Afterwards, however, a modification was made of this anniversary in this form: namely, that every year (on the festival of the Saints aforesaid), the Prior and the convent shall sing _the placebo_ and _dirige_ with three lessons, as is usual on other anniversaries, and with the chiming (or a peal) of bells. That two wax candles shall be kept burning at the tomb of Walter, from the vigil of the anniversary to the end of the requiem mass the following day, which the prior or any head of the order present shall sing; and on that day the Almoner, for the time being, shall distribute two quarters of corn in baked bread to the poor, according to the usuage of the Convent; but there shall be no distribution of other things, or dispensation of alms.” Whether the song of the monks really pleased the people as much as the cakes and ale we are not told, but considering the present use of the word _placebo_, we may doubt it. We are not informed either, when this _modification_ was made; but the Dean tells us that the retrenchment was very necessary, for the convent stood in some danger of being ruined by anniversaries; almost every Abbot having one. Widmore, who mentions this anniversary, tells us Dr. Patrick, the editor of Gunton’s History of Peterborough, got his account from John Flete, the Monkish Historian of Westminster, who died in the Convent in 1464, having completed its history, which he wrote at the request of the monks, down to 1386. Of John Flete, Widmore says, in his account of the writers of the History of Westminster Abbey, “He sets down his authorities as he found them; but as criticism was not a study in request in his time, he neither doth, nor was, I suppose, able to distinguish what in antiquity was true and genuine from forgeries.” {16} Of Walter of Winchester, the same learned writer remarks “There is little account left what this man did while Abbot here: he seems to have been too easy in granting out the estates of the church in fee farm: the manor of Denham in Bucks, the tithes of Boleby in Lincolnshire, the Church of St. Alban in Wood-street, what the Abbey had in Staining-lane and Friday-street, and the manor of Paglesham in Essex, were so granted by him. He seems to have been solicitous to perpetuate his memory by an anniversary, having ordered a very pompous one, much beyond those of any of his predecessors, and got the profits of the manor of Paddington assigned for that purpose: but this, sometime after, being thought too great, was very much lowered, and only loaves made of two quarters of wheat were on that day given to the poor, by the Almoner of the Abbey.”