By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. 



249 



common seal. No one but the Custos to introduce guests into the 

 house. Any one who did so to pay 2>cl. sterling for every dinner, 

 and 2d. for every other meal, the same to be stopped out of his 

 allowance. All, and particularly the priests, to avoid, excess in 

 eating and drinking. All taverns to be avoided : and no visits to 

 be made to any houses without leave of the Custos. The Bishop 

 of Sarum's Letters of Request to the Pope, containing these par- 

 ticulars were signed by himself, by the Bishop of Winchester, 

 John the Prior, and the Chapter of Winchester, the Abbess and 

 Convent of Romsey, John of Edyndon, Canon of Romsey and Pre- 

 bendary of Edyndon, and Walter Scarlett, Custos of Edyndon, and 

 were dated 28th October, 1351. 



In the meantime, between this application to Rome and the 

 granting of the Pope's bull in 1354, the Bishop of Winchester con- 

 ceived another and larger design : that of converting his College or 

 Chantry into a Monastery, and building an entirely new Monastic 

 Church — the one still existing at Edingdon. 



In this, as well as in his selection of a particular Order of Religious 

 men, he was chiefly encouraged, says Leland, by the Black Prince, 

 who, having just returned from the winning of Calais and other 

 exploits in France, had brought home with him pleasing recollections 

 of a certain order of friars whom he had met with, called Bonhommes, 

 or Boni- Homines. Of this order there was at that time only one house 

 in England, viz., at Ashridge, in Buckinghamshire, Edingdon 

 became the second : and besides these there never were any others. 1 



3. — The Monastery. 



In 1352 (26 Ed. III.) the first stone of the Monastery of Augus- 

 tines called Bonhommes, was laid on the 3rd July. 2 The building 

 being likely to occupy some years there was at present no change 

 in the chaplains; Bishop W T illiam meanwhile occupying himself 



1 In the Journal of the Archaeological Association, vol. xxxvii., p. 73, it is 

 stated that there was a third on College Green, Bristol, now the Mayor's Chapel. 

 But there is no mention of this in Tanner's Notitia Monastica. 



2 Leland's Itinerary, vi., p. 48, quoting a book which he saw in Edingdon 

 Monastery. See Wilts Arch. Mag., i., 189. 



