houses of the entire kingdom; and inscribed on it are the
titles, orders, and dedications of no fewer than six hundred and
twenty-three. Each had undertaken to pray for the souls of the two
priors in return for the prayers of the monks at Durham. The roll opens
with a superb illumination, three feet long, depicting the death and
burial of one of the priors; and at the foot occurs the formula: _Anima
Magistri Willielmi Ebchestre et anima Johannis Burnby et animae omnium
defunctorum per Dei misericordiam in pace requiescant._

The monastery first visited makes the following entry: _Titulus
Monasterii Beatae Mariae de Gyseburn in Clyveland, ordinis S. Augustini
Ebor. Dioc. Anima Magistri Willielmi Ebchestre et anima Johannis Burnby
et animae omnium defunctorum per misericordiam Dei in pace requiescant.
Vestris nostra damus, pro nostris vestra rogamus._ The other houses
employ identical terms, with the exception of the monastery of St. Paul,
Newenham, Lincolnshire, which substitutes for the concluding verse a
hexameter of similar import. It is of some interest to remark that,
apart from armorial or fanciful initials, the standing of a house may be
gauged by the handwriting, the titles of the larger monasteries being
given in bold letters, while those of the smaller form an almost
illegible scrawl. The greater houses would have been in a position to
support a competent scribe--not so the lesser; and this is believed to
have been the reason of the difference.

Almost, if not quite, as important as the roll just noticed is that of
Archbishop Islip of Westminster recently reproduced in _Vetusta
Monumenta_.

After the tenth century it appears to have been the custom in some
monasteries, on the death of a member, to record the fact; and at
certain periods--probably once a year--the names of all the dead
brethren were inscribed on an elaborate mortuary roll in the
scriptorium, before being dispatched to the religious houses throughout
the land.

The books of the confraternities are divisible into two
classes--necrologies and _libri vitae_. The former are in the shape of a
calendar, in which the names are arranged according to the days on which
the deaths took place; the latter include the names of the living as
well as the dead, and were laid on the altar to aid the memory of the
priest during mass. Twice a day--at the chapter after prime and at
mass--the monks assembled to listen to the recitation of the names,
singly or co