[149] Fosbroke’s “British Monachism,” p. 372.
[150] Engraved in the Archæological Journal, iv. p. 320.
[151] Reports of the Lincoln Diocesan Archæological Society for 1853, pp. 359-60.
[152] Peter, Abbot of Clugny, tells us of a monk and priest of that abbey who had for a cell an oratory in a very high and remote steeple-tower, consecrated to the honour of St. Michael the archangel. “Here, devoting himself to divine meditation night and day, he mounted high above mortal things, and seemed with the angels to be present at the nearer vision of his Maker.”
[153] In the Lichfield Registers we find that, on February 10, 1409, the bishop granted to Brother Richard Goldestone, late canon of Wombrugge, now recluse at Prior’s Lee, near Shiffenale, license to hear confessions. (History of Whalley, p. 55.)
[154] Paper by J. J. Rogers, Archæological Journal, xi. 33.
[155] Twysden’s “Henry de Knighton,” vol. ii. p. 2665.
[156] The translator of this book for the Camden Society’s edition of it, says “therein,” but the word in the original Saxon English is “ther thurgh.” It refers to the window looking into the church, through which the recluse looked down daily upon the celebration of the mass.
[157] “Caput suum decidit ad fenestram ad quam se reclinabit sanctus Dei Ricardus.”
[158] In one of the stories of Reginald of Durham we learn that a school, according to a custom then “common enough,” was kept in the church of Norham on Tweed, the parish priest being the teacher. (Wright’s “Domestic Manners of the Middle Ages,” p. 117.)