It will be seen that in two cases it was a Gammon not a Flitch of Bacon that was awarded. (A Flitch is a side, a Gammon a leg of Bacon.)
It is also of interest to notice that, in the cases reported, the Bacon is given to a man, not to a husband and wife. An historian also speaks of "the Pilgrim" and of "his Bacon being borne before him."
The first recorded presentation of the Bacon is dated, as will be observed, 1445. But, in view of the allusion in Chaucer a century before, it is plain that the custom must have existed even before his time. The references to the custom in other early authors would also seem to point to the fact of it having been frequently observed. There are, however, only three gifts of the Bacon noted down in the documents of the Priory, now in the care of the British Museum.
CHAPTER IV
The Vanished Cloisters
There is little now to be seen of the old Priory spoken of by Leland.
Approached from the hamlet, the existing Priory Church of Little Dunmow, with its roof of staring blue slates, its factory chimney-like bell tower and mean walling, attracts attention only by its oddity. But when one walks up the farm land from which the south side of the building may be viewed, one receives a different impression. In the architecture now seen there are the
lines where beauty lingers,
the lines which tell of a splendid structure. The remains of no common building stand in solitary domination of these quiet corn fields.
One enters the church and is surprised, as Mr. Hartley has written, by that