11. Orders of Regular Canons under the Rule of

St. Augustine.

(1) AUSTIN CANONS (Rawl. MS. 939; B. 16, 428, C. II.; Tanner, excvi.; Bodley, ch. Tonbridge; MS. C.C.C. Oxon, cliv.).-This was an order of conventual clergy, thus holding an intermediate position between conventuals who were not necessarily in holy orders, and secular canons whom in 1176 they ousted at Waltham. They followed the Institutes of St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo (Epistle cix., al. ccxi.). They were canons secular under a reform which gave them a rule conventual, but were not constituted an order until 1061, by Pope Alexander II. They had 175 houses in this country, and were only inferior to the Benedictines in point of numbers, size, and influence. It is therefore pleasant to record that no rivalry existed between these orders similar to that which rendered the Cistercian positively hostile to the Cluniac. They entered into confraternity, and in one instance the monks of Coventry, in the thirteenth century, received into their house many canons of Darley, in order to save their convent from dissolution owing to debt and misfortune.

Many of the houses retain now only their gateways, as at Thornton, Alnwick, and Kenilworth. Several naves were spared on account of their parochial character, and are still in use-Bolton, Waltham, Lanercost, St. German's, Worksop, and Dunstable; so also are the choirs of Carlisle, Bristol, Smithfield, Hexham, and Southwark; Twyneham, Cartmel, and Dorchester remain perfect. In the north, the Austin churches had only a north nave aisle, as at Bolton, Hexham, Brinkburne, Kirkham, Lanercost; and again at Haughmond, Ulvescroft, Newstead, and Chiche. The parochial character of the nave was not unfrequently marked by a west tower at Bolton, Christchurch, Dorchester, and Dunstable. Two western towers were added at Worksop and St. German's. Their first English houses were St. Gregory's Canterbury (c. 1075), Colchester (1105) (which Paschal II. called their chief house'), and Nostell (1114), which was commonly regarded as such. Their habit was a

rochet, supertunic, and corset of worsted or frison, a cloak or cope of burnet trimmed with black lambs' wool, footstalls of linen or blanket, and shoes of ox hide or cordovan; a cap and hood. furred in winter, and worn over a pelisse. They were always subject to visitation by the bishop of the diocese, whereas only the smaller Benedictine priories not actually exempt were under his supervision. Lilleshull, Thornton, Dorchester, Haughmond, and Bristol were abbeys. Hexham, Worksop, Bolton, and Carlisle, like Benedictine Bath, though properly priories, were so called by popular caprice.

The so-called monks of St. Bernard, on the famous Alpine pass, are Austin canons, who often had charge of hospitals and shelters for the entertainment of travellers.

The arrangement of the buildings at Oseney was accurately ascertained by an eye-witness. On the north side was the gatehouse of the base court. The infirmary lay south of the refectory, 140 x 36 with its chapel. The dormitory (169 × 32) was in two aisles, divided into partitions. The abbot's lodgings, with a hall 46 × 36, were near the great gate; and between the gates was the hospice of poor clerks with a chapel of St. Nicholas. Besides these were the houses of office, lodgings, kilnhouse (76 x 32), furnace, slaughter-house, schools, and chambers for almsmen. At Leicester there was a base-court comprising barns, farm stables, servants' rooms, and houses of husbandry, divided by a tower gate (the guest-house on one side of it, and the officers' chequers on the other side) from the inner court, which contained the bakehouses, brewhouse, and conventual stables. In the cloister court a great square house with chambers and fireplaces' was on the west fronting the dormitory, which stood over 'great large cellars.'

There were two other congregations; and Lyndwood, speaking of the ceremonies' of the order, says: 'Some canons use a linen rochet and a black cope open in front over it; some wear a white linen or woollen habit; some wear black close copes with a cross on the breast; and others, a white habit with a cross sewn on it.'

(2) CANONS OF ST. NICHOLAS OF ARROAISE had churches

at Dorchester, Lilleshull, Notley, and Brunne, distinguished by a very irregular ground-plan, with only a partial employment of aisles; Lilleshull is actually destitute of them.

(3) CANONS MINOR OF ST. VICTOR had houses at Keynsham, Worspring, and Wormesley. Considerable portions of their buildings remain at Lanercost and Newstead.

