DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6886#0221
WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 189
He paid the debts of his two predecessors*, which had been contracted by the
law charges of the one and the extravagance of the other. They amounted to
two thousand two hundred marks, exclusive of two hundred for which the mona-
stery itself stood engaged. These he also discharged. It is said -j- that he accom-
plished these payments on his taking possession of the abbey, and with the money
which he saved while he was a monk, or during the time he filled the office of
prior. But this opinion appears to be of a dubious character; for the Benedic-
tine monks, according to the regulations of their order, could not possess private
property^; and though the surplus of the estates given for the anniversary of
Queen Eleanor §, was, after defraying the charges of that service, divided among
the monks; yet this circumstance could not furnish him with a sum, in any de-
gree, adequate to such a purpose; for he was a monk but a few years, and the
prior only a few weeks. It is elsewhere stated, with greater probability, that as
the abbots had a considerable part of the estates of the monastery assigned for
their individual use, Langham was, by an attentive economy, enabled to relieve
his abbey from the debt with which he found it encumbered||.
The place of serjeant of the cellar had become an hereditary office, and this
abbot purchased it for the advantage of the house**. He also gave from his own
portion a garden somewhere in the close called the Bourgoigne; but the reason
of its name is no where explained. There were other places in Westminster with
* Flete.
t Antiquitat. Britan.
% Cap. 33.
S Comp. Maner. Regincr Aleonoras.
jj Qui locum ilium nimis indebitatum suis parcens in brevi sapienter reslituit.—Biblioth. Cotton*
Cleopatra, A. 16.
** Flete.
He paid the debts of his two predecessors*, which had been contracted by the
law charges of the one and the extravagance of the other. They amounted to
two thousand two hundred marks, exclusive of two hundred for which the mona-
stery itself stood engaged. These he also discharged. It is said -j- that he accom-
plished these payments on his taking possession of the abbey, and with the money
which he saved while he was a monk, or during the time he filled the office of
prior. But this opinion appears to be of a dubious character; for the Benedic-
tine monks, according to the regulations of their order, could not possess private
property^; and though the surplus of the estates given for the anniversary of
Queen Eleanor §, was, after defraying the charges of that service, divided among
the monks; yet this circumstance could not furnish him with a sum, in any de-
gree, adequate to such a purpose; for he was a monk but a few years, and the
prior only a few weeks. It is elsewhere stated, with greater probability, that as
the abbots had a considerable part of the estates of the monastery assigned for
their individual use, Langham was, by an attentive economy, enabled to relieve
his abbey from the debt with which he found it encumbered||.
The place of serjeant of the cellar had become an hereditary office, and this
abbot purchased it for the advantage of the house**. He also gave from his own
portion a garden somewhere in the close called the Bourgoigne; but the reason
of its name is no where explained. There were other places in Westminster with
* Flete.
t Antiquitat. Britan.
% Cap. 33.
S Comp. Maner. Regincr Aleonoras.
jj Qui locum ilium nimis indebitatum suis parcens in brevi sapienter reslituit.—Biblioth. Cotton*
Cleopatra, A. 16.
** Flete.