OF THE FRANCISCAN FRIERY, READING. 143

carry them wherever they please, and consult their own con- venience in the same. Witness, the king at Odyham, the 11th day of January." — The buildings for which this timber was recjuired, were not completed before loll, as Alan de Baunebury who died at Reading in that year, bequeathed by will, " operi fratrum minorum," to the work or building of the friers minors, five shillings. The house is said to have been dedicated to St. James ; but the author of the Antif[uities of the Franciscans, p. 26, part ii., says he could not learn "who was the founder here, what was the title of the house, or that it had any endoAvment of lands," he therefore presumed that the friers here subsisted wholly upon alms. There are few notices of the history of this religious house to be met Avith, as none of the registers or leiger books be- longing to it are known to exist. In Leland's Collectanea, vol. ii. p. 57, is a list of the following books wdiich formed the library : Beda de Naturis Bestiarum ; Alexander Necham super Marcianum Capellani; Alexandri Necham ]Iytholo- gicon ; Johannis Waleys Commentarii super ]Iythologicon Fid- gentii. Small as this catalogue is, it was probably superior in number of books to many of the libraries belonging to this order in other places ; for Leland says, " in the libraries of the Franciscans nothing was observable but dust and cobwebs, for whatever others may boast, they had not one learned treatise in their possession, for I myself carefully examined every shelf in the library, though much against the will of all the brethren." We have no account of the building, nor of the number of the friers who resided in it ; from the small extent of the ground it was neither roomy nor elegant ; content, agreeably to the spirit of their order, with the meanest accommodation for themselves, then- principal care seems to have been to erect a house of prayer suitable to the religion they professed, and this, being substantially built, is the only part of their possessions which has withstood the ravages of time. ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION OF THE FRIERY. The church as it now stands consists of a nave, with north and south aisles. Originally there was a chancel and a tower.