490 
THE ANTIQUITIES 
[LETT. 
usque ad campum vivarii, et de prato voc. Sydenmeade cum 
abutt : et de cursu aque Molendini." And also a grant in 
reversion " unius virgate terre " [a yard land], in Achangre at 
the death of Eichard Actedene, his sister's husband, who had no 
child. He was to present a pair of gloves of one penny value 
to the prior and canons, to be given annually by the said 
Eichard ; and to quit all claim to the said lands in reversion, 
provided the prior and canons would engage annually to pay 
to the king, through the hands of his bailiffs of Aulton, ten 
shillings at four quarterly payments, " pro omnibus serviciis, 
coDSuetudinibus, exactionibus, et demandis." 
This Jo. de Venur was a man of property at Oakhanger, and 
lived probably at the spot now called Chapel Farm. The grant 
bears date the seventeenth year of the reign of Henry III. 
[viz. 1233.] 
It would be tedious to enumerate every little grant for lands 
or tenements that might be produced from my vouchers. I shall 
therefore pass over all such for the present, and conclude this 
letter with a remark that must strike every thinking person 
with some degree of wonder. Ko sooner had a monastic 
institution got a footing, but the neighbourhood began to be 
touched with a secret and religious awe. Every person round 
was desirous to promote so good a work ; and either by sale, by 
grant, or by gift in reversion, was ambitious of appearing a 
benefactor. They who had not lands to spare gave roads to 
accommodate the infant foundation. The religious were not 
backward in keeping up this pious propensity, which they 
observed so readily influenced the breasts of men. Thus did 
the more opulent monasteries add house to house, and field to 
field ; and by degrees manor to manor : till at last " there was 
no place left ; " but every district around became appropriated 
to the purposes of their founders, and every precinct was drawn 
into the vortex. 
