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RELIGIOUS HOUSES for the sacrament, coal and tallow, purchases of church furniture and the maintenance of the fabric of the church, and the usual wages, gifts, pittances, subsidies, and procurations. The general purchases of 1338-9 amounted to about ^23, those of 1379-80 to ^^36 lox. O^d., and those of 1483-4 to ;^43 ys. ioJ(/. On church furniture in 1379-80 the sacrist spent ;^I0 3/., including 6s. 8d, for mats for the choir and chapter, 45. 6d. for red, white, and green thread for the abbot's vestments, 21 s. d. for incense, "js. bd. for a pall for the high altar, and 25^. for bread for the sacrament ; and in 1483-4 similar items amounted to £6 155. 5c/. The mainten- ance of the fabric cost ^^33 3^. d. in 1338-9, ^43 i6j. d. in 1379-80, and ^^56 8i. in 1483-4- Another interesting account of the fifteenth century shows how the convent contributed to provide 'seyng' books for their church. The total cost of two books was 1005, the largest items being 261. 8^. each for the writing, and in one case 145. d. 'for fflorishing of grete lettres and for the lynyng of grete letters and smale.' The abbot and forty-eight monks contributed, and one brother ' payeth for the peecyng of the book and fyndeth the writer his bedde.' '" The new community which entered upon this goodly heritage of wealth and many-sided activity was intended to consist of a bishop, dean, twelve prebendaries, ten readers at the two universities, scholars to be taught in grammar, twenty students of divinity at Oxford and Cam- bridge, twelve petty canons to sing in choir, twelve laymen to sing and serve in choir daily, ten choristers, a master of the children, a ' gospeller ' and a ' pistoler,' two sextons and twelve poor men decayed in the king's service.*^' The old community had not so far dissociated itself from the royal plans as to be totally ex- cluded from the new foundation, and the abbot, prior, and several of the monks found places in the cathedral church. But the foundation was short-lived, and has but little history. In 1550 the bishopric was dissolved, and on 21 November, 1556,^" just sixteen years after the first founda- tion of Henry's collegiate church, Dr. Fecken- ham, late dean of St. Paul's, and fourteen monks were once more installed at Westminster. On the following day they went in procession after the old fashion, in their monk's dress and cowls of black say, with two vergers carrying two silver rods in their hands, and at even- song time the vergers went through the cloister to the abbot and so went to the altar, and there my lord knelt in the convent, and after his prayers was brought into the choir with the vergers and so into his place and at once he began evensong.^"" '" D. & C. Westm. ' Monks,' 47, 5. "' L. and P. Hen. Fill, xvi, 333. "' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. i, App. 96. «"> Machyn's Diary (Camd. Soc), 1 1 8. For a few short years something or the old splendour seemed to be restored to this little community ; on 29 November, Feckenham was consecrated and wore his mitre, and in the following April the duke of Muscovy dined at his table — an indication of his high political place.^"^ But, as Fuller justly remarks, the new abbot ' like the Axiltree stood firme and fixed in his own judgement, whilst the times like the wheels turned backwards and forwards round about him.' ^"^ The same writer goes on to tell the story of how when Queen Elizabeth sent for Feckenham shortly after her accession, he was found setting elms in the orchard at West- minster, and characteristically would not follow the messenger until he had finished his task.^°' But neither his saintliness nor his known justice to Protestants during the previous reign ^*'* could save him from the results of his firmness of attitude nor his monastery from a second dissolution. On 21 May, 1 5 60, the queen once more con- stituted the abbey a collegiate body consisting of a dean and twelve prebendaries,^*** as in Henry VIII's foundation, though, according to Wid- more, the choir was not so large a body as that established twenty years earlier.^"' Of the history of Westminster as a com- munity after its second dissolution, it is not easy to speak. Much might be said of individuals, for many of the deans of the collegiate church, such as Launcelot Andrewes, John Williams, Francis Atterbury, and Samuel Wilberforce, have been famous in the annals of the English church; but their fame, whether as divines or as politicians, has been for the most part of national rather than of local importance. Much again might be told of the abbey as the scene of epoch- marking events, such as the riot on the occasion of the trial of the earl of Bristol in 1641,^°' the holding of the Westminster Assembly,^"* and of pageants, coronations, and funerals innumerable, but here again the interest can hardly be said to be local. Yet the one connecting link between the pre-reformation and the post- reformation abbey is perhaps to be found in this closeness of connexion between its history and that of the nation, a connexion which had more "' Ibid. 119, 132. «" Church Hist. (ed. 1655), bk. ix, 178-9. '»' Ibid. "•* Diet. Nat. Biog. He saved twenty-eight people from the stake at one time in Mary's reign. »»'Pat. 2 Eliz. pt. ll,m. 26. ^'^ Hist. 139. "" Rep. on MSS. of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu (Hist. MSS. Com.), 138. ™ Cf Rep. on Montagu House MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), i, 300, ' the Bill for the Council of Divines was debated, and resolved they should meet 13 th of June and sit in Hen. 7 Chapel in Westminster, and that each divine should have 4/. a day to defray their charges, and the countries must bear it.' 451