Note 9 — BOOK III THE COMPANIES

Archaeologia, lxii. 1. 215, from statutes collected in decanate of Ralph de Diceto (1181–99), ‘Cotidie pascat ... duos pueros elemosinarios ... et secum ad Ecclesiam media nocte panem et cervisiam pro iunioribus chorum frequentantibus defer[r]i faciat, et quolibet quarterio semel vel bis post matutinas iunioribus gentaculum unum in domo sua faciat’. A thirteenth-century statute required the pueri de elemosinaria to sit humbly upon the ground when feeding in the house of a canon. Cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 355, for Diceto’s statute about the Boy Bishop, with its mention of the return of the boys ‘ad Elemosinariam’, and the reforming statute of 1263.