Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/205

 12 S. III. MARCH 10, 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

199

The window was given in 1818 by Henry Gully, who is said to have found it in an old curiosity shop in Paris, tied up in a bundle. He was* told that it had been taken from the Temple Church. SUSANNA CORNER.

Blmfield, Southwell.

ADMIRALS HOOD (12 S. iii. 129). The subjoined table will show at a glance the relationship between the naval Hoods. The Alexander who was killed in action in 1798 (not, as in Burke's ' Peerage,' in 1796) was not an admiral, but a captain ; he was great- grandfather of Lord St. Audries.

Alexander Hood, of Misterton, co. Devon.

Alexa Sam

ider. uel.

Samuel, Prebendary of Wells.

Samuel, Viscount Hood, died 1816.

Alexander, Viscount Bridport, died 1814.

mder, Sir Samuel,

captain Bart.,

R.N., died 1814.

killed in action, 1798.

ALFRED B. BEAVEN. Leamington.

on

The Monks of Westminster : being a Register of the Brethren of the Convent from the Time of the Confessor to the Dissolution. With lists of the Obedientiaries, and an Introduction by E. H. Pearce. (Cambridge, University Press, 10s. net.)

THIS volume is No. 5 of the series entitled " Notes and Documents relating to Westminster Abbey." Very obviously it has been a labour of love. Many labours of which that much may be said fail to commend themselves as worth while : Canon Pearce's undertaking is of real im- portance. It is surprising how defective, during the nineteenth century, was the sense for historical continuity in the custodians of Westminster Abbey. It was active enough on certain lines ; but it was willing to ignore al- together that particular line of history which, after all, carried down the raison d'etre of the Abbey as such. It is true that the Convent was never illustrated by one of those names which become part of the national heritage of generation after generation. Litlington and Islip and Ware exist principally for historical students, and among them principally for those who care about ecclesiastical history. Still it remains astonishing that the unique preciousness of Westminster

should not have availed to render interesting any and every person who could claim any real con- nexion with its hallowed precincts, much more those whose whole lives were dedicated to service there.

Canon Pearce's object has been to recover every name recoverable, together with the careers, not only of the Abbots and Priors, but of every monk, so far as the documents at his disposal permitted. The list of Abbots is practi- cally complete, and several of them have lengthy and important biographies ; the Priors, less fully illustrated, are still tolerably well known ; but the names of the brethren, usually from forty to fifty in number especially those of the"^earlier days had to be sought for as stray entries in the muniments, under one or two headings, none of which is directly concerned with the personal history of members of the Convent. The Intro- duction sets forth lucidly, and with abundance of careful detail, what this material is, how it develops from one century to another, and what light it definitely throws on the careers of the monks. The Chamberlain's Rolls and the Infirmarer's Rolls furnish many names ; but of greater biographical value are the accounts of the expenditure of the funds derived from the manors assigned to the Abbey by Edward I., Richard II. r and Henry V. for the maintenance of anniver- saries. The balance in money after the anniver- sary was suitably provided for was distributed among the brethren, the Prior taking a double share, and the junior monks a smaller sum than the " fratres sacerdotes." Moreover, there were two occasions in the life of the ordinary monk when he was presented with gifts as tokens of congratulation on the part of the Convent that of his first Mass, and that when he first acted as president in the Refectory " primo sedebat (or presidebat) ad skillam," as the phrase went, the " skilla " or bell being the sign of his office at his right hand. These gifts and distributions required record at the hands of the Abbey accountants, and have enabled many names either to be added to the register or to be illustrated.

Between 1049 and 1540 706 Westminster Benedictines have been traced, and there are few to whom something of a biography is not attached. The largest group of names belongs to the fourteenth century, when the documents are relatively full and exactly kept, and when also- the names are multiplied through the many vacancies caused by the Black Death. Following the main register of monks we are given a list of the Abbots, Priors, and Obedientiaries of the Convent, and an Appendix on the Benedictines under Queen Mary.

A certain amount of information concerning- the personnel of the Convent may be gathered from the work of John Flete (d. 1466), himself a member of it, ' De Fundatione Ecclesiae West- monasteriensis,' which was edited in 1909 by Dr. Armitage Robinson. Again, the ' History of the Church of St. Peter, Westminster,' by Richard Widmore (1751), does not, like Stanley's brilliant picture of the Abbey, ignore the monks. One or two other books and essays might be mentioned from which gleanings on the subject of the Convent may be made ; but it is to Canon Pearce, in the volume before us, that we owe the first systematic account of the brethren at Westminster, and henceforth it will hardly be possible to write a