ts,
and to be, throughout, the support of the monarchy. It sprang at once
into this position, and its architecture symbolised to some extent the
rapid command which it acquired, for it preserved to the end the
characteristics of the early century in which it was erected: the
Norman arch, the dog-tooth ornaments, the thick walls, the barbaric
capitals of the early twelfth century.

Before the thirteenth it was in wealth equal to, and in public repute
the superior of, any foundation upon the banks of the Thames with the
exception of Westminster itself, and it forms, with the three
Benedictine foundations, and with the later foundation of Osney, the
last link in the chain of abbeys which ran unbroken from stage to
stage throughout the whole length of the river. And with it ends the
story of those first foundations which completed the recivilisation of
the Valley.

Reading was not the only Cluniac establishment upon the Thames.
Another, and earlier one, was to be found at Bermondsey; but its
proximity to London and its distance down river forbid it having any
place in these pages. It was founded immediately after the Conquest;
Lanfranc colonised it with French monks; it became an abbacy at the
very end of the fourteenth century, and was remarkable for its
continual accretion of wealth, an accretion in some part due to the
growing importance of London throughout its existence. At the end of
the thirteenth century it stands worth L280. At the time of its
dissolution, on the first of January 1538, in spite of the much higher
value of money in the sixteenth century as compared with the
thirteenth, it stands worth over L500: L10,000 a year.

A relic of its building remained (but only a gatehouse) till 1805.

Osney also dated from the early twelfth century, and was almost
contemporary with Reading.

It stood just outside the walls of Oxford Castle to the west, and upon
the bank of the main stream of the Thames, and owed its foundation to
the Conqueror's local governing family of Oilei. Though at the moment
of its suppression it hardly counted a fifth of the revenues of
Westminster (which must be our standard throughout all this
examination), yet its magnificence profoundly affected contemporaries,
and has left a great tradition. It must always be remembered that
these great monasteries were not only receivers of revenue as are our
modern rich, but were also producers or, rather, could be producers
when they chose, and that