The accounts of every monastery show certain definite sums set apart for charitable distribution, either in money, clothing, or food. These sums being charged on real property, came within the cognizance of the Commissioners who drew up the _Valor_ of 1534. The amounts in some cases were considerable, especially when they are compared with the total revenue of the house. Bishop Hobhouse has thus tabulated them for Somersetshire:-- £ _s._ _d._ Glastonbury 140 16 8 Wells, St. John’s 3 6 8 Bruton 26 6 8 Taunton 41 9 0 Keynsham 10 15 0 Worspring 8 0 0 Bath Abbey 10 2 6 Bath, St. John’s 8 0 Muchelney 11 3 0 Montacute 23 8 6 Athelney 22 18 2 Cleve 26 18 4 Barlynch 8 1 0 Dunster 14 8 Bridgewater, St. John 32 6 8 -------------- Total £356 14 10 ============== For the much smaller county of Warwickshire, the amount of income assigned of obligation to the poor or in hospitality from the religious houses was far more considerable, as is shown by the following table:-- £ _s._ _d._ Warwick, St. Sepulchre’s 25 7 0 Studley 25 6 3 Alcester 6 13 4 Wroxall 23 0 0 Pensley 9 9 4 Thelesford 2 13 4 Coventry, Benedictines 60 18 6 ” Carthusians 77 6 9 Combe 45 16 8 Erbury 26 19 8 Kenilworth 23 17 7 Stoneleigh 52 19 8 Merivale 12 16 8 Maxstoke 22 1 8 Avecote 18 0 6 Nuneaton 34 6 8 Polesworth 31 6 0 Henwood 8 10 8 -------------- £507 9 7 ============== But such tables as these are wholly inadequate if we desire to give a true idea of English monastic charity. In addition to these definitely pledged sums, a really much larger amount was distributed in kind by many a religious house up and down the country. Nor were these doles the mere lazy handing out of surplus food to be scrambled for by the sturdiest beggars, as is not infrequently represented by cynical and ill-informed writers of romance.