, Salisbury, and Christchurch, they owed 411. Ws. 6d. for mere neces- 

 saries. There was due 24/. 2s. Sd. to the Recorder of Southampton for 

 wine : and a bill of 8/. 13s. 2d. to a merchant of Poole, for " wine, fish, and 

 here." Certificate of Monasteries, No. 494, p. 48. Record Office. Quoted by 

 Brayley and Ferrey, Appendix No. vi., pp. 9, 10. 



T 



