We must now turn to the history of the whole precinct. When the proud Order was abolished by the Pope, Edward II. granted the Temple to Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, who, however, soon surrendered it to the king's cousin, the Earl of Lancaster, who let it, at their special request, to the students and professors of the common laws; the colony then gradually becoming an organised and collegiate body, Edward I. having authorised laymen for the first time to read and plead causes. Hugh le Despenser for a time held the Temple, and on his execution Edward III. appointed the Mayor of London its guardian. The mayor closing the watergate caused much vexation to the lawyers rowing by boat to Westminster, and the king had to interfere. In 1333 the king farmed out the Temple rents at L25 a year. In the meantime, the Knights Hospitallers, affecting to be offended at the desecration of holy ground--the Bishop of Ely's lodgings, a chapel dedicated to a Becket, and the door to the Temple Hall--claimed the forfeited spot. The king granted their request, the annual revenue of the Temple then being L73 6s. 11d., equal to about L1,000 of our present money. In 1340, in consideration of L100 towards an expedition to France, the warlike king made over the residue of the Temple to the Hospitallers, who instantly endowed the church with lands and one thousand fagots a year from Lillerton Wood to keep up the church fires. In this reign Chaucer, who is supposed to have been a student of the Middle Temple, and who is said to have once beaten an insolent Franciscan friar in Fleet Street, gives a eulogistic sketch of a Temple manciple, or purveyor of provisions, in the prologue to his wonderful "Canterbury Tales." "A gentil manciple was there of the Temple Of whom achatours mighten take ensample, For to ben wise in bying of vitaille; For, whether that he paid or toke by taille, Algate he waited so in his achate That he was aye before in good estate. Now is not that of God a full fayre grace That swiche a lewed mannes wit shall face The wisdom of an hepe of lerned men? "Of maisters had he more than thries ten, _That were of law expert and curious_; Of which there was a dosein in that hous Worthy to ben stewardes of rent and land Of any lord that is in Engleland: To maken him live by his propre good, In honour detteles; but if he were wood, Or live as scarsly as him list desire, And able for to helpen all a shire, In any cos that mighte fallen or happe: And yet this manciple sett 'hir aller cappe.'" In the Middle Temple Chaucer is supposed to have formed the acquaintanceship of his graver contemporary, "the moral Gower." [Illustration: TOMBS OF KNIGHTS TEMPLARS (_see page 152_).]