, did certainly support but small numbers, and this probably
accounts for the ease with which they were suppressed, but, on the
other hand, their possessions also were small. In the case of the
great foundations, though one can count but 3000 monks and canons, the
number of them must be multiplied many times if we are to arrive at
the total of the communities concerned. Reading, Abingdon, and the
rest were little cities, with a whole population of direct dependants
living within the walls, and a still larger number of families
without, who indirectly depended upon the revenues of the abbey for
their livelihood.

Another and perhaps a better way of presenting to a modern reader the
overwhelming economic power of the mediaeval monastic system,
especially its economic power in the Valley of the Thames, would be to
add to such a list of houses a map of that valley showing the manors
in ecclesiastical hands, the freeholds and leaseholds held by the
great abbeys, in addition to the livings that were within their gift;
in a word, a map giving all their different forms of revenue.

Such a map would show the Valley of the Thames and its tributaries
covered with ecclesiastical influence upon every side.

Even if we confined ourselves to the parishes upon the actual banks of
the river, the map would present a continuous stretch of possessions
upon either side from far above Eynsham down to below bridges.

The research that would be necessary for the establishment of such a
complete list would require a leisure which is not at the disposal of
the present writer, but it is possible to give some conception of what
the monastic holdings were by drawing up a list confined to but a
small part of these holdings and showing therefore _a fortiori_ what
the total must have been.

In this list I concern myself only with the eight largest houses in
the whole length of the river. I do not mention parishes from which
the revenues were not important (though these were numerous, for the
abbeys held a large number of small parcels of land). I do not mention
the very numerous holdings close to the river but not actually upon it
(such as Burnham or Watereaton), nor, which is most important of all,
do I count even in the riparian holdings such foundations as were not
themselves set upon the banks of the Thames. Whatever Thames land paid
rent to a monastery not actually situated upon the banks of the river,
I omit. Finally the list, curtailed as