(7) Torches must be carried to the number of the deceased’s years, every torch to carry a scutcheon. (8) Before and beside the hearse must walk five officers of arms bearing his coat of worship, his sword, his helmet, his crest, and his banner of arms, together with the banners already mentioned of the Holy Trinity, Our Lady, St. George, and the Saint, his avower. (9) Cloth of gold for the ladies to give away. (10) A company of “innocents” in white carrying tapers. (11) The horse of the dead man, with a man-at-arms carrying the sword or spear or battle-axe. (12) The heir must stand beside the priest when offerings are made. This order, it will be observed, says nothing about the mourners. There were troops of mourners: the family, the relations, the friends, the servants, until the long, slow procession, singing, with the Priests of the Papey marching before, reached the whole length of Cheapside from St. Michael le Querne to St. Mildred’s. PART III RELIGIOUS HOUSES CHAPTER I GENERAL The history of the Monastic Life, with its rise and its decay, its work and its importance, has attracted many writers and historians. It has been fiercely assailed; it has been vehemently defended. In speaking of the Dissolution it was necessary to state plainly the condition into which Monks and Friars had fallen in the early sixteenth century. (See Appendix VIII.) In this place, and as a fitting preface to a review in detail of the Monastic Houses of London, it may be permitted to quote those who could speak in praise of the Religious Life. There are two writers who seem to say all that can be said in favour of Monasticism. The first was contemporary with the Dissolution; his work is in MS. in the British Museum. I quote it at second hand from Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry_ (p. 472): “There was no person that came to them heavy or sad for any cause that went away comfortless; they never revenged them of any injury, but was content to forgive it freely upon submission, and if the price of corn had begun to start up in the market, they made thereunto with a wain load of corn, and sold it under the market to poor people, to the end to bring down the price thereof. If the highways, bridges, or causeys were tedious to the passengers that sought their living by their travel, their great help lacked not toward the repairing and amending thereof, yea oftentimes they amended them on their own proper charges. If any poor householder lacked seed to sow his land, or bread, corn, or malt before harvest, and came to a monastery, either of men or women, he would not have gone away without help: for he should have had it until harvest, that he might easily have paid it again. Yea if he had made his moan for an ox, horse, or cow, he might have had it upon his credit, and such was the good conscience of the borrowers in those days that the thing borrowed needed not to have been asked at the day of payment.