Editorial note — APPENDIX.

This act is recorded in Liber Eliensis (lib. secundus, p. 245) “Ad monasterium denique veniens longe a sancto corpore virginis stans marcam auri super altare projecit, propius accedere non ausus, verebatur sibi a Deo judicium inferri pro malis quæ sui in loco patraverant.” The reader will form his own judgment on this religious (?) act of a man who demanded 1000 marks from an almost destitute monastery and offered one at the shrine of the saint.

But the writer oddly charges William with offering a clipped coin whereas it appears that it was because the 700 marks, which the conqueror at first demanded, were of light weight [“dolo nummulariorum (money-lenders) dragma fraudata minus recti ponderis examinata invenitur habuisse,”—Lib. Elien., 246] that he claimed 300 more as a punishment to the monks.