But the clerical and monastic bodies inhabiting the more celebrated monasteries offered guildships of a superior description. Among them the service for the dead was performed with greater solemnity; the rules of the institute insured the faithful performance of the duty; and additional value was ascribed to their prayers on account of the sanctity of the place and the virtue of its inmates. Hence it became an object with many to obtain admission among the brotherhood in quality of honorary associates; an admission which gave them the right to the same spiritual benefits after death to which the professed members were entitled. Such associates were of two classes. To some the favor was conceded on account of their reputation for piety or learning; to others it was due on account of their benefactions. Instances of both abound in the Anglo-Saxon records. Beda, though a monk at Jarrow, procured his name to be entered for this purpose on the bead-roll of the monks at Lindisfarne; and Alcuin, though a canon at Tours, in France, had obtained a similar favor from the monks at Jarrow. It belonged, of right, to the founders of churches, to those who had made to them valuable benefactions, [1] or had rendered to them important services, or had bequeathed to them a yearly rent charge [2] for that purpose. [Footnote 1: When Osulf, ealdorman, by the grace of God, gave the land at Stanhamstede to Christ Church, he most humbly prayed that he and his wife, Beornthrythe, might be admitted "into the fellowship of God's servants there, and of their lords who had been, and of those who had given lands to the Church."--Cod. Dipl. I. 292. The following is an instance of a rent charge given by Ealburge and Eadwald to Christ Church for themselves, and for Ealred and Ealwyne forty ambres of malt, two hundred loaves, one wey, &c, &c.; "and I, Ealburge," she adds, "command my son Ealwyne, in the name of God, and of all the saints, that he perform this duty in his day, and then command his heirs to perform it as long as Christendom shall endure."] [Footnote 2: I Monast. Ang. i. 278. A similar regulation is found among the laws of the gild in London. "And ye have ordained respecting every man who has given his 'wed' in our gildships, if he should die, that each gild brother shall give a 'genuine loaf' for his soul, and sing a ditty, or get it sung, within thirty days."--Thorpe's Laws of London Gilds.]