Читать книгу Sweet Hampstead and Its Associations онлайн

34 страница из 97

In the eighth of Henry III., the great Forest of Middlesex was ordered to be disforested, giving the citizens of London, as Stowe tells us, ‘an opportunity of buying land, and building, whereby the suburbs were greatly extended.’

But the disforesting appears to have been partial, and the building limited to the east. Hampstead retained its woods in all their savage wildness; the paths through them, to the terror of passengers, continued to be scoured by wild beasts, especially wolves, which had not all been extirpated when the ‘Boke of St. Alban’s’ was written.[27]

During Henry III.’s reign (1256) we find Richard de Crokesley, Abbot of Westminster, ‘“assigning the whole produce of Hamestede and Stoke for the celebration of his anniversary in that monastery by ringing of bells, giving doles during a whole week, to the amount of 4,000 denarii. A thousand to as many paupers on the first day, and the same dole to 500 others on the six days following. A feast with wine, a dish of meat and a double pittance to the monks in the refectory. A Mass by the Convent in copes, on the anniversary day; and four Masses daily at four different altars for the repose of his [the Abbot’s] soul for ever!” With many other daily forms and ceremonies. But the keeping of this commemoration was found to be so heavy a burden that the monks petitioned the Pope in less than ten years after the Abbot’s death to dispense with it, and he very sensibly sent his mandate to Westminster, dated 5 Kal. June, 1267, declaring that he found these things to abound more in pomp than the good of souls, and “that it was evident they accorded not with religion, nor were suitable to religious persons,” and recommending the monks to limit the mode of commemoration to their ideas of the dead Abbot’s deserts, and the advantages that had accrued to the monastery by his administration. Upon which the said manors and revenues became at the free disposal of the Abbot and Convent of Westminster, towards the welfare of the abbey; an annual portion of 10 marks being assigned for making such celebration as that sum would admit of for the said Richard de Crokesley.’[28]