ll the art and letters and accomplishments of the time emanated,
allied in blood as much with the low as the high, the aristocracy of
intellect, and the pioneers of scientific and material progress. The
model farming of the 13th century would be regarded as barbaric by our
modern theorists; but such as it was, it was only to be met with on the
demesne lands of the larger monasteries, and was a prodigious advance
upon the _petite culture_ of the open fields. The Priory at Norwich made
an income out of its garden in the days of Edward III., and probably
much earlier; the pisciculture of the religious houses remains a mystery
as yet unsolved; the skill exhibited in the management of the
water-power of many a district round even the smaller houses, still
awakes wonder in those who think it worth their while to study it. At
St. Alban's, as at Glastonbury, St. Edmund's Abbey, and elsewhere, the
culture of the vine was made profitable for generations. The monasteries
were the first to give personal freedom to the villeins, and the first
to commute for money payments the vexatious _services_ which worried the
best men and maddened the worst. The landlords in the 13th century were
real _lords_ of the _land_. They were, as a class, very poor, spite of
the privileges they enjoyed and the power that they possessed of making
themselves disagreeable; and though the constitution of a _manor_ was a
limited monarchy, and the _limits_ were very many, yet the lord could
exercise a great deal of petty tyranny in his little kingdom if he were
so disposed. In the manors which were in the possession of the religious
houses the lord was necessarily non-resident, and the tenants were left
to manage their own affairs with very little interference. The tenants
of the monasteries were in a far more favoured condition than the
tenants of some small lord, needy and greedy, who extorted his dues
literally to the last farthing, and who knew exactly what the best beast
was, on the land that owed him a heriot; and, when the tenant was _in
extremis_, kept a sharp look-out that a fat bullock or a promising young
horse should not be driven off before the owner died.

So the monasteries at the time we are now concerned with were regarded
at once with pride and affection by the great bulk of the people; they
were places of refuge where, in a turbulent time, men and women who had
been stricken, bereaved or wronged, might find a quiet refuge and hide
their head