12. Regular Canons of St. Norbert or Premontre (Præmonstratensian or White Canons).

This was a reform of canons regular by St. Norbert, Archbishop of Magdeburgh, 1120, at Prémontré (Premonstratum), where the site, in the diocese of Laon, was (according to the name) pointed out aforehand by the Blessed Virgin Mary. Like the Cluniac monks they were subject to their French chief house, and even until 1512 they were visited from Prémontré, and paid to it an annual pension. They were called White Canons from their dress, a white cassock, a rochet, and white cloak. Like the Cistercians, they lived far away from towns, and admitted only guests in their churches. These, like Cistercian abbeys, were placed in sequestered spots; but unlike them had no definite plan. Wendling and Leiston are less ill-defined and abnormal than Bayham, whose ante-church resembles the Cluniac form at Lewes. Shap and Dale had a single north aisle, like some churches of canons of the former order. Easby might have been designed by an architect of Laputa. The chapter-house of Bayham had three, and Dale two alleys. Their first abbey was Newhouse, 1140; the others of importance (they had no priories) wereWelbeck, Torre, Cokersand, Hales Owen, Egleston, Bradsole St. Rhadegund's, Alnwick, and Coverham (Registrum, Sloane MS. 4934).

(4) GILBERTINE CANONS.-The canons of this purely English order (founded by St. Gilbert of Sempringham, 1148) followed the Austin rule, the nuns and lay brothers that of the Cistercians. At Chicksands there are remains of the double cloister by which the canons and canonesses went to church unseen by each other. In church the division of the sexes was

made by the interposition of a longitudinal wall. One of their finest churches was at Malton. They lived in separate houses, but formed a community having a common church (Tanner MS. 105, 343).

(5) CANONS OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE, or Holy Cross, placed at Warwick, c. 1120.

13. Knights following the Rule of St. Austin.

(6) HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM, 1092.—They wore a black habit and white cross. Their first house was in London, 1103 (Hospitallers in England, Camd. Soc. 1855).

(7) TEMPLARS, 1118.-They wore a white habit with a red cross. Their first house was in Holborn. They were suppressed 1312, and their houses, preceptories, or commanderies (so called from the rents or charges) given to the hospitallers.

(8) ST. LAZARUS OF JERUSALEM (founded 1190).-They had a house at Cople, Norfolk. They wore a grey habit with a red

cross.

14. Nuns (Moniales).

In pre-Norman times there were communities of men and women under an abbess at Whitby, Ely, Beverley, Coldingham, and Repton. In the later houses these nuns-who were subject to episcopal visitation, and not to some chief religious house— were not cloistered as recluses (inclusa), but were allowed, for a short time and by special licence, to visit their homes or friends, with a sister to bear them company, by way of 'recreation,' or in case of illness requiring a change of air. The Cistercians were so closely immured that it was said no bird could pierce the closures. The orders were: (1) Benedictine; (2) Cluniac; (3) Cistercian; (4) Carthusian; (5) Austin; (6) Præmonstra

tensian.

(9) FONTEVRAULT, founded by Robert d'Arbissel c. 1100, a reform of the Benedictines. They had three houses, Nuneaton, Ambrosebury, and Westwood.

(10) BRIDGETTINES, or nuns of our Holy Saviour, a reform of

the Augustinian rule, founded in the fourteenth century by the Princess Bridget of Sweden. They had only one house-a cell of Wasten in Sweden-Syon, at Shene. Their dress was white, russet, or grey (Lyndw. 206, 212). Every house had a mystical number of men and women, representing the thirteen apostles and seventy-two disciples: sixty nuns, thirteen priests, four deacons, eight lay brothers.

(11) HOSPITALLERS.--Buckland was made the general house in the time of Henry II.

The POOR CLARES or MINORESSES followed the rule of the sister of St. Francis of Assisi, 1212. They were established at the Minories 1293. They had three other houses, Denny, Waterbeche, Brusyard.

The plan of Marrick (Benedictine) has the destination of the buildings so distinctly marked, that they must be given in detail.

The church consisted of a western tower, and the nuns' choir; a door at the east end, between two altars, opened upon the nave and chancel of the parish church; the sacristies were on the south-east side. On the east side of the cloister garth was the dormitory, over the chapter-house; on the south the hall, opening on a parlour on the east, and the entry to the kitchen on the west; behind this was the inner court, with gardens on the east, and kilns, and garners on the south; further eastward were the milk, bake, brew, store, and work houses. The great court extended along the whole front of the church and the west side of the cloisters. On its west side were guest-chambers, kennels, a dove-house, and stables for strangers' and work horses; on the north stood the gate-house, with the ox-house beyond it. The prioress' chamber adjoined the north-west side of the church, having the churchyard behind it.