Whether the song of the monks really pleased the people as much as the cakes and ale we are not told, but considering the present use of the word _placebo_, we may doubt it. We are not informed either, when this _modification_ was made; but the Dean tells us that the retrenchment was very necessary, for the convent stood in some danger of being ruined by anniversaries; almost every Abbot having one.
Widmore, who mentions this anniversary, tells us Dr. Patrick, the editor of Gunton’s History of Peterborough, got his account from John Flete, the Monkish Historian of Westminster, who died in the Convent in 1464, having completed its history, which he wrote at the request of the monks, down to 1386.
Of John Flete, Widmore says, in his account of the writers of the History of Westminster Abbey, “He sets down his authorities as he found them; but as criticism was not a study in request in his time, he neither doth, nor was, I suppose, able to distinguish what in antiquity was true and genuine from forgeries.” { 16}
Of Walter of Winchester, the same learned writer remarks “There is little account left what this man did while Abbot here: he seems to have been too easy in granting out the estates of the church in fee farm: the manor of Denham in Bucks, the tithes of Boleby in Lincolnshire, the Church of St. Alban in Wood-street, what the Abbey had in Staining-lane and Friday-street, and the manor of Paglesham in Essex, were so granted by him. He seems to have been solicitous to perpetuate his memory by an anniversary, having ordered a very pompous one, much beyond those of any of his predecessors, and got the profits of the manor of Paddington assigned for that purpose: but this, sometime after, being thought too great, was very much lowered, and only loaves made of two quarters of wheat were on that day given to the poor, by the Almoner of the Abbey.”
Richard de Croksley, who died in 1258, was still more liberal with the funds he could no longer use, for he assigned the whole produce of the manors of Hamstead and Stoke for the celebration of his death-day. The ringers were paid thirteen shillings and four-pence for ringing the bells on the eve of the anniversary; one thousand poor were to receive a penny each on the first day; and for six subsequent days, five hundred were to receive daily one penny, for which sixteen pounds, thirteen shillings and four-pence was assigned; while for the arduous duties enjoined on the monks—“for the repose of the Abbot’s soul, four monks were to celebrate mass at four different altars every day for ever,” only twenty-seven pounds was given. But in less than ten years after this Abbot’s death “_the burthen of commemorating him in the way he had ordained was found too heavy to be borne_;” and after petitioning the Pope on this subject, and receiving his mandate thereon, this anniversary was modified and ten marks was assigned for keeping it. { 17}