Hence we retraced our steps through the precincts; and here, as we stand on the ground for centuries trodden by religious men whose “good deeds have been interred with their bones,” let me call attention to the little that remains concerning them, if it be merely their domestic arrangements. Dean Kitchin has with great perseverance and success deciphered a roll of regulations for the monastery in the fourteenth century, which had been rendered indistinct by the thumbing of many monks, and by a libation of their beer. Here we find directions as to dietary. The prior was to provide beer, bread, salt, wine, butter, and cheese. Nearly every day there was to be a large maynard of cheese (32 lbs.), and the anniversary of the deposition of the body of St. Swithun was to be honoured with an additional cheese, so that the monks of Hyde as well of St. Swithun might celebrate the day; and on the Translation of the saint’s body sufficient cheese was to be provided for those monks and other religious and lay people. The cheese was to be really good, if not it was to be returned. Psalm singing was regarded as thirsty work. The precentor and his men were to have a puncard (cask) of ale every Saturday, and another to cheer them whenever they sang the melancholy “Placebo,” or funeral service. They were to have a pitcher of wine as well as a puncard of good ale whenever they did the great O. At first we might suppose that this was synonymous with “doing the heavy,” but the dean tells us that, on the contrary, it generally meant doing nothing at all. But here it signified singing before the great festivals certain short prayers, beginning with “O,” the first of which was “O Sapientia.” On the Deposition of the body of St. Æthelwold, the keeper of the refectory was to carry round at dinner time the “Cup of St. Æthelwold,” first to the brethren in the refectory, then into the infirmary to the sick, and then to the table of the bled (a considerable number), and finally to the prior and such honoured guests as were with him. It is said that they were all to kiss the goblet; but we should have thought that the old conventuals would scarcely have expressed such sentiments as-- “Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine, Or leave a kiss within the cup, And I’ll not ask for wine.” Moreover a pitcher of wine was to accompany the cup which apparently was exhausted before the end of the ceremony. The refectorarius was to have a second pitcher for himself, and we might suppose he wrote this order, for he spells the word in a very hickupy manner, “pichicherum.” Wykeham found the monastery in a disorderly state. Some of the monks were guilty of grave irregularities. He gave them strict statutes. Wearing ornaments was forbidden, and also hunting. “Hunting!” exclaimed Mr. Hertford. “How I should like to have seen them flying along in their gowns. Think of the jumps!”