44 



Malmeshury Abbey in its Best Days. 



from theirs, still it was for the sake and honour of their own Form 

 that, whilst keeping uothing for themselves, they were magnificent 

 and costly in building, plate, sculpture, painting, in short, in every 

 thing that assisted externally to honour and magnify the worship 

 of God. 



It was just now mentioned that the monks farmed some of their 

 land themselves. They kept in their own hands very often in a 

 parish that part which was called the Demesne. Sometimes a monk 

 or two, or at any rate some officer in monastic habit, resided on the 

 spot, under the name of Propositus or Bailiff, and this has often led 

 to the common tradition that such and such a place was an abbey or 

 a nunnery, when in fact it was merely a property belonging to one, 

 and occupied by persons connected with the establishment. The 

 accounts of their different estates were most carefully kept, and 

 drawn up formally every year, on long narrow sheets of parchment, 

 sometimes many yards in length, to be rolled up and deposited 

 among the abbey records. Of these, I have unfolded many, belong- 

 ing particularly to Glastonbury. They are by no means easy to 

 read, being in Latin, the words being abbreviated, and the writing 

 very small and close, as if sheepskin had been an expensive article. 

 Some thirty or forty of these long narrow parchments stitched to- 

 gether at one end, after being rolled up tightly for hundreds of years, 

 are awkward antagonists to struggle with, when you want to get at 

 the contents. But when examined they show a scrupulous minute- 

 ness and the strictest account of profit and expense. There are the 

 details of the number of cattle, sheep, pigs, fowls, geese, eggs, honey, 

 every thing in short bought and sold : entries of the day when 

 cheese-making began, and when it ended : of the ploughings^ 

 manurings, mowing and reaping: the fences of yards, orchards, 

 gardens : horses, implements, stock of iron for repairs, barley kept 

 for brewing, bacon, hides, repairs of building, &c. All this shews 

 superintendence and good management; that they knew their duty 

 as careful agriculturists, and set no slovenly or careless example to 

 all in their employment. 



One or two things are remarkable in their system of letting 

 to tenants, land which they did not themselves cultivate. An 



