The Reader droned from the Pulpit, Like the murmur of many bees, The legends of good _St. Swithun_ And _St. Benet’s_ homilies. Straw litter covered the floor, which was changed seven times a year--a higher standard of cleanliness and luxury than prevailed generally, seeing that Erasmus, 200 years later, could still complain of the filthy rush-covered floors of English houses, where bones, scraps, and ale from the table accumulated, with even less desirable kinds of dirt, and which, when it was replaced, was removed so perfunctorily that the lower layers remained undisturbed, it might be for years. The Obedientiary Rolls, moreover, supply us with an interesting insight into the commodities in general use, and also into their prices. Reducing to modern values we find an egg and a herring practically cost then, as now, a penny apiece. Sugar existed in various forms--Sugar Scaffatyn, Sugar of Cyprus, Sugar Roset, and sweetmeats or comfits of various kinds, varying from one to several shillings a pound. Rice was largely consumed, and cost threepence a pound. ‘Coryns,’ _i.e._ _grapes of Corinth_, in other words currants, about two shillings a pound. Enormous quantities of groceries, ‘spiceries’ as they were termed, figured in the accounts, but, doubtless, largely because St. Swithun had his stall at St. Giles’s Fair, and dealt extensively in ‘spices.’ It was at Fair time that the monks had their chief holiday, and made their chief purchases. It was at the Fair that they purchased also the furs they wore so largely. On the top of the hill the Prior had his special pavilion, and kept practically open house--and doubtless the monks keenly appreciated the rare opportunity the Fair afforded for a little excursion beyond the walls. For though the Prior mingled freely with the outer world, as a great political person-age was summoned regularly to Parliament, and so forth, the monk in general but rarely left the convent gate, and saw little beyond ‘the studious cloister’s pale.’ We have fewer details of the Abbey of Hyde, just as we have fewer remains of its fabric. Such part as remains, apart from some unimportant ruins, is generally supposed to have formed part of the Tithe barn. Opposite the gateway of this--which is really an interesting piece of architectural work, unfortunately very meagre in extent,--is the Church of St. Bartholomew, Hyde, where, as already stated, the lay servants of the abbey worshipped. The squared and worked stones which are to be seen freely in the houses all round the neighbourhood are, otherwise, practically all that still remains of the great abbey.