But in the reign of Edward the First, its revenues seem to have been nearly as large again. According to the late Mr. Beck, the author of _Annales Furnesienses_, to which we are indebted for much of these particulars, the tenants of the Abbey paid great part of their rents by provisioning the monks with grain, lambs, calves, &c., or bartered them for beer, bread, iron, wood, and manure. More than two hundred gallons of beer were distributed weekly among these tenants upon tunning days, accompanied with about three score of loaves of bread; the expenditure in this particular alone, per annum, must have been at least one thousand pounds of our present money: one ton of malleable iron was also given to the same people for the repair of their ploughs, and wood for that of their houses and fences. They might take, too, all the manure--amounting yearly to four or five hundred cartloads--with the exception of that from the Abbot's and high stables. The tenants paid by way of fine, or admission to their tenements, but one penny, called "God's Penny," and were sworn to be true to the king and to the convent. What alms were distributed amongst the poor by this wealthy and pious society we have no means of discovering. It was bound, upon the anniversary of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, to distribute two oxen, two cows, and one bull among the poor folks who assembled for that purpose at the Porter's Lodge. At the same place, ninety-nine shillings' worth of bread, and six maze of _fresh_ herrings, valued at forty shillings, were also given in alms every Monday and Tuesday; the convent maintained from its very commencement thirteen poor men, allowing each of them thirty-three shillings and fourpence yearly: and eight widows received a similar allowance of provisions to that allowed for the same number of monks. They had five flagons of ale weekly, and each of them a _clibanus_,[15] which it is supposed must have been a certain quantity of bread. Lastly, there were two schools held in some part of the monastery, where the children of those tenants who paid their rent in provisions, and who it is probable lived in the neighbourhood, received their education gratuitously, and dined in the hall during their attendance as well. If one of these showed symptoms of superior intelligence, he had the privilege of being elected into the society in preference to all others, by which step he might rise by good fortune or _finesse_ even to be Lord of Furness.