ORDERS OF CLERGY.

Austin Canons, called after St. Augustine; introduced into England in the reign of Henry I.

Premonstratensian (white) Canons, founded by St. Norbert, of Magdeburg, 1120; followed the reformed Austin rule, were called after Premonstre, the house of the chief abbat, and introduced into England, 1140.

Gilbertine, founded by St. Gilbert, 1148, d. 1189, at Sempringham in Leicestershire.

MILITARY ORDERS.

Knights' Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, instituted 1092.

Knights' Templars, founded 1118, had their first house in London, in Holborn, 1118; removed to the Temple, 1184.

The six great officers were-The Master of the Fabric; the Almoner; the Pitancier, who regulated the extra allowances; the Sacristan, who had charge of the church; the Chamberlain, who presided over the dormitory, paid the stipends and pensions, and kept the vestments in repair; and the Cellarer, who provided provisions. The others were the bursar, precentor, writer, hosteler, infirmarer and refectioner.

MINSTERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.

Abingdon.

THE Church of St. Helen has five nave alleys, like Chichester. The tower is Early English, the octagonal spire Perpendicular. The north, or Our Lady's, aisle, has rich timber ceilings of the time of Henry VI.: the south aisle was built 1539. The porch is Perpendicular, like most of the windows. There is a brass of G. Barbour, 1417. The Church of St. Nicholas has a Norman doorway. Near it is the Abbey gatehouse, Perpendicular, with a large arch and postern, and now a prison: there are also two Early English vaulted rooms, 34 ft. by 14 ft., one with a fireplace of the date of Henry III. These form the only remains of the Mitred Benedictine Minster of St. Mary, founded by Cissa, which gave its name to the adjoining village as the "Abbey Town." The Danes burned the convent; King Edred restored the monks, and Ethelward, in the reign of King Edgar, rebuilt the church. The central tower was 36 ft. square; the western tower 100 ft. high; the nave measured 180 ft. long, the choir 65 ft., the Lady Chapel 36 ft., the transept 156 ft. In the abbey William I. kept Easter, 1084, and Henry Beauclerc was a student; in its dungeons Egclwyn, Bishop of Durham, was imprisoned and died, 1071. Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, and Siward of Rochester were abbats; M. Salley of Llandaff was almoner; Geoffrey of Monmouth was a monk and was buried here. The Chronicle of the Abbey has been lately published.

Arms arg. between 4 martlets; a cross fleury sa.

St. John's, Beverley.

It is only the very first class of cathedrals, both in size and beauty, which can be said to surpass the collegiate church of St. John, Beverley. Finer than any minster in Wales or Ireland, even many of those of England and Scotland, although more considerable in dimensions, cannot, in form or detail, pretend to compete with this grand edifice. The country is flat for miles round; but there are the purple wolds beyond in the distance, and the plain about the town is diversified by hedge-rows and fields, well wooded, and fertile. There is a fine view from Westwood Common. On the approach from the Hull road, seen majestically raised above the trees, the absence of any impressive natural features lends an effective contrast, and augments the imposing appearance of this stately church, which, but that it lacks a central tower, might vie with York itself:

Beverley, whose beauties so delight
The fair enamoured flood, as ravished with the sight,
That she could ever stay that gorgeous fane to view.

From the lakes, which the Humber, with its subsiding floods, left along the lowlands, and the beavers, which abounded in its waters, the town took the name of Bever Lac. In the year 700 St. John of Beverley, Archbishop of York, founded the monastery and died in it May 7, 721. In 866 it was burned down by the Danes. In 933, King Athelstan, marching against the Scots, passed by its ruins, and laying down his sword on the saint's tomb, vowed to restore it, if he returned in victory. He came back, having won the great battle of Brunanburgh, and in 928 refounded the minster as a collegiate church, granting it the privilege of sanctuary. For one mile broad he drew a leuga of sanctuary in a circle round the precinct, and set up four crosses, one on each road a single mutilated fragment still remains at Molescroft. In 1069 William of Normandy, when on his way to wreak vengeance on the North, encamped without the town: for seven miles round the country folk flocked in, and (so the

