to retain some of their ancient rights and privileges. Beyond these districts local government was suppressed and a military despotism took its place, administere

ceased to be patriotic. In the combinations against regal misrule which produced the Great Charters, Bishops and Abbots threw in their lot heartily with the lay barons. But in themselves they formed at this

olars if only they proved their ability to profit by the tuition. A certain number of manors were allotted to the Church, and this number was constantly being increased by royal or private benefaction. The tenants of ecclesiastical manors, more especially the villeins or serfs, w

tate were usually kept in fair condition, as compared with those in other districts. The first London Bridge was built by the Prior of St. Mary Overie; another great endowed bridge, that over the Medway at Rochester, owes its origin to the great St. Dunstan. Nearly all the picturesque gothic bridges which still survive were the work of the monks. Travelling was in many other ways directly fostered by the monasteries. Communications were constantly passing between t

or because there was nothing to pay. No unpleasant questions were likely to be asked; so we find Quentin Durward (in the novel of Sir Walter Scott, which gives us such an excellent idea of the period he describes,) always avoiding the public

unless he be the founder, and then he must conform closely to the rules and regulations. The poor alone were to retain the right to the grace of hospitality free of charge. Numerous later statutes were enacted with the same end in view. The monks of Battle rebuilt th

a common sign in connection with a nunnery. Thus the inns of this name at Dartford, Barking and Malling, all three very ancient, belonged to the local abbeys. At Hythe, on the Medway, a manor of Malling Abbey, there is a Bull Inn; and another at Theale in Berkshire, which was the property of the prioress of Goring. Elfrida, the mother-in-law of Edward the Martyr, foun

ull,

marks on barrels of strong ale, as having been originally the seals guaranteeing the quality in the days when the monks were the leading brewers. It is true that the peculiar virtue of the wells at Burton-on-Trent was known at a very early period, and that the ale brewed in the local Abbey was an article of commerce when Richard I was king. Tied houses were not uncommon in the Middle Ages, witness the Bear Inn in Southwark, leased in 1319 by Thomas Drinkwater, wine merchant to James Beauflur, on condition that

at the Bull

mendation of the Bull at Rochester, "Good house, nice beds," might be fairly applied to nearly every Bull Inn of our acquaintance. The sign is a symbol of steady-going respectable old-fashioned ways, where comfort is not sacrificed to economy, and where the cellar and kitchen are alike irreproachable. Any remnants of antiquity are concealed behind a broad Georgian fa?ade, for good business entails

ed Bull is a whimsical sign found near a cattle market or bull-ring. A few inns, too, received the name of the Bull in Elizabethan or Jacob

given the bull, or the Bull

staircase of great antiquity, each tread being a solid log of timber; and an underground passage, which local gossip connects with a priory at Ryarsh. Another monastic Angel at Basingstoke is said to be the subject of Ben Jonson's coarse epigram, inspired by the departure of his hostess, Mrs. Hope and her daughter Prudence. The Cock as an emblem of St. Peter, and the Crosskeys are frequently found. The most interesting inn in the city of Westminster was the Cock and Tabard, in

might find chapter and verse for the sign and gloat over the conceit of entertaining an Angel-perhaps not unawares. Puritan sects have been known to give the official title of "Angel" to their itinerant preachers. The Cock Tavern, in Fleet Street, in spite of the splendid gilt chanticleer (generally attributed to Grinling Gibbons) has no

ter and substance who would attract guests of good class. Harry Bailey, Chaucer's friend, represented Southwark in two successive parliaments, and another landlord, William Rutton, sat in Parliament for East Grinstead in 1529. Built in 1307, together with a hostel for the clergy of the monastery, it remained in much the same condition as when Chaucer sang its praises until about 1602. The

show that they had spent more than their whole revenue-at least ￡8,000, the reason being, as the prior explains, the hospitality given to strangers, members of the royal family and other grandees who all expected to be entertained in accordance with their rank. A no

e White Ho

gs have apparently destroyed any feature older than say three centuries. Perhaps it was in the yard of this house, where a noble old vine spreads green fragrance over the great white gables, that Charles Dickens met the individual who sat for the portrait of Tony Weller. Deep underneath the building are a series of vaults cut out of the sandstone-maybe a relic