The Royal Historical Society has lately printed the first of two volumes entitled _Collectaneæ Anglo-Premonstratensia_ by Abbot Gasquet, which are devoted to the contents of an original register of the order of White Canons, in the Bodleian and other documents in the British Museum. The second volume will contain also details of Richard Redman’s visitations of all the English Premonstratensian houses. Redman was originally Abbot of Shap, Cumberland. In 1478 he was nominated by the Abbot of Prémontré to be vicar of the English province; at that time he had been already Bishop of St. Asaph for ten years, and thence he was successively translated to Exeter and Ely, dying Bishop of Ely 1505. He remained visitor of the Premonstratensians till the time of his death. Redman’s visitation register, well known to the writer of these chapters, shows that there was often much to correct; but the houses far oftener could show a clean bill of health, and where there was evil it only affected one or two individuals. It will also be found that the punishment of the guilty was usually most genuine and severe. For serious sins Redman’s usual punishment was forty days _gravioris culpa_, with the further penance of being sent to another house of the same order for seven years, during which long period the offender was under a certain amount of particular discipline and observation, and never allowed to leave the precincts. The chief points of the preliminary forty days’ punishment were:--To sit alone in the refectory on the ground at meal-times, with bread and water as the only fare; to lie prostrate at the entrance to the choir when the canons were entering or departing at the various hours; to be spoken to by no one; and to be excluded from the Communion. CHAPTER VIII THE TWO COMMISSIONS OF HENRY VIII