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 RELIGIOUS HOUSES There is a seal attached to a charter of the twelfth century. ^^' It is light brown in colour, and has on the left a representation of the Agnus Dei. Legend : — SIGILLVM TEMPLI The seal ^^ of Robert de Saunford, master of the Temple c. 1241, is dark green, and bears on the right an Agnus Dei with nimbus. Legend : — SIGILLVM TEMPLI The obverse of a seal used by William de la More, master, 1304,^*' resembles the above. The reverse, a small oval counter-seal, with beaded borders, shows on the right a couped bust of a bearded man wearing a cap. Legend: — TESTIS SVM AGNI There is also a seal of the preceptor or master 1303.''" It is dark green, and represents a crescent inclosing a cross formy fitchy ; below, a lion passant of England, and between two stars. Legend : — S' PRECEPTOR ' MILI ... T . . . 9. ST. THOMAS OF ACON The hospital of St. Thomas of Aeon was founded in honour of St. Mary and St. Thomas of Canterbury for a master and brethren of the military order of St. Thomas the Martyr by Thomas Fitz Theobald de Helles, whose wife Agnes was sister of the murdered archbishop.^ The earliest grants of which anything is known, beyond the founder's gift in frankalmoign of the birthplace of the saint in the parish of St. Mary Colechurch for their church,^ were those of Geoffrey Fitz Peter, earl of Essex,' who gave them the custody of the hospitals of St. John the Baptist and of St. John the Evangelist at Berk- hampstead early in the thirteenth century, and of Margaret de Tanton, who made over to them her manor in Coulsdon, co. Surrey, shortly before 1235.* '«' Harl. Chart. 86, C. 63. "« Wolley Chart, iii, 28. »' Harl. Chart. 83, C. 39. "° Ibid. 84, A. 44. ' Chart, of 14 Edw. Ill, coniirming grants to the hospital, printed in Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 646. The grant by Thomas Fitz Theobald in the cartulary of the hospital belonging to the Mercers' Company is witnessed by Eustace de Fauconberg, bishop of London, 1 22 1-9 (Watney, The Hospital of ^t. Thomas of Aeon, 237). But this must be a confirmation of the deed of foundation, which Stubbs seems to think was early, for he argues from it that the Order of St. Thomas must have arisen before the surrender of Acre, 1 1 9 1. Introd. to Mem. of Ric. I (Rolls Ser.), i, p. cxii, n. 5. ' Pat. 1 8 Edw. II in Dugdale, op. cit. vi, 647. ' Ibid. 647. was confirmed by Henry III in the nineteenth year of his reign. Ibid. fol. 236. In 1239 they also obtained a rent from some houses in the parish of St. Mary Cole- church, and then or shortly afterwards they received from Robert Herlizun tenements in the parishes of St. Giles without Cripplegate, St. Michael Bassishaw, and St. Mary Alder- manbury.*" From Henry III they acquired a messuage between the church of St. Olave and their house in 1268,' and in 1269 they received some houses in Ironmonger Lane from Richard de Ewelle in exchange for two mills at Wapping' obtained by them from Terric de Algate early in the century.' Ewelle returned the mills to them five years later as the endowment of a chantry in their church*; and in 1282 the reversion of a house in the parish of St. Stephen Walbrook was left them by Richard de Walbrook to mamtain another chantry." The church of St. Mary Colechurch, the advowson of which had been bought by the master and convent in 1247-8,'" appears to have been appropriated to the hospital by Pope Alexander IV in 1257." There is very little early information about the house beyond the history of these acquisi- tions. The conventual church was probably begun in 1248, when the brothers had leave from the pope to erect a chapel. The episcopal licence for the consecration of a cemetery dates from about the same time.''" At this period the community cannot have been very large, for twenty years later there are said to have been only twelve brothers.'"' The house in 1279 was engaged in a contest with Archbishop Peckham as to his right of visitation,'^ and while still in disgrace it incurred the archbishop's anger on a fresh score. One of the brothers, Robert Maupoudre, seems to have run away, for the archbishop in August ordered him to be restored to the hospital without delay." As he did not return, the master, Robert de Covelee, took the law into his own hands, and was derived from a cartulary belonging to the Mercers' Company, extracts from which he has printed in an Appendix, pp. 237—97. ' Cal. of Chart. R. ii, 98 ; Par/. R. (Rec. Com.), vi, 743. «Cott. MS. Tib. C. v, fol. 161^. 'Ibid. fol. 153. There is an inspeximus, fol. 1533, of the charter after Terric's death by Geoffrey de Lucy, who became dean of St. Paul's 1237. 'Ibid. 160^. » Sharpe, Ca/. of mils, i, 60. '" Watney, op. cit. 22, " Watney, op. cit. 240. The bishop of London's letters of appropriation were not, however, given until 1262. Ibid. "" Ibid. 23, 237-8. '"> Ibid. 24. " Reg. Epist. Johan. Peckham (Rolls Ser.), iii, 1020. " Ibid, i, 44. 491
 * Cott. MS. Tib.C. v,fols. 235*, 23615. The grant
 * ^ Watney, op. cit. 2 1 . Mr. Watney's information