[86] Its total length would perhaps be about twenty-four paces.
[87] The above woodcut, from the Harleian MS. 1,527, represents, probably, the cellarer of a Dominican convent receiving a donation of a fish. It curiously suggests the scene depicted in Sir Edwin Landseer’s “Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time.”
[88] See an account of this hall, with pen-and-ink sketches by Mr. Street, in the volume of the Worcester Architectural Society for 1854.
[89] Quoted by Archdeacon Churton in a paper read before the Yorkshire Architectural Society in 1853.
[90] Ground-plans of the Dominican Friary at Norwich, the Carmelite Friary at Hulne and the Franciscan Friary at Kilconnel, may be found in Walcott’s “Church and Conventual Arrangement.”
[91] In the National Gallery is a painting by Fra Angelico, in which is a hermit clad in a dress woven of rushes or flags.
[92] “The Wonderful and Godly History of the Holy Fathers Hermits,” is among Caxton’s earliest-printed books. Piers Ploughman (“Vision”) speaks of—
“Anthony and Egidius and other holy fathers
Woneden in wilderness amonge wilde bestes
In spekes and in spelonkes, seldom spoke together.
Ac nobler Antony ne Egedy ne hermit of that time
Of lions ne of leopards no livelihood ne took,
But of fowles that fly, thus find men in books.”
And again—
“In prayers and in penance putten them many,
All for love of our Lord liveden full strait,
In hope for to have heavenly blisse
As ancres and heremites that holden them in their cells
And coveten not in country to kairen [walk] about
For no likerous lifelihood, their liking to please.”