Cases of oppression “by divers persons spiritual and temporal” are recorded. Even the mitred abbot of St. [p215] Albans was more than once at fault. In 1223 the pope commanded him not to lay burdens on the leper women of St. Mary’s by virtue of patronage; and an early Chancery Proceeding shows that another abbot had oppressed the poor sick brethren and feeble folk of St. Julian’s. The Rolls of Parliament reveal that an abbot of Colchester (_temp._ Edward I) withheld the accustomed pension and tithe from “les povere freres malades” of St. Mary Magdalene’s; by cunning and force he abstracted their common seal and muniments, and flung their charters into the fire. At Durham the inmates of St. Mary Magdalene’s begged redress of grievances (_temp._ Edward II). Some previous almoner of the priory, they declared, had defrauded them of food and clothing; he had even obtained their muniments by bribing the guardian with the gift of a fur cloak. The prior and convent, however, endorse the petition: “but be it known that this complaint does not contain truth for the most part.”[134] Monastic houses were not as zealous as formerly in the service of the needy. The great abbey of St. Augustine, Canterbury, had built and maintained the daughter hospital of St. Laurence; but in 1341 this is declared to be of a foundation so weak that it falls very far short of what is sufficient for their sustenance. The lay patron of West Somerton leper-house entrusted its custody to Butley Priory on condition that the usual number of inmates were maintained. A later prior withdrew the victuals and reduced the revenue from £60 to 10 marks, until after twenty years of neglect, it was said (1399) “the place where the hospital of old time was is now desolate.” [p216] Reading Abbey, which once cherished its charitable institutions, treated them ill in later days. When Edward IV travelled through the town (1479), wrongs were reported to him, including “howsys of almes not kept”; the abbot had appropriated the endowments and destroyed the buildings. The prior and convent of Worcester themselves suppressed St. Mary’s, Droitwich, in 1536, and “expelled the poor people to their utter destruction.”