tion, by introducing
secular priests, of whom many were married to lawful wives, and who were
very little different in their way of living to other secular
Christians. This state of things went on till 1022, when Cnut, as Leland
says, "for ill lyvynge expellyd secular clerks, and by the counsell of
Wolstane (Wulfstan), Bysshope of Wurcestar, bringethe in monkes." The
monks introduced by Cnut were of the Benedictine rule, or Black monks,
as Parker calls them in his "Rhythmical History of the Abbey."

This change was effected about the same time in many other places in
England, but was not generally popular, and certainly was not so in
Gloucester. Abbot Parker, in his rhyming account of the founding of the
abbey, says that in 1030

"A lord of great puissance, named Ulfine Le Rewe,
Was enjoyned by (the Pope) for ever to finde
Satisfying for the seaven priests that he slew,
7 monkes for them to pray world without minde."

Mr Hope, in his "Notes on the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter at
Gloucester," 1897, p. 2, says: "The Benedictines thus introduced by Cnut
do not seem to have been a success, and after an existence of
thirty-seven years under a weak Abbot, whose long rule was marked by
great decay of discipline, the '_Memoriale_' (Dugdale, i. 564) says:
'God permitted them to be extirpated, and the monastery in which they
were established to be devoured by the fiercest flames, and the very
foundations and buildings to be rent asunder, razed to the ground, and
utterly destroyed.'"

"The monastery was next taken in hand by Aldred, Bishop of Worcester,
who in 1058 re-established the monks. He also began to build a new
church from the foundations, and dedicated it in honour of St.
Peter."[1]

"Until now the monastery seems to have occupied the same site throughout
its chequered history; but the '_Memoriale_' states that Aldred began
the new church 'a little further from the place where it had first
stood, and nearer to the side of the city.'"

The language of these authorities is quite plain, but the interpretation
thereof is not so evident. As Professor Freeman said: "By the time when
the oldest church, of which we have any part remaining, came into being,
the Roman Wall, or at least this corner of it, must have pretty well
passed away." It seems clear that the "_side of the city_" cannot refer
to the Roman Wall. To quote Professor Freeman again: "The existing
church is something more than near to th