London or shire of Middlesex; the prior whereof was an alderman of London, to wit, of Portsoken ward. I read, that Eustacius, the eighth prior, about the year 1264, because he would not deal with temporal matters, instituted Theobald Fitz Ivon, alderman of Portsoken ward under him, and that William Rising, prior of Christ’s church, was sworn alderman of the said Portsoken ward in the 1st of Richard II. These priors have sitten and ridden amongst the aldermen of London, in livery like unto them, saving that his habit was in shape of a spiritual person, as I myself have seen in my childhood; at which time the prior kept a most bountiful house of meat and drink, both for rich and poor, as well within the house as at the gates, to all comers, according to their estates.” (Stow’s _Survey_, vol. i.) What happened many years afterwards with the Franciscans happened then in the case of these brethren of the Augustine Order. Their piety, their austerity, the endless offering of prayer and praise which ascended from their chapel deeply moved the hearts of the people. The endowment at first consisted of £25 a year, equivalent to about £750 a year of our money, if there be any certainty as to the comparative value of money, together with the proceeds of the port called Aldgate. In the year 1125 a very singular event greatly increased the possessions and the wealth of this House. I mean the conveyance of the property held in trust by the Cnihten Gild to the Priory of the Holy Trinity. Twelve years later, Pope Immanuel the First, by a Bull, confirmed the House in all their possessions, including “two parts of Issues of the City of Exon the Lands of Lestune, which Prince de Moulins and Adeline his wife out of piety granted to the same place, the land and the soke of the English Cnihten Gild, the Church of Bix with its rents, and the church of Tottenham.” Many other possessions fell to the House as time went on.