I have said that when the Rule was too hard for men to obey, they made for themselves alleviations.
There was one Rule at least where, so far as one can learn, no alleviations were practised; in this Rule men had to conform or be broken in the attempt. It was the Rule of the Carthusians. It was so austere as to seem well-nigh impossible of observance; but it was observed; nay, it was loved: Sir Thomas More lived with the brethren for a time and practised all their austerities; he would have continued to live with them; he desired nothing better than to live and die under a Rule which repressed all natural desires, but the brethren would not receive him: they sent him out into the world to do a nobler work among the people of his age and of the generations to come.
[CHAPTER II]
ST. MARTIN’S-LE-GRAND
This foundation, by reason of its antiquity and religious objects, should have been venerable, but it became, by its claims, privileges, and position, an institution hateful and detestable, long before the Monastic Houses fell into disrepute. It had its origin certainly before the Conquest, but how long before cannot be ascertained. Tradition made Wythred, King of Kent, its founder in the seventh century. We need not trouble ourselves with the reasons which make this tradition impossible. Safe ground is touched about the year 1056, when St. Martin’s was either founded, or endowed, by Ingelric and Girard [Edward], two brothers, for a Dean and Secular Canons. In 1068 a Charter was granted to the College by William:—
“I William, etc.... grant, and by my royal authority for ever corroborate and confirm to God and the Church of the blessed Martin, situate within the walls of London, which the aforesaid Ingelric and Girard his brother, from their own revenues, and in atonement of their faults, honourable built to the praise of God, and for the Canonical Rule therein to be held and observed for ever. Now these are the names of the lands, Estre in Essex, with the Berewic of Maissebery and Norton, and Stanford, and Fobbinge, and Benedict, and Christehal, and Tolesfunte, and Rowenhal, and Angre, together with their appendages, the meadows, pastures, woods, mills, and all to them belonging; and in Benefleot one hide, and in Hoddesdon one hide, also the church of Mealdon with two hides of Land, and the tithes and all things to it appertaining. Moreover also, on my own part, I give and grant to the said Church, for the redemption of the souls of my father and mother, all the land and moor without the postern, which is called Cripelesgate on either side of the postern, to wit, from the Northern angle of the City wall, where a rivulet of springs, near thereto flowing, marks it out (i.e. the moor) from the wall, as far as the running-water which enters the City. I grant to it besides all the Churches and all the tithes, lands also and houses, which the faithful in Christ have already given to it within and without London, or shall in future bestow....
This Charter was renewed or confirmed by Henry the First and by Stephen.
Among the various historical points connected with St. Martin’s, the following may be noted as the most important.
Henry the Second granted to the Canons a free court of all their men and tenants: they were not to be impleaded out of it except before the King and the Chief Justice.
The Saddlers’ Guild became connected with the Church of St. Martin’s—a fact which shows that the college was not wholly regarded as a sanctuary for criminals.