resident had his prebend and a share in the common income as well. This is all explained in a statute of Jocelin himself, dated in 1242, the year of his death, in which a daily distribution is ordered to such Canons and Vicars as are present, while at the end of the year the remainder of the common revenues is to be divided among such Canons as have kept residence. Residence is defined to be six months in the year for a simple Canon, that is, for one not a dignitary, and eight for the Dean, Precentor, Chancellor, and Treasurer.[46] With this stage, when residence was voluntary, is connected the curious institution of _ribs_, which, as far as I know, is peculiar to our own church. A rib, as many of you know, is a house, or a piece of ground fit for building a house, which the Bishop must give to some Canon, but which he might give to any Canon that he pleased. If therefore the Bishop wished to call into residence any Canon who had not a house of his own, he might give him the means of residing by giving him a rib. At this stage, then, residence was optional, just as it is at this moment among Fellows of Colleges in the Universities. But there was this important difference, that the resident Canon, unlike the resident Fellow, greatly bettered his income by residing. The natural result was that, whereas hitherto the tendency had been to shirk residence, there now was a general rush of the Canons to reside. And this new tendency to residence next led to all kinds of devices to hinder residence. If a small number were already residing, and therefore divided the common fund among them, they would be tempted to look with no friendly eye on those of their brethren who came trooping in to share their funds, and thereby to lessen their own dividends. It was often ordered that no one should be allowed to reside, or at least to draw any profits from his residence, unless he obtained the consent of those who were already Residentiaries. And it was no uncommon rule, a rule which existed in our own church, that no one should reside unless he purchased the right to residence by giving a series of costly entertainments to his brother Canons and to various other people.[47] This of course many of the Canons could not afford to do, and so were hindered from residing if they wished. All these devices were clear abuses, arising out of a selfish wish on the part of the existing Residentiaries to have as few sharers in their dividends as they could. Still it was clearly not to be wished that the whole body of Canons should reside, while it was desirable that the choice of those who should reside should not depend upon their power of giving great dinners. The remedy was to appoint a fixed number of Residentiaries to be chosen in some regular way out of the whole body of Canons. This was done sooner or later in all the strictly English Old Foundation churches, but the number of the Residentiaries, and the way of choosing them from among the