qual) and
chapter had to obtain a bill in chancery to enforce its restitution by a
Dr. Leonard who had got it into his possession. During the Civil Wars it
was in the charge of Sir Roger Twysden and was used by Dugdale for his
great work. The book was at London in 1712 for Dr. Harriss, a prebendary
of the cathedral, to use for his "History of Kent" (published in 1719).
It was taken thither and back by water, and on the return journey fell
into the Thames. It was, fortunately, recovered, not much damaged, but
was re-bound afterwards. Lambarde, as well as later historians, used it.
Parts were printed by Wharton in his "Anglia Sacra" (1691) and by
Willems in his "Leges Anglo-Saxonicae" (1721). Hearne edited most of it,
from a transcript by Sir Edward Dering, in 1720.

The #Custumale Roffense# (per fratrem J. de Westerham), another famous
manuscript, dates from about 1300, its author, then a monk, became prior
later, in Bishop Hamo's time. In this book is much information about
manors and the priory's income from them, and it contains many
interesting particulars of ancient tenures and rents, some details about
the Rome-scot, notes as to the duties of various servants, etc. A
printed edition of it, by Thorpe, appeared in 1788.

Two other manuscripts, relics of the old monastic library, have been
found on the shelves, but the rest are scattered. This library must have
been a rich one, for in a list, of as early as 1202, discovered by Mr.
Rye in the Royal MSS. at the British Museum, there are as many as 241
works enumerated, mostly theological. Leland probably carried off many
of them, since, out of eighty-six manuscripts in the British Museum,
indexed there as having once belonged to the Rochester Monastery, no
less than eighty-three are in the old Royal Collection. They are on
vellum, partly illuminated, and many contain terrible anathemas against
any who should deface or steal them. Two others have been found among
Archbishop Parker's MSS. at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and one
in Archbishop Laud's bequest to the Bodleian. The famous #Gundulf Bible#
has an interesting history. All traces of it are lost between the time
of the Suppression and 1734, when it was sold from the possession of a
clergyman, Herman Van de Wall, at Amsterdam. Later, in the 1788 edition
of the Custumale, we read that it had been again sold, not many years
before, at Louvain, for 2,000 florins. It came back to England
afterwards and, at the sa