27 
the city are also the subject of bequests, as well as the lepers in the 
lazar houses and the prisoners in the Castle, on Ouse-bridge, and in 
the prisons of the Archbishop and St. Peter. Numerous bequests also 
occur to the 52 parish churches which York contained before the 
Reformation and to the four mendicant orders. Of these the Domini¬ 
cans were established where the Railway Station now stands ; the 
Carmelites between Stonebow Lane and the Foss; the Franciscans 
between the Ouse and Castlegate ; the Augustinians between the 
Guildhall and St. Leonard’s landing. Almost every page of the 
Testamenta shows the popularity of these orders, and that not only 
with the commonalty, for persons of rank and opulence express in 
their wills a desire to be buried in their churches. Mr. Wellbeloved 
has also collected various notices of the Anchorites or Ankers, in 
/ Latin reclusi or reclusw^ men and women who lived a perfectly 
secluded life, either in some part of a church so contrived that Divine 
Service might be seen, or in some small building or oratory attached 
to the church. In some cases the seclusion was so strict that a lock 
was placed upon the cell, and even the entrance closed with masonry. 
All the Anchorites mentioned in the Testamenta were females. There 
are also bequests to Gilds and Crafts, and others having reference to 
pilgrimages, either to the Holy Land or to shrines within the island. 
In the later wills there are traces of the existence of heretical opinions 
among the contemporaries of the testators, as they make the unusual 
declaration that they die in the Catholic faith. In 1428 John Pigott, 
Esq., of York, leaves ten marks for sustaining the war against the 
heretics in Bohemia. 
Oct. 4.— The Rev. J. Kenrick read some remarks on specimens 
of the so called Kimmeridge Coal Money, presented by Dr. Smart, of 
Northiam. The stratum from which they are derived is composed 
of a bituminous shale, of which an extensive bed exists on the Dorset¬ 
shire coast, used by the lower classes as a substitute for pit coal. The 
specimens, however, to which the name of coal money has been given, 
are found only in a limited locality in the Isle of Purbeck. They 
consist of flat circular pieces with bevelled and moulded edges from 
inch to 2^ inches in diameter, and from J to | of an inch in thickness. 
They have on one side a small pivot hole and on the other a square 
hole or two or three round holes, and they are now generally admitted 
by antiquaries to be the nuclei or circular waste pieces which were 
left and thrown aside in the process of turning by the lathe. The 
Kimmeridge coal appears to have supplied to the Romano-British 
