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



253 



garden of healthful plants may be watered and, by the help of the Lord, produce 

 rich and ripe fruits, flourishing in the House of God. We, therefore, approving 

 this pious intention, with cousent of our Chapter of Salisbury and all concerned, 

 decree that the said chantry and secular Church shall be elevated into a House of 

 Eeligion, &c." 



135S (32 Ed. Til.) . 5th April. The Warden and secular chantry 

 priests still held their places, as in this year Walter of Sevenhampton 

 was appointed Warden by Bishop Edingdon. He was probably soon 

 pensioned off, or may have taken the office only pro temp., having 

 declared not to become a monk • for ten months afterwards the 

 bishop's arrangement for the new monastery was so far completed 

 as to admit of the 



First Tonsure of the Brethren, 16th September, 1358. The 

 meaning of the ceremony was, that instead of being secular chap- 

 lains, unfettered by monastic rule and vow, they now became 

 subject to both. 



The "Dean - " (says Leland, meaning the Warden), Walter of 

 Sevenhampton, was the only one who declined to become a Bon- 

 homme. The title of Warden was now dropped, and the superiors 

 of the new monastery became " Rectors/'' The first was John of 

 Ailesbury, a brother from the house at Ashridge, Co. Bucks. His 

 license to assume the Rectorship of Edingdon had been granted by 

 the Bishop of Lincoln in December, 1357. A second license was 

 necessary from the Rector and Convent of Ashridge to enable him 

 to leave that society. He was instituted to Edingdon Monastery by 

 deed of Robert Wyvill, Bishop of Sarum, dated Maiden Bradley, 

 12th April, and was inducted 14th April 1358. 



Thomas Fuller has (as usual) some facetious remarks upon the 

 class of Augustines who were called by the peculiar name of Bon- 

 hommes. "The Bonshommes or Good-men, being also Eremites, 

 were brought over into England by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, in the 

 reign of King Henry III., his brother : so styled (not exclusively 

 of other orders) but eminently because of their signal goodness. 

 Otherwise the conceit of the epigrammatist [John Owen], admiring 

 that amongst so many Popes there should be but five Pious, lies 

 as strongly here; that amongst so many orders of Fryers there should 

 vol. xx. — no. lx. s 