legend ran) Thurstin, one of his fiercest chiefs, sword in hand, pursued one fugitive solitary to the doors of the church-a venerable shape, in gleaming robes and with bracelets of gold, moving slowly and unconcerned; but as the infuriated Norman's foot touched the threshold and his blade flashed above the head of the unearthly being, he fell down dead. The soldiers brought the strange tale to the king, and William passed on without harming town or church. Again, when King Stephen would have built a castle on the hallowed ground, an awful visitant rose before him, and forebade the sacrilegious attempt. The Archbishops Alfric, 1037, Thomas, 1070, and Thurstan, augmented the revenues, and the latter cut a canal to the Humber, giving the men of Beverley the right of prize and toll over all ships voyaging to Hull. No apparition interposed to save the church from fire at midnight on September 21, 1088. But it speedily rose from its ashes. On the great day of Northallerton, the battle of the “Standard,” August 22, 1138, Archbishop Thurstan, deserted by the king but supported by the northern nobles whom he rallied around him, led out to battle the sacred car, crowned with a cross and hung with the standards of St. Peter of York, St. Wilfrid of Ripon, and St. John of Beverley. In the old ballad, the Scottish king exclaims, when he sees

The holy Cross,

That shines as bright as day,
Around it hung the sacred banners
Of many a blessed saint;

St. Peter and John of Beverley,

And St. Wilfrid there they paint.

"Oh! had I but yon holy rood,

That there so bright doth show,

I would not care for yon English host,
Nor the worst that they could do!"

Beneath the banner of St. John, saved from a fire in 1186, Edward I. fought against the Scots. From St. John's tomb, so said the provost, a sacred oil ran on the day of Agincourt, and in grateful remembrance, in August, 1421, King Henry V. knelt and offered at the shrine. The fiercest bulls,

the townsfolk averred, if brought into the close would become tame. If the miracles attracted kings and pilgrims, the honour of the church was supported by some of the greatest ecclesiastics, who successively presided over it. Thomas I., Thomas II., Thurstan, Geoffrey Plantagenet, W. de Melton, J. Thoresby, L. Booth, and Rotherham, Archbishops of York, F. Basset of London, S. d'Apulia, and John of Exeter, William de York of Sarum, Neville of Durham, Lee of Lichfield, and Sir John Mansel, the princely host of kings: Alured of Beverley is well known as an English chronicler. Bishops Alcock and Fisher were also natives of

the town.

The church is composed of a nave, a choir, and transept, each having aisles; a choir transept with an east aisle; a central lantern and two western towers. The nave-piers, the north side of the nave from the transept to the north porch, and the entire south side of the nave are Decorated: the whole of the eastern portion of the church (except the north-east chapel, the great east window, and other Perpendicular windows in the south aisle) is Early English. The north porch, the three windows in the north side of the nave westward from it, and the west front are Perpendicular.

The material of the nave is stone from Bramham Moor near Tadcaster, given by the Vavasours; that of the choir and the transepts came from Newbald. The central tower was tampered with in 1712 by Joseph Moyser, M.P. The north porch door has a double canopy, crocketed and traceried, with niched buttresses, battlements, and rich pinnacles. The west front exhibits a free spirit of imitation of that of York, but is equal in beauty, variety, and abundance of ornament: it is the most magnificent panelled Perpendicular front in the realm. The towers rise three stages above the side doors; two 3-light windows ranging severally with the aisle and clerestory, the uppermost lighting the belfry. Exquisite open pinnacles crown the whole. The arrangement of the tabernacled buttresses is simpler and bolder than at York, excellent as a composition and delicately wrought. The capping of the pediment has embrasures between five battlements, panelled and pierced in the centre with a pinnacle;