'WHETHER Chaucer's Canon was regular or secular is not clearly stated,' Professor Robinson observes, 'but he manifestly enjoyed considerable freedom. Skeat2 and Professor Manly3 also are in doubt as to the ecclesiastical status of the Alchemist who joined the pilgrims at Boughton, though both incline to the view that he was secular a canon serving a cathedral or a collegiate church, that is, but living abroad in the world (in saeculo), rather than a member of the monastic Order of Canons Regular, and hence living in community. Nevertheless it must have been plain to mediaeval readers that Chaucer's Alchemist was a Black Canon, a Canon Regular of St. Augustine. Certainly, as Robinson notes,4 the second alchemist exposed by the Yeoman, the villain of his story proper, is a regular canon. The Yeoman calls him a 'chanoun of religion' one who has taken the vows of a religious to distinguish him from mere seculars. Similarly, in mediaeval Latin writings the regulars, or Augustinians, are designated as canonici religionis.6 Further, the Yeoman begs pardon of 'worshipful chanons religious' lest they interpret his censure of one of their brethren as slander of the entire Order, or of their particular house; thus he makes it clear that those addressed belong to one of the Regular Orders, and hence reside in a convent: