They never raised any rent, or took any incomes or garsomes (fines) of their tenants, nor ever broke in or improved any commons, although the most part and the greatest waste grounds belonged to their possessions. If any poor people had made their moan at their day of marriage to any Abbey, they should have had money given to their great help. And thus all sorts of people were helped and succoured by abbeys: yea, happy was that person that was tenant to an abbey, for it was a rare thing to hear that any tenant was removed by taking his farm over his head, nor he was not afraid of any re-entry for non-payment of rent, if necessity drove him thereunto. And thus they fulfilled the works of charity in all the country round about them, to the good example of all lay parsons that now have taken forth other lessons, that is, _nunc tempus alios postulat mores_.” The second writer is Tanner in his _Notitia Monastica_ (Preface): “John Wethamsted, Abbot of St. Albans, caused above eighty books to be transcribed (there was then no printing) during his abbacy. Fifty-eight were transcribed by the care of one Abbot of Glastonbury, and so zealous were the monks in general for the work that they often got lands given and churches appropriated for the carrying of it on. In all the greater abbeys there were also persons appointed to take notice of the principal occurrences of the kingdom, and, at the end of every year, to digest them into annals. In these records they particularly preserved the memories of their founders and benefactors, the years and days of their births and deaths, their marriages, children, and successors, so that recourse was sometimes had to them for proving persons’ ages and genealogies, though it is to be feared that some of these pedigrees were drawn up from tradition only, and that in most of their accounts they were favourable to their friends and severe upon their enemies. The constitutions of the clergy in their national and provincial synods, and (after the Conquest) even Acts of Parliament were sent to the Abbey to be recorded, which leads me to mention the use and advantage of these religious houses.