ut that its professed date
is 1593, or more than fifty years after the dissolution of the Priory;
and maintains that it is not a first-hand chronicle of events of "the
floryshinge tyme" before the suppression of the house, but a compilation
based partly on old records and partly on the reminiscences of aged
residents.

Nevertheless, the narrative must be considered to possess a high degree
of historical value, and is undeniably picturesque. We catch a glimpse
of the fugitive "knocking and rapping" at the grim twelfth-century
knocker "to have yt opened." We see him "letten in" by "certen men that
did lie alwaies in two chambers over the said north church door," and
running straightway to the Galilee bell and tolling it. ("In the weste
end in the north allie and over the Galleley dour there, in a belfray
called the Galleley Steple, did hing iiii goodly great bells.") The work
goes on to state that "when the Prior had intelligence thereof, then he
dyd send word and command them that they should keape themselves within
the sanctuary, that is to saie, within the Church and Churchyard." This
was until the official of the convent and witnesses had assembled for
the formal admission and registration of the fugitive, which took place
in the nave, in the Sacrist's exchequer, which was in the north aisle of
the choir or "in domo registrali." The official who presided over the
ceremony was commonly the Sacrist, but the duty was sometimes performed
by the Chancellor of the Cathedral, the Sub-prior, or a monk qualified
as a notary public. As for the witnesses, they might be monks, servants
of the convent, clerks, masons employed on the fabric, or they might be
friends of the fugitive who had attended him to Durham as a bodyguard.
Frequently, however, they were casual onlookers or persons who had
flocked out of curiosity to the "show."

On admission, the "grithman" received a gown of black cloth "maid with a
cross of yeallowe cloth called St. Cuthbert's Cross, sett on the lefte
shoulder of the arme" and was permitted to lie "within the church or
saunctuary in a grate ... standing and adjoining unto the Galilei dore
on the south side," and "had meite, cost and charge for 37 days." The
writer of the book alleges that maintenance was found for fugitives
"unto such tyme as the prior and convent could gett them conveyed out of
the dioces," but Mr. Forster traverses this statement and adduces
documentary evidence to show that, in various i