[326] This anecdote, somewhat differently told, we have already noticed in the sketch of Tinterne Abbey.
[327] This reminds us of a visit to a celebrated monastery in Tuscany, where the writer was received by one of the superior monks with great politeness and hospitality. In the course of the evening he mentioned the principal circumstances of his life—“court intrigue, dissipation, extravagance, and moral depravity; at last,” said he, “I became utterly disgusted with the life I had led, and flew for refuge to this sanctuary, where I have lived many years, and found, to my soul’s content, that there is no happiness in this life but in preparing for the next—pensare, pensare, sull’ éternità.”—Ed.
[328] Sir R. C. Hoare, quoting Giraldus.
[329] Orig. Nova Marchia. Chr. New March?
[330] See the account already given of the Clare family.
[331] In those times the Wye was considered the boundary between England and Wales.
[332] See ante, founders and benefactors of Tinterne Abbey.
[333] Of the strict legal phraseology of this document, the following is a specimen:—Volo et firmiter præcipio quod Canonici Lanthoniæ Primæ, omnia tenementa sua in terra de Ewias, tam laica quam ecclesiastica quæcumq: in præsenti habent vel in posterum, emptione, donatione, vel quocumq: alio titulo habituri sunt, bene et in pace, liberè et quietè teneant in omnibus locis et rebus ubicumque fuerint in terra de Ewias, quieta de omnibus placitis et querelis, et auxiliis, et sumagiis, et cariagiis, et clausturis; et de pontium et castrorum ædificatione, et de conductu thesauri, et de omni operatione et lestagio et stallagio et summonitionibus, et de assisis, et superassisis; et de omnibus foris functis, quacumque occasione emerserint; et de assartis. Nullus verò de Forestariis nostris quicquam se intromittat de boscis Prioris et Canonicorum Lanthoniæ Primæ; sed omnem potestatem et libertatem, quam ego et hæredes mei in boscis nostris habemus, vel habere poterimus, habeant prædicti Prior et Canonici in boscis suis, sint verò et homines et res ipsorum quieta de telonio, et ex omnibus exactionibus, et consuetudinibus in Nundinis, foris, et mercatis; et omnibus locis et rebus per totam terram de Ewias. Habeant prædicti Prior et Canonici omnem justiciam de assaultu et murdro et sanguinis effusione, et pacis infractione et thesauri inventione, et quicquid ad nostram pertinet potestatem.... Concedo quod habeant de hominibus suis et de tota possessione sua, quam habent vel habituri sunt, in terra de Ewias, etc. etc. Concedo quod predicti Prior et Canonici omnes libertates prædictas et liberas consuetudines habeant adeo liberè et quietè, pacificè et integrè sicut ego et antecessores mei, ipsius libertatis unquam melius, plenius, et liberiùs habuimus. Concedo etiam quod habeant omnes libertates quas ego et successores mei per Regem Angliæ, vel alium, habere poterimus in terra de Ewias, etc. etc.—Datum per nostrum manum apud Langley, Anno regni nostri decimo octavo.
[334] These Canons were to live in common; to have but one table, one purse, one dormitory. But as many of them had begun to abate somewhat of the strictness of their first rules, a new set sprang up that pretended to reform upon the rest; and these, from their more pointed observance of the vow, were styled Regular Canons; whereas those who had fallen from the original purity of the Order were called, by way of reproach, Secular Canons. In this manner the monks of New Llanthony, who affected a more exemplary life, called themselves Regulars—which they did not permit those of the parent Abbey, in Wales, to assume, but addressed them only as Canons or Seculars. It was by this distinction—“I am holier than thou”—that they endeavoured to justify their “unfilial conduct,” and promote their own ascendancy, in their connection with Old Llanthony. [But in the Charters they are often called Regulars.]
It seems uncertain at what precise period the title or designation of Canons was assumed in the church; but the first Regulars we read of were those employed by Pope Alexander II., in his mission to St. John Lateran. But so irregular, says a historian, were those Regulars, and so addicted to crimes, that even Pope Boniface VIII. was forced to drive them away, and placed Secular Canons in their room.