Contemporary accounts of, or references to, the cooking and feasting in religious houses are many--those of the Vision of Long Will concerning Piers the Plowman, those of “Dan Chaucer, the first warbler,” of Alexander Barclay, and Skelton, great satirist of times of Henry VIII., and of other authors not so well remembered. Now and then a racy anecdote has come down like that which Thomas Fuller saves from lip tradition in his “History of Abbeys in England.” It happened, says Worthy Fuller, that Harry VIII., “hunting in Windsor Forest, either casually lost, or (more probable) wilfully losing himself, struck down about dinner-time to the abbey of Reading; where, disguising himself (much for delight, more for discovery, to see unseen), he was invited to the abbot’s table, and passed for one of the king’s guard, a place to which the proportion of his person might properly entitle him. A sirloin of beef was set before him (so knighted saith tradition, by this King Henry), on which the king laid on lustily, not disgracing one of that place for whom he was mistaken. “‘Well fare thy heart!’ quoth the abbot; ‘and here in a cup of sack I remember the health of his grace your master. I would give an hundred pounds on the condition I could feed so heartily on beef as you do. Alas! my weak and squeazy stomach will badly digest the wing of a small rabbit or chicken.’ “The king pleasantly pledged him, and, heartily thanking him for his good cheer, after dinner departed as undiscovered as he came thither. “Some weeks after, the abbot was sent for by a pursuivant, brought up to London, clapped in the Tower, kept close prisoner, fed for a short time with bread and water; yet not so empty his body of food, as his mind was filled with fears, creating many suspicions to himself when and how he had incurred the king’s displeasure. At last a sirloin of beef was set before him, on which the abbot fed as the farmer of his grange, and verified the proverb, that ‘Two hungry meals make the third a glutton.’ “In springs King Henry out of a private lobby, where he had placed himself, the invisible spectator of the abbot’s behavior. ‘My lord,’ quoth the king, ‘presently deposit your hundred pounds in gold, or else no going hence all the days of your life. I have been your physician to cure you of your squeazy stomach; and here, as I deserve, I demand my fee for the same!’ “The abbot down with his dust; and, glad he had escaped so, returned to Reading, as somewhat lighter in purse, so much more merrier in heart than when he came thence.” The “squeazy” abbot stood alone in proclamation of his disorder. Archbishop Cranmer, according to John Leland, king’s antiquary to Henry VIII., found it necessary in 1541 to regulate the expenses of the tables of bishops and clergy by a constitution--an instrument which throws much light on the then conditions, and which ran as follows: