1 
 
 -^^m^r^^^ 
 
 «; - ,- , ;; ^^ -A ,■ 
 ;■^;•■K-■^<.;■^^;:T■' ■> 
 
 •i?i; :T 
 
 
 i^^!^''!"^--: ■ 
 
 

 
 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 OF ST. BENEDICT 
 
 VOLUME THE FIRST
 
 THE 
 
 ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 OF ST. BENEDICT 
 
 A SKETCH OF THEIR HISTORY FROM THE 
 
 COMING OF ST. AUGUSTINE TO 
 
 THE PRESENT DAY 
 
 REV. ETHELRED L. TAUNTON 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOLUME THE FIRST 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JOHN C NIMMO 
 
 NEW YORK: LONGMANS, GREEN, dr" CO. 
 
 MDCCCXCVII
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson df Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press
 
 3t 
 50lh 
 
 TO 
 MY DEAR FATHER, 
 
 IN REMEMBRANXK OF 
 
 THE COMMON SORROW 
 
 OF , 
 
 February 13, 1897. 
 
 132:'C79
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 In these two volumes I venture to bring before 
 the notice of English readers the history of the 
 English benedictines, or " black monks," as they 
 were called in the olden times. To the student the 
 names are well known of men who have devoted 
 large and costly books to the past glories of the 
 monks of this country. These works, however, are 
 difficult of access ; and from their very multiplicity of 
 detail, require a mastery of the subject (to be gained 
 only by long and patient study), before a just and 
 general idea of the history as a whole can be ob- 
 tained. Besides, such 'works as the Monasticon of 
 Dugdale, and others of the school of antiquaries 
 connected with his labours, professedly deal only 
 with the black monks, among other orders, up to 
 the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry 
 VIII. Their subsequent history, known but to a 
 very few even of their descendants, has in course 
 of time become obscured by a legendary growth 
 which does not bear the test of research. It is as
 
 viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 an attempt at completing in broad lines the picture 
 of English benedictine history, both ancient and 
 modern, that these pages have been written. The 
 vastness and importance of the subject would 
 require many volumes to treat it adequately, and 
 would be a task beyond my present purpose. But 
 here for the first time is given a definite account of 
 the history, for the last thirteen hundred years, of 
 men who have played no mean part in the making 
 of England, and whose names have ever been re- 
 vered and cherished. 
 
 Writers on the later history, whether in manu- 
 script or otherwise, have drawn their information 
 mainly from the Chronicles of Dom Weldon, a 
 choir brother of St. Edmund's, Paris. That he was 
 often misinformed and also did not understand the 
 nature of the documents he had in hand is a con- 
 clusion one is bound to arrive at when his statements 
 are brought to the test. In the present work, I 
 have contented myself (with two most important 
 exceptions noted below) with going to the first-hand 
 evidence contained in the wealth of printed and 
 manuscript material at the disposal of the public ; 
 and I feel sure that any further light to be obtained 
 from private sources will only go to illustrate, not to
 
 INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 alter, the lines here given. Every statement has 
 been verified, and every reference has been given. 
 
 My grateful thanks are due to the many friends 
 who have helped me in what has been a work of 
 love. It is also a tribute of the affection and esteem 
 which I, an outsider, have for the EngUsh monks. 
 But I cannot let these pages go forth without a 
 special acknowledgment of my sincere gratitude 
 to the Very Rev. Dom Anselm Burge, O.S.B., 
 prior of St. Laurence's monastery, Ampleforth, for 
 giving me full access to Dom Allanson's voluminous 
 manuscripts ; and to Mr, Edmund Bishop for allow- 
 ing me the free use of his manuscript collections 
 relating to the English benedictines of the middle 
 ages. From these latter I have selected, as most 
 proper for my purpose, the consuetudinary of St. 
 Augustine's, Canterbury, contained in the Cotton MS. 
 Faustina C. xii., the transcript of which (completed, 
 as the date tells me, just five-and-twenty years ago) 
 has served me for the appendix to the present volume. 
 This document has the further recommendation of 
 having been hitherto practically overlooked by the 
 
 ecclesiastical antiquaries. 
 
 E. L. T. 
 
 London, August 6, 1897.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 VOLUME THE FIRST 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE COMING OF THE MONKS 
 
 PAGES 
 
 The visiou of St. Benedict — He destined to be "The Father of 
 many Nations " — The growth and influence of the benedictine 
 monks and what England owes to them — The landing of 
 Augustine and his companions — His instructions from Gregory 
 the Great — His institutions — The attitude of the remnants of 
 the British church to him — The acknowledgment of his plan 
 by Irish and Scottish monks — The growth of monastic institu- 
 tions in England — Wilfrid and Benet Biscop — Bede the 
 Venerable — The Danish invasion and destruction of the 
 Saxon abbeys — The restoration of religious houses and of 
 civilisation by the monks — Archbishop Dunstan and bishops 
 Ethelwold and Oswald : their work as restorers and their in- 
 stitutions — The daily life of the monks under the Concordia 
 ^e^fM^arts of Ethelwold 1-17 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE NORMAN LANFRANC 
 
 The growth of the Anglo-Saxon church : its second devastation — 
 The Norman invasion — Lay abbats and the disorders they pro- 
 voked — The confederation of Cluni and the character and 
 growth of the cluniacs — The Italian Lanfranc : he becomes 
 prior of Bee — William of Malmesbury's account of the Christ 
 Church monks in the eleventh century — The Norman attitude
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 to the Saxon monasteries and how far it was justifiable — Lan- 
 frauc as archbishop of Canterbury : his reforms and statutes : 
 the spread of his changes and their unwelcomeness to tlie Saxon 
 monks — The incoming of the cluniacs and their settlements in 
 England — The growth of monasticism coeval with the growth 
 of chivalry — Bishop William of St. Carileph and his founda- 
 tions — The development of constitutional organisation . . 18-30 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE BENEDICTINE CONSTITUTION 
 
 The nature of the benedictine constitution : the absence from it 
 of the forms of government and special objects peculiar to 
 other orders : its aims and vows : the resemblance of its basis 
 to the family basis of society — Lanfrauc's definition of St. 
 Benedict's Rule — The autonomy of the individual houses and 
 their mutual confederation — The embodiment of this principle 
 in the twelfth decree of the Fourth General Council of Lateran 
 — Instances of the observance of the decree in England — The 
 decree enforced by a bull of Benedict XII. — The observance of 
 the bull in England and the holding of chapters — Clement VI.'s 
 modifications of the bull of Benedict XII. — The secession of 
 Christ Church, Canterbury, from the general chapter — The 
 bishop's jurisdiction over the abbats of his diocese — English 
 abbeys which were exempt from episcopal control — The in- 
 ternal government of the abbeys — The benedictine's freedom 
 from peculiar outside work and his consequent power to take 
 up any work 31- 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE MONK IN THE WORLD 
 
 The monk's readiness to labour in the world : his social status and 
 his relation to agricultural industries — The means of livelihood 
 afforded to artisans by the monastic institutions — The monk 
 as an educationalist — The benedictine school foundations — 
 The relief of the poor at the religious houses and the manner 
 in which they were relieved — The spiritual supervision of the
 
 CONTENTS xiii 
 
 people by the monks — The monks the originators of the 
 present parochial system — The origin of vicars — The impro- 
 priation and appropriation of benefices in England and the 
 proportion of income reserved to the vicar : English legislation 
 in the matter — The position of the secular clergy — The monas- 
 teries as schools for the sons of the nobility — The admission of 
 the greatest of the land to confraternity with the monks — 
 The privileges of the confrater and the ceremony of admis- 
 sion — Kings and princes as confratres — The disadvantages 
 of the monasteries being shelters for the rich as well as 
 poor — Enforced endowments to scholars nominated by the 
 king— The possessions of the monks weighed against their 
 responsibilities 49-^4 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY 
 
 The private life of the monks : its calmness and freedom from 
 incident — The combination of the broad outlines of mediieval 
 English life necessary to form a picture of the inner life of the 
 monks — The true history of a monk of the thirteenth century 
 presented in the imaginary history of John Weston of Lyn- 
 minstei' — His parentage and education — His dedication to God 
 and his preparation for the monastic life — The attention paid 
 to his physical development — The awakening of his soul — His 
 admission as a novice and his training in the spiritual life 
 — His trial and duties in the year of his novitiate — He becomes 
 a monk — The devotions of the day — The day's meals and Avhat 
 they consisted of — The day's studies — The day's work — The 
 sleeping-house and its arrangement — The monk's recreation 
 and exercise — The foundation of Gloucester Hall, Oxford, 
 by John Gilford, and its incentive to the higher education of 
 the monks — The building of chambers by the abbeys for their 
 own students — John Weston goes to Oxford — His daily life 
 there — His return to Lynminster and his ordination — He 
 teaches the novices — The internal government of the abbey 
 — He becomes prior — He takes the plague — His death and 
 burial 65-96
 
 xiv CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 WOMEN UNDER THE RULE 
 
 PAGES 
 
 The uncertaiuty as to St. Scholastica being a nun — The tradition 
 of St. Benedict founding a community of virgins — The absence 
 of any reference to tliis in his Rule — The reasons for the sup- 
 position — The existence of cloisters of women before St. 
 Benedict's time proved — Reasons for supposing that the early 
 English convents Avere benedictine — Noble foundresses of 
 Saxon convents, Hilda, Eanswith, Ethelburga, Sexburgh, Mil- 
 dred — Other Saxon nunneries — Ethelburga's abbey at Barking 
 — Cuthburg's foundation at "Wimborne — The destruction 
 of the nunneries during the Danish invasion — The convents 
 which survived the invasion — The privileges of abbesses — 
 The life of the benedictine nuns and their partial freedom from 
 the enclosure restrictions of other orders — The nun in Chaucer 
 — The employments of the nuns in their convents — Study 
 and intellectual pursuits their favourite employment — Needle- 
 work also practised — Other pursuits — The convent as a place 
 of retreat for lay women — The influences and tendencies of 
 convent life — The social influence of the nuns . > 97-116 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CONGREGATION. I 
 
 The state of the monasteries before their fall — The influence of the 
 abbats compared with that of the bishops — Their mutual rela- 
 tions — An instance of the disputes between monastic chapters 
 and their bishops — St. Edmund and the monks of Christ 
 Church, Canterburj- — The character of Edmund — The appeal 
 of the monks to pope Gregory IX. — The papal judges — Inter- 
 vention of the king — Edmund gives way — Other disputes — 
 Edmund goes to Rome and his dispute with the Canterbury 
 monks is renewed — His return to England — He excommuni- 
 cates the Canterbury chapter — The reforms of the Lateran 
 Council — The legate Otho and the black monks — His legisla- 
 tion — The alien priories and their origination — The revenues
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 estreated by King John — Seizure of the priories by Eihvard I. : 
 legislation affecting them : their total suppression by Henry V. 
 —The "Black Death" of 1348-49: the terrible effects of the 
 visitation : was mainly responsible for the break-up of the 
 feudal system : its effect upon the monasteries — The conference 
 of Henry V. with the abbats and other prelates in 1422 — The 
 king's address — The deliberations of the conference — The 
 nature of its decrees — Their effects — The state of benedic- 
 tinism on the continent before the dissolution — The cause of 
 the decline there attributable to the system of comrnendam — 
 The system arrested by the reforms of Barbo of Padua — Their 
 spread and efficacy 1 17-142 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE DOWNFALL 
 
 The dissolution of the monasteries — ^The outcome of the trend of 
 events prior to the reign of Henry YIH. — The unpopularity 
 of the monasteries with the court — Henry's accession and 
 Wolsey's rise to power — The pope's authorisations to Wolsey 
 as legate — He suppresses thirty monasteries — The cardinal's 
 agents — Allen and Thomas Cromwell — The fall of Wolsey and 
 the elevation of Thomas Cromwell — Henry's avarice aroused : 
 his want of money — Cromwell authorised to visit the monas- 
 teries — The nature of the oath tendered by his commissioners 
 — Royal commission instituted : its powers and object — The 
 worthlessness of the commissioners' reports : their endorsement 
 by the king — The act of dissolution passed by Parliament — 
 The monasteries given to the king in trust only : the enact- 
 ments relating to this — The people reconciled by public 
 declarations — Appointment of the "court of Augmentations" 
 — The houses suppressed and the value of their lands and 
 personal goods — The exception of some liouses and the found- 
 ing of two new ones by the king — The Lincolnshire risings 
 and the king's merciless suppression of them — Further seizures 
 and surrenderings of houses — Three abbats hanged for high 
 treason — The downfall 143-159 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 xvi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 
 
 PAGES 
 
 The state of the monks immediately aftei- the dissolution — The 
 influx of monks to the monastic colleges at the universities — 
 John Fecknam of Evesham — His birth, parentage, and early 
 education — He is sent by the benedictines to Oxford — His 
 return to Oxford after the suppression — Abbat Clement Lich- 
 field of Evesham — Fecknam becomes chaplain to the bishop 
 of Worcester : and to the bishop of London — He is presented 
 to the living of Soliliull — His imprisonment in the Tower — 
 The reasons for his committal — He is "borrowed" from prison 
 to hold disputations — Returns to the Tower — Is released and 
 returns to the bishop of London — He becomes rector of Green- 
 ford Magna — Is made chaplain and confessor to Mary and 
 dean of St. Paul's — He intercedes for Lady Jane Dudley and 
 for the princess Elizabeth — Assists Mary in her attempt to 
 restore tiie Catholic Church — The mass restored at Canter- 
 bury — The benedictines resume their habits — Renunciation 
 of abbey lands by the queen — Restoration of Westminster 
 abbey — Pole introduces Cassinese ideas — Fecknam appointed 
 abbat — His installation — He receives the mitre — The queen's 
 visit — Fecknam's hospitality — He attends Parliament — His 
 endeavours to restore other monasteries — The petition of the 
 Glastonbury monks — Death of Mary and of cardinal Pole 
 — The accession of Elizabeth — Her political hostility to the 
 catholics — The opening of Parliament and its enactions — The 
 act of the Royal Supremacy passed — The suppression of all 
 religious houses decided upon — The second dissolution of 
 Westminster abbey — The deprivation of the bishops — Feck- 
 nam'ii refusal to take the oath and his ejection — His imprison- 
 ment together with the bishops — His life in the Tower — The 
 penalty of death decreed for a second refusal of the oath — 
 Fecknam committed to the care of the bishop of Winches- 
 ter — Recommitted to the Tower — He justifies his refusal — 
 His treatment in the Tower — Removed to the Marshalsea — 
 Released on parole — He engages in charitable works — De- 
 nounced for abusing his parole — Placed under the charge of 
 the bishop of Ely — The regulations for the bishop's treatment 
 of him — His so-called confession — His removal to Wisbeach 
 Castle — His death — Personal appearance — Bequests and sur- 
 viving MS. works 160-222
 
 CONTENTS xvii 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS, I 5 59- 1 6o I 
 
 PAGES 
 
 The deprivations; resulting from the tendering of the oath of 
 supremacy — The state of England after Elizabeth's accession 
 — The conciliatory endeavours of Pius IV. to remedy matters 
 — The succession of Pius V. and his determination to crush 
 the queen — The bull of excommunication and deprivation 
 of sovereign rights — Its effect upon English catholics — 
 Parliamentary counter-enactments to the bull — The establish- 
 ment of seminaries at Douai and Piome for the English 
 mission — The origin and marvellous development of the 
 Jesuits — Their objects — They send two missioners (Parsons 
 and Campion) to England — The characters of the missioners 
 — The objections of the English Catholics overcome — The 
 political intrigues of Parsons — The martyrdom of Campion — 
 Parsons flies to the continent— The failure and ill-advised 
 nature of his intrigues — Other Jesuits in England — Parsons' 
 attempt to subjugate the secular clergy to the Jesuits — The 
 nature of his tactics and their assistance to Elizabeth — 
 Wisbeach and its miserable dissensions — The arch-priest con- 
 troversy — The appeal to Rome — Treatment of envoys — Eliza- 
 beth favours a deputation of the clergy to the pope — The 
 reception of the deputation and the termination of the contest 
 — The situation on the eve of the return of the beuedictines 
 to the mission field . 223-255 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 THE CONSUETUDINARY OF ST. AUGUSTINE's, CANTER- 
 BURY 257-310
 
 /ill 1^'rf 
 
 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 OF ST. BENEDICT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE COMING OF THE MONKS 
 
 St. Gregory the Great (604), in the second Book 
 of Dialogues/ tells us that shortly before the death 
 of St. Benedict (542) that great monastic law-giver 
 saw one night in vision the whole world gathered 
 together under one beam of the sun. The eyes of 
 the Saint surely must have rested with a peculiar 
 satisfaction upon one small island, then, save one 
 little corner, all shrouded in pagan darkness. For 
 England was destined within some fifty years after 
 his death to be taken hold of by his children and, 
 once converted, to become the most favoured spot in 
 all his patrimony. For, like i\.braham of old, Bene- 
 dict was destined to be " the Father of many Nations," 
 the harbinger of Truth and Justice and Civilisation 
 to races still wrapped in the darkness of heathendom. 
 And when he had entered into his patrimony, in 
 
 1 Chapter xxxv. 
 VOL. I. A
 
 2 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 thousands of monasteries, in Europe alone, was he 
 invoked as father ; and each of these houses became 
 a centre of Life and Light to all the country round. 
 But nowhere did his sons identify themselves with 
 the land, and link themselves in love with the 
 people, as in England. Here they w^ere racy of the 
 soil ; and in English Benedictine hearts love of 
 country existed side by side with love of their state. 
 Up and down the land most of the episcopal sees, 
 those centres of Life to the Church, were founded 
 by them ; and in course of time monks formed the 
 chapters. For centuries the Primate of all England 
 wore the habit of St. Benedict, and was elected to 
 his post by the monks of Christ Church cathedral- 
 monastery. And in the social order, the England of 
 to-day owes much to the monks, who founded schools 
 and universities, hospitals and workshops. All the 
 learning there was they possessed, and, with generous 
 hand, freely did they open their stores of knowledge 
 to all comers. The very foundations of English 
 liberty and law and order were laid by benedictines 
 interpreting and living according to their Rule. 
 
 "They were all in all to England ; its doctors and 
 its lawyers and its councillors ; and on every page 
 of the country's annals their names may be found in 
 honour as the champions of the liberties of Church 
 and People." ^ 
 
 It is not going too far, but it is the sober truth to 
 
 ^ A Sketch of the Life and Mission of St. Benedict, by a monk of 
 St. Gregory's Priory (Downside, 1 880), p. 24.
 
 THE COMING OF THE MONKS 3 
 
 say, England in great measure is what she is to-day 
 through the work and the influence of St. Benedict's 
 sons. And there has always been deep set in English 
 hearts a love for the Benedictine name, which no 
 time, absence, or calumny could efface. 
 
 Sent by Gregory the Great, himself a monk and 
 founder of monasteries, and who himself would have 
 come had not his elevation to the Chair of Peter 
 intervened, Augustine, prior of the monastery of St. 
 Andrew's on the Celian Hill,^ at Rome, with forty 
 companions, after long journeyings and much dis- 
 couragement, landed on English soil. Richborough, 
 in the Island of Thanet, is the spot which, if tradition 
 speaks truly, welcomed the monks, and whence they 
 spread gradually over the whole country. No time 
 was lost in preparing for their work. In solemn 
 procession, with silver cross and painted banner 
 borne aloft, they set out, chanting litanies in the 
 grave, majestic Latin tongue ; and they called upon 
 God, through the intercession of His saints, to 
 enlighten the Saxons who then sat in darkness, to 
 dispel the shadow of death hanging over the land, and 
 to set this people's feet in the ways of peace. ^ How 
 the glad tidings were received by king and people, 
 and how, in a short hundred years, from that corner 
 in Kent a force went forth which stirred up the 
 hearers to receive the faith, and going beyond the 
 
 1 The Cardinalitial title of SS. Ch-egonj and Andrcvj on the Celian 
 Hill was assigned with peculiar fitness to the late cardinal Manning, 
 .and again to his successor, the present archbishop of Westminster. 
 
 2 Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, lib. i. c. xxv.
 
 4 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 borders, roused other missioners, monks too, to come 
 and help in the work of evangelising, is well known 
 to all. The impulse and example were Augustine's. 
 The other helpers in the vineyard at length fell in 
 with the plan he received from pope Gregory and 
 the traditions he brought from the Apostolic See. 
 
 The foundations of the English Church were set 
 with consummate skill. Both Gregory and Augus- 
 tine were men full of the Benedictine largeness of 
 mind. In answer to Augustine, Gregory had in- 
 structed him to select any of the rites and usages 
 found in the neighbouring churches of Gaul and 
 elsewhere, which he might consider more useful 
 for the newly-formed English Church than those 
 observed in Rome.^ And so, tended by such men, 
 the Faith of Christ took root in a congenial soil, and 
 in due time grew and took the outward form of 
 beauty, in harmony with the national characteristics. 
 
 On his first arrival he built, just outside the city 
 walls, a monastery which he dedicated to SS. Peter 
 and Paul (afterwards known as St. Augustine's), in 
 
 1 "You know, my brother, the custom of the Roman Church, in 
 which you remember you were bred up. But it pleases me that if you 
 have found anything either in the Roman or the Gallican, or any 
 other Church which may be more acceptable to Almighty God, you 
 carefully make choice of the same, and sedulously teach the Church 
 of the English, which, as yet, is new in the Faith, whatsoever you can 
 gather from the several Churches. For things are not to be loved for 
 the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things. Choose 
 therefore from every Church those things that are pious, religious, 
 and upright, and when you have, as it were, made them up into one 
 body, let the minds of the English be accustomed thereto." — Bede^ 
 Histor. Eccl., lib. i. cap 27 (Bohn's Translation), pp. 41, 42.
 
 THE COMING OF THE MONKS 5 
 
 which he chose his last resting-place. But as the 
 centre of his work, Augustine founded, along with 
 his cathedral of Christ Church at Canterbuiy, a 
 monastery for his monks, thus reproducing in 
 the dedications at Canterbury the two features of 
 Rome, the Lateran and Vatican churches ; just as 
 at Rochester, hard by, they recalled by the same 
 means their old home of St. Andrew's on the 
 Celian Hill, and at London St. Paul's, extra muros. 
 From his companions he selected Mellitus and 
 Justus to be bishops of the sees he had set up at 
 the neighbouring towns of London and Rochester. 
 Paulinus, too, was sent by him to York, there to 
 lay the foundations of the Church in the kingdom 
 of Northumbria. 
 
 Among the remnants of the British Church which 
 had fled for shelter to the mountains of Wales, were 
 many Irish monks whose manner of living was 
 much the same as that of St. Columbanus ; and 
 great monasteries, as for instance that of Bangor, 
 still flourished. But they would have nothing to 
 do with the new-comers, who invited them to help 
 in converting their hated oppressors the Saxons. 
 They would not heed the call of Augustine, and 
 on frivolous pretexts refused to acknowledge him. 
 Neither would they bring themselves into line with 
 the rest of the Western Church on changes of 
 discipline which, in their present isolation, were 
 unknown to them. They would not listen, but 
 remained sullen and obstinate in their separation.
 
 6 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 Not so, however, with other monks from Ireland and 
 the Scottish isles. They came into the northern 
 parts of England and walked in harmony with the 
 Roman missionaries. But when in some of them, too, 
 the conservative element asserted itself unduly and 
 made them want to remain stationary while the 
 rest of the world moved, these remnants of a past 
 age retired from the scene, and the more vigorous 
 of the Celtic missioners gradually amalgamated with 
 the Roman monks. ^ 
 
 Although in parts the Faith for a while was 
 resisted and missionaries had to fly the storm, other 
 monks took their place and toiled on, gathering 
 in the harvest which lay white on all the country 
 round. Soon, too, sprung up monasteries of virgins 
 who served God in the monastic habit. Hilda, ^ 
 
 1 The rule of St. Columbanus professes to be simply a tradition of 
 what he had learnt in Ireland. The code of discipline is marked by 
 much sternness and severity, forming in this a complete contrast to 
 the moderation of St. Benedict. Lashes, even to two hundred la 
 number, were freely bestowed for very trivial faults. Fastings, ex- 
 communications, and lengthened periods of enforced silence were also 
 ordinary punishments. This rigidity was bound to give way in time 
 to the more human, and therefore more natural, spirit which came 
 from Monte Cassino. 
 
 2 St. Hilda, from her connection with St. Aidan, evidently at first 
 followed the Scottish rule. But we find her later on sending some 
 of her monks to Canterbury to learn the discipline and rule of the 
 benedictines at Christ Church. Probably after the famous synod of 
 Whitby (664), when she found so many of the columban monks pre- 
 ferring their dead traditions to the living voice, she turned for safety's 
 sake to St. Benedict's rule, which had come to England directly from 
 tlie Chair of Peter. Lingard says that the benedictine Rule was first 
 introduced into Northumbria in 661 ; while the "West Saxons received 
 it in 675, and the Mercians not until 709. See History of England 
 (ed. 1849), vol. i. p. 269, note.
 
 THE COMING OF THE MONKS 7 
 
 Etheldreda, Mildred, Werburgh, Edith, and others, 
 were leaders in a movement which called maidens 
 from the courts of kings to the cloister of the 
 King of kings. Princes, too, put down their crowns 
 and sceptres and put on the humble garb of the 
 monk, and, in the silence of the monastery, won 
 victories more glorious than had been theirs out- 
 side the cloister. 
 
 So the work sped. Great names such as Wilfrid 
 (709) and Benet Biscop (690) stand out as pre-eminent 
 in the work of introducing the rule of St. Benedict 
 into the North. The first, educated at Lindisfarne, 
 gained his earliest impressions of Benedictine life 
 from Canterbury, whence he journeyed through 
 France to Kome. There he was confirmed in them. 
 The other, who had become a monk at Lerins ^ in 
 666, came from Rome itself in the train of the 
 great archbishop Theodore, and by him was made 
 abbat of St. Augustine's at Canterbury. After two 
 years, in 671, he, too, went to Northumbria, and 
 built an abbey at Wearmouth and another at Jarrow. 
 These were the men raised up by God to strengthen 
 and establish monastic discipline throughout Eng- 
 land after the pattern laid down by St. Benedict. 
 By their travels in France and Italy they were able 
 to gather, here and there, the best features of regular 
 observance, and returning they introduced them into 
 English houses during their frequent journeys up 
 and down the country, ^dde in his life of Wilfrid 
 
 1 St. Augustine stayed at Lerins on his way to England.
 
 8 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 speaks in the fourteenth chapter of the visits to 
 Canterbury, whence " returning with the Rule of 
 Benedict to his own region (Ripon), with ^dde and 
 ^Eona, the chanters, and with architects, and with 
 the ministry of almost every kind of art, he right 
 well improved the institutions of the Church." ^ 
 Benet, like Wilfrid, was constant in his joumey- 
 ings to Rome. But while the one went for 
 Justice, the other was drawn abroad in the inter- 
 ests of his monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow. 
 He collected a large library, and introduced into 
 England new arts and industries, notably those 
 of building in stone and the glazier's craft. He 
 brought back ancient manuscripts, rich paintings 
 and vestments, and great stores of relics of 
 saints and martyrs. In one of these monasteries 
 (Jarrow) dwelt Bede the Venerable, the type of 
 the monk ; a student and a scholar, who loved to 
 impart his knowledge to others. Passing from 
 childhood to old age in the faithful observance 
 of the Religious Life, he is the flower of the 
 monastic schools, such as were started by Aidan 
 and Aldhelm. He, too, is the father of Enghsh 
 history. 
 
 About a hundred years after Benet Biscop had 
 lived and worked, the storm of Danish invasion swept 
 down upon the coast, and the northern monasteries 
 felt to the full the effects of the disastrous times. 
 
 ' Gale, Rerura Anglicarum Scriftores, vol. iii. p. 58.
 
 THE COMING OF THE MONKS 9 
 
 But long before destruction thus fell upon them at 
 home, Saxon benedictine monks had turned their 
 faces towards the still heathen tribes of Germany. 
 Winfrid, Willibald, and Willibrord, with a host of 
 others, including nuns who went to do Woman's 
 work in evangelising, became the apostles and 
 teachers of other countries, and by toil and blood 
 founded Churches fruitful in saints. 
 
 When the fierceness of the invaders passed, the 
 Saxon monks set themselves manfully to repair 
 the disaster, and rebuild the broken walls of the 
 houses destroyed by the Danes. ^ How they re- 
 stored civilisation Cardinal Newman shall tell us ; 
 for the picture he draws of St. Benedict's Mission 
 to Europe in general is perfect in detail as regards 
 England in old Saxon days. 
 
 "He (St. Benedict) found the world, physical 
 and social, in ruins, and his mission was to restore 
 it in the way — not of science, but of nature ; not 
 as if setting about to do it ; not professing to do 
 it by any set time, or by any series of strokes ; but 
 so quietly, patiently, gradually, that often till the 
 work was done, it was not known to be doing. It 
 
 ^ The nunneries in the northern parts of England, the most exposed 
 to the Danish invasion, never recovered themselves as the monasteries 
 did. It was not until after the Conquest that convents for women were 
 again established in these parts. The southern parts were more for- 
 tunate in some instances. This will also account for the fact that there 
 were so few houses for women that were abbeys. The Saxon houses 
 were invariably abbatial ; but of the Korman foundation three only 
 attained that dignity ; to wit, Godstowe, ^Mailing, and Elstowe.
 
 lo THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 was a restoration rather than a visitation, correction, 
 or conversion. The new world he helped to create 
 was a growth rather than a structure. Silent men 
 were observed about the country, or discovered in 
 the forest digging, cleaning, and building ; and other 
 silent men, not seen, were sitting in the cold cloister 
 tiring their eyes and keeping their attention on 
 the stretch, while they painfully deciphered, then 
 copied and recopied, the manuscripts which they 
 had saved. There w^as no one that contended or 
 cried out, or drew attention to what was going on ; 
 but by degrees the woody swamp became a hermi- 
 tage, a religious house, a farm, an abbey, a village, 
 a seminary, a school of learning, and a city. Roads 
 and villages connected it with other abbeys and 
 cities which had similarly grown up ; and what the 
 haughty Alaric or fierce Attila had broken to pieces 
 these patient meditative men have brought together 
 and made to live again. And then, when they had 
 in the course of many years gained their peaceful 
 victories, perhaps some new invaders came, and with 
 fire and sword undid their slow and persevering toil 
 in an hour. . . . Down in the dust lay the labour 
 and civilisation of centuries — churches, colleges, 
 cloisters, libraries — and nothing was left to them but 
 to begin all over again ; but this they did without 
 grudging, so promptly, cheerfully, and tranquilly, as 
 if it were by some law of nature that the restoration 
 came ; and they were like the flowers and shrubs and 
 great trees which they reared, and which, when ill-
 
 THE COMING OF THE MONKS ii 
 
 treated, do not take vengeance or remember evil, 
 but give forth fresh branches, leaves, and blossoms, 
 perhaps in greater profusion or with richer quality, 
 for the very reason that the old were rudely 
 broken off." ^ 
 
 Thus did the monks live and work after the 
 eighth century had expired amid the flames the 
 Danes had enkindled. Foremost in the work of 
 restoration was Dunstan, whose name is writ large 
 over the history of his times. To him and to his 
 fellow-worker Ethelwold and to Oswald must be 
 given the success of the revival. Of the former, 
 Cardinal Newman says : — 
 
 "As a religious he shows himself in the simple 
 character of a benedictine. He had a taste for the 
 arts generally, especially music. He painted and 
 embroidered ; his skill in smith's work is recorded 
 in the well-known legend of his combat with the 
 evil one. And, as the monks of Hilarion joined 
 gardening with psalmody, and Bernard and his 
 Cistercians joined field-work with meditation, so did 
 St. Dunstan use music and painting as directly ex- 
 pressive or suggestive of devotion. ' He excelled in 
 writing, painting, moulding in wax, carving in wood 
 and bone, and in work in gold, silver, iron, and 
 brass,' says the author of his life in Surius, ' and he 
 used his skill in musical instruments to charm away 
 from himself and others their secular annoyances, 
 
 1 Historical Sketches: "The Mission of St. Benedict," vol. iii. pp.- 
 410, 411.
 
 12 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 and to raise them to the theme of heavenly harmony, 
 both by the sweet words with which he accom- 
 panied his airs and by the concord of the airs 
 themselves.' " ^ 
 
 Abbat of Glastonbury, and looking forward to no 
 other occupation than that of training the vine com- 
 mitted to him, Dunstan, by one of those noteworthy 
 exceptions, was called from the peace of the cloister 
 into the turmoil of political life. 
 
 "It must be a serious emergency, a particular 
 inspiration, a sovereign command, which brings the 
 monk into political life ; and he will be sure to 
 make a great figure in it, else why should he have 
 been torn from his cloister at all ? . . . The work (he) 
 had to do, as far as it was political, was such as none 
 could have done but a monk with his superhuman 
 single-mindedness and his pertinacity of purpose."^ 
 
 Made successively bishop of Worcester and of 
 London, and then archbishop of Canterbury, he was 
 able by his influence to bring about a general re- 
 storation of monasticism in England. Beyond a 
 peremptory and somewhat overweening assertion of 
 a Winchester monk writing at the end of the tenth 
 century, there seems to be no contemporary proof of 
 the often asserted proposition that monasticism had 
 almost ceased in England. The fact seems to be the 
 reverse, for the documentary evidence at hand points 
 to the existence of houses other than Glaston and 
 
 1 Ihid. pp. 415, 416. 2 Ihid. pp. 381, 382.
 
 THE COMING OF THE MONKS 13 
 
 Abingdon. It was the northern monasteries that 
 principally felt the effects of the Danish invasion, 
 while those of the south escaped. But doubtlessly 
 learning and observance had greatly fallen in the 
 surviving monasteries, and it was from the restored 
 vigour of Glaston, Abingdon, and Winchester that 
 English benedictines renewed their spirit. Together 
 with the new life came an outburst of intellectual 
 activity. A religious and artistic development took 
 place, which is the crowning glory of the Anglo- 
 Saxon Church. 
 
 Dunstan found a powerful support in the pious 
 King Edgar, who seconded all his efforts with the 
 resources of the temporal power. Ethelwold, bishop 
 of Winchester, and one of the monks of his own 
 monastery of Glaston, carried out in detail the plan 
 conceived in the master mind of the great primate. 
 At Worcester, too, bishop Oswald was working to the 
 same end, on lines he had learnt at Fleury, where he 
 had become a monk. Under these bishops, monks 
 were introduced into the cathedral churches of 
 Winchester and Worcester. 
 
 The king and a thane, Alfreth, gave Ethelwold 
 the manor of Southborne, on the condition he trans- 
 lated the Rule of St. Benedict into Anglo-Saxon, so 
 that those who did not know Latin might learn the 
 monastic life.^ This the bishop did, and to him is 
 also due the redaction of the Concordia Regularis, 
 
 1 This is very possibly the very translation wliicli has been lately 
 edited on a collation of the MSS. by Professor Schroer.
 
 14 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 a body of rules to be observed by English monks 
 and nuns.^ This was also translated into the native 
 tongue.^ 
 
 Under the care of Dunstan and Ethelwold and 
 Oswald, in a few years more than forty monasteries 
 rose from their ruins, and God's praises were sung 
 throughout the land once more by Benedictine lips. 
 Piety and learning^ again flourished. 
 
 The author of the Concordia Regularis states that 
 he has allowed himself the same freedom Gregory 
 gave to Augustine, of choosing the best things he 
 could find, and that he had taken whatever he 
 considered useful* in the two nearest great centres 
 of Benedictine life, Fleury^ and Ghent, in the abbeys 
 
 ^ For the Concordia Regularis see Reyner's Apostolahis Benedidinorum 
 in Anglia, iii. pp. 77-94. 
 
 * See "Anglia" of Halle, vol. xiii. p. 365. 
 
 3 The feast of the Conception of Our Lady seems to have originated 
 in England, and can be traced to the monks of Winchester. It was 
 prevalent and firmly established before the Conquest, when, like so 
 many English customs, it suffered a temporary eclipse. Its revival 
 was mainly due to the younger Anselm, abbat of St. Edmundsbury, in 
 the latter half of Henry I., and was formally sanctioned by a council 
 held in London, 1129. The story of Helin of Ramsey is in the highest 
 degree doubtful. See Downside Review, vol. v. p. 107. 
 
 * See ProQ:mium of the Concordia Regularis. 
 
 ^ Ethelwold, as soon as he became abbat of Abingdon, besides 
 getting chanters from Corbie {Chron. de Ah., vol. i. p. 129), sent Osgar 
 " to Fleury to be furtlier instructed in the observance of St. Benedict's 
 Rule." See " Saxon Leechdoms," vol. iii. p. 409, in Roll Series. Mr. 
 Cockayne is mistaken when he adds " and to fetch home a copy " ; this 
 is not the meaning of the original texts. As a fact, the earliest known 
 copy of St. Benedict's Rule, and embodying the primitive text, is an 
 English manuscript of a date more than two centuries earlier than 
 Ethelwold.
 
 THE COMING OF THE MONKS 15 
 
 of which latter city Dunstan, during his exile under 
 Edwi (956), had found shelter. 
 
 But while the author of the Concordia, who 
 evidently writes under the influence of the master- 
 mind of Dunstan, was quick enough to recognise 
 and use all that was good in foreign interpretations 
 of the Rule, he was too wise to establish whole- 
 sale such of their provisions as were unsuitable to 
 Englishmen. There was no rough upheaval of past 
 traditions ; neither were these treated with contempt 
 and set aside as useless. He particularly lays down 
 that : " We have determined in no ways to cast 
 aside the worthy customs of this country pertaining 
 to the (service of the) Lord, which we have learnt 
 from the practice of those who went before us ; but 
 (on the contrary) altogether to give them new force 
 and vigour." ^ A wise provision ; for in a rule so 
 wide and elastic as St. Benedict's, and in which so 
 much is left to the discretion of local superiors, it 
 is but common sense to suppose that Englishmen 
 will be the best interpreters of what is useful for 
 the men with whom they have to deal, and of what 
 is most in keeping with the national character. 
 
 The daily life of monks under the Concordia 
 Regidaris was on the following plan, with local 
 variations no doubt. The monks rose at 2 a.m., 
 and spent a long day in the office and work ap- 
 pointed till 8 P.M., when they went to bed. The 
 constitutions go into many interesting details both 
 
 ^ Procemiuin to the Concordia Regnlaris.
 
 i6 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 of liturgical and domestic interest. For instance, 
 the little hours took place at the normal times of 
 6 for prime, 9 for tierce, which was followed by 
 the mass, 12 for sext, 2 or 3 for none, 4 or 6 for 
 vespers, and 7 for compline. After prime, or be- 
 fore in summer, the monks put off the habits they 
 had slept in, and washed and shod themselves for 
 the day. From Easter till Holy Cross, in Sep- 
 tember, they dined after sext, and then had a 
 siesta. The intervals were filled up with reading ; 
 and it is evident from their remains that the time 
 was well spent. From Holy Cross till Lent, the 
 time of the monastic fast, they dined after none. 
 But in Lent they did not break their fast till vespers 
 had been sung. Before compline they put off their 
 day-clothes, and, on Saturdays, washed their feet. 
 In the winter, " from the Kalends of November till 
 the beginning of Lent," a fire was provided in the 
 common-room, to which all might go for warmth. 
 They had only one full meal a day, together with 
 a collation out of Lenten time.^ Such was the re- 
 
 1 Here it will be useful to gain a true view of the question, How 
 far did the law of perpetual abstinence enjoined by St. Benedict in his 
 Rule [Cap. 39] obtain in English monasteries 1 Prescinding from the 
 discretion he leaves to superiors, who are the best judges of the present 
 needs of their monks, we stand on solid ground when we listen to the 
 teaching of history on this point— and its teaching is clear and precise. 
 In the most flourishing time of English monasticism the use of flesh 
 meat was allowed. The use of poultry did not come under the pro- 
 hibition which forbids the carnes quadrupedum. Then, the example of 
 St. Ethelwold, on whom fell the practical work of refounding English 
 observance, is instructive. Whilst he himself, as a rule, never eat 
 meat, yet twice at least we find him going beyond his ordinary
 
 THE COMING OF THE MONKS 17 
 
 newed Benedictine life which Dunstan, Ethelwold, 
 and Oswald built up again in England, and which 
 went on until an almost greater upheaval took place 
 when the Norman mastered the land, and for a time 
 foreigners were set to rule in abbeys and priories. 
 But, as we shall see, English monasticism was of 
 too sturdy a character to lose its own individuality. 
 Once more it quietly absorbed all the good there 
 was in the new element, and then reasserted itself 
 on its old lines, only more strong and more comely 
 than ever. 
 
 custom. Once, during a space of three months, when sick, he eat 
 meat by the express command of St. Dunstan, his former abbat and 
 spiritual guide, and then again during his last illness (See the original life 
 of the saint in Cliron. de Ah., vol. ii. p. 263). But while severe to him- 
 self, he was lenient to others in this matter. At Abingdon, his first and 
 most special foundation, he showed his estimate of the common need 
 by permitting in the refectory a dish of stew mixed with vaeo-t, ferculum 
 came mixtumj and on certain feast-days, meat puddings, artocrece {Chron. 
 de Ah., vol. ii. p. 279). It is hardly to be doubted that what was estab- 
 lished at Abingdon represented the custom Ethelwold had learnt at 
 Glaston from Dunstan himself, and found its counterpart in the other 
 monasteries existing and restored at this time. "He established 
 monasteries in Abingdon, Hyde, Ely, Burgh, and Thorney, and in 
 all (introduced) the customs which prevailed in the monastery of 
 Abingdon' {Chron. de Ah., vol. i. pp. 345-348 ; ii. p. 279). Of course, 
 from the practice of St. Ethelwold, it cannot be necessarily inferred that 
 the custom obtained in every English monastery. But the Concordia, 
 which was drawn up for all, seems to provide for and recognise the 
 custom as generally existing. Pinguedo (pork fat) is here allowed up 
 to Septuagesima {AiJostolatus, iii. p. 85). Thus far we get light upon a 
 subject about which there has been much misapprehension, and find 
 what was the custom, as a matter of fact, in houses the most fervent 
 and most affected by the great revival under St. Dunstan. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE [nORMAN LANFRANC 
 
 The Church of the Anglo-Saxon, the work mainly 
 of monks, spread over all the land. Its growth in 
 holiness, in civilisation, in learning of all kinds, is 
 witnessed by the memories of a Bede, a Wulstan, 
 a Paulinus, an Erkonwald and Aldhelm, and many 
 others whose names are sweet in English ears ; and 
 the sons of St. Benedict were regarded with loving 
 reverence as the benefactors of their country. But 
 all this fair province of God's Church was once more 
 to be devastated but not destroyed, changed but not 
 altered. Not this time by pagan Dane, but by 
 Christian Northmen, men who to their native sim- 
 plicity and bravely had added the culture of the 
 Franks, whom they had conquered, and among whom 
 they had settled. 
 
 But the changes about to be wrought in England 
 did not come solely from the fact that the Saxons 
 had to recognise Normans as masters by right of 
 conquest. The invaders were the means by which 
 a movement already greatly developed abroad made 
 its power felt in English monasteries. 
 
 The changes then going on in society at large
 
 THE NORMAN LANFRANC 19 
 
 brought into relief, more strongly than at other times, 
 a feature in Benedictine government which might, 
 under force of exterior circumstances, degenerate from 
 its primitive institution. Each abbey, being alone 
 and separated from other houses, was obviously less 
 capable of resisting external attacks than when 
 united with others for common defence. It was 
 not an unknown thing, for instance, for some lay 
 nobleman, through royal influence and favours, to 
 be appointed abbat of a monastery in his neighbour- 
 hood. Taking up his residence in the abbey, he 
 would bring with him a train of servants and his 
 family to boot. All this was to the grave detri- 
 ment both of the property of the abbey, and was 
 fatal to its welfare and discipline. These disorders, 
 to appear under another guise later on, were preva- 
 lent in the districts of Burgundy and the western 
 parts of Germany. In 927 Odo of Tours began at 
 Cluni, of which he became abbat, to cope with the 
 difficulty. He met it on two sides — by ordaining 
 a confederation of houses, over which the abbat of 
 Cluni should preside, and by periodical chapters 
 of the abbats of the Order to be held at the 
 head-house. Before long this naturally resulted in 
 subjection ; the abbat of Cluni became lord and 
 master of all. Together with these constitutional 
 changes were others regarding the daily life of those 
 who joined the reform. The cluniacs, for so the 
 new Order was called, claimed to live in strict 
 accord with the spirit of the Rule of St. Benedict,
 
 20 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 and certainly in the matter of the Divine Office, 
 "the Work of God" as the Law-giver calls it, they 
 let nothing be preferred before it. Their ritual 
 observances were marked by a great wealth of 
 splendour and a grandeur and majesty hitherto not 
 realised.^ It was the marked feature of their life 
 and work. Cluni was fortunate in having at its 
 start many remarkable men, who, gifted with wise 
 energy, stirred up an enthusiasm which carried on 
 the reform, or rather the new Order, to a success- 
 ful issue. Its houses spread far and wide, and 
 the influence of Cluni made itself felt in quarters 
 where its ideals, as a whole, did not find favour. 
 But it attained its success at the loss of a vital 
 principle. The family tie, so essential a feature 
 in Benedictine life, was lost ; for the cluniacs, 
 in whichever of their hundred of houses they 
 might happen to live, were counted members of this 
 great abbey. We need not carry on the history 
 of the Order. Enough has been said to illustrate 
 the character of the changes that awaited the black 
 monks of England. 
 
 The chief agent in bringing about the consoli- 
 
 1 Some of the other peculiarities of the cluniac Order may here be 
 noted. Two high masses were celebrated every day, and on all greater 
 solemnities the deacon used to be communicated with a part of the 
 l^riest's host. They were employed more apparently in manual labour, 
 in which all had to take a share, than in study ; for as a matter of fact, 
 in view of their enormous extension, the books they wrote are compara- 
 tively few. At the chapter each monk was bound to publicly accuse 
 his brethren of any faults lie had seen in them. There was great 
 chaiity to the poor. ;
 
 THE NORMAN LANFRANC 2X 
 
 dation of the Norman-Saxon Church, ^Yas the illus- 
 trious Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury and ex 
 officio abbat of the cathedral-monastery of Christ 
 Church. 
 
 Born at Pavia (1005), he became renowned as 
 a teacher, and was in the height of his fame 
 when suddenly the vocation came. Hurrying off to 
 Normandy, he hid himself about the year 1042 in the 
 abbey of Bee, under the abbat Herluin. It was then 
 but a poor monastery, consisting of mud hovels ; yet 
 under its holy superior it was growing rich in virtue 
 and the gifts of the spiritual life. Here the light of 
 Lanfranc's learning and piety could not be hid ; and 
 his brethren found in the humble brother the famous 
 professor whose loss the learned world was then 
 bewailing. Soon his retreat was discovered, and 
 many of his old scholars flocked to Bee and im- 
 plored him to help them. The abbat ordered him 
 to resume his lectures ; and at once, from being an 
 unknown monastery, Bee became one of the most 
 famous centres of learning in Europe. Lanfranc 
 had by that time become prior of Bee, and Herluin's 
 chief adviser. The large ideas and the sense of 
 beauty in ecclesiastical art he had brought from Italy, 
 joined with the new ideas of liturgical splendour 
 emanating from Cluni, seized upon the prior, and he 
 determined to make of "white-robed Bec"^ a model 
 of monastic observance. The idea of magnificence 
 
 1 The monks of Bee till 1626 wore a whitish-coloured habit. Cf. 
 Leland's Antiquarii Collectanea, ed. alt. vol. iv. p. 13.
 
 2 2 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 had, by that time, taken possession of the Normans 
 and was showing itself in stately buildings, magnifi- 
 cent apparel, and a personal grandeur which had be- 
 come marked features of the age. Hence the time 
 was propitious for the prior's project. The abbat built 
 a church which surpassed in splendour anything 
 known in those parts, and for its use a consuetu- 
 dinary, " the Use of Bee," ^ was drawn up in which 
 were reflected the ideas of great stateliness and 
 beauty of worship. 
 
 And how did Lanfranc find his cathedral-monas- 
 tery of Canterbury? If William of Malmesbury, 
 who wrote the Gesta Pontijicum in 1125, is to 
 be relied upon, " The monks of Canterbury, like 
 all then in England, were hardly difi'erent from 
 seculars, except that they were careful on the score 
 of chastity. They amused themselves with hunt- 
 ing, with falconry, with horse-racing ; they loved to 
 rattle the dice ; they indulged in drink ; they wore 
 fine clothes, studied personal appearance, disdained 
 a frugal and quiet life, and had such a retinue of 
 servants, that they were more like secular nobles 
 than monks." " 
 
 But it will be well to remember that the Normans 
 
 1 " The Use of Bee " was adapted in other abbeys, with such changes 
 as various surroundings and traditions demanded. In 1063 Lanfranc 
 was made abbat of Caen, a monastery built by William Duke of 
 Normandy on a scale of jjrincely splendour. In 1067 he refused the 
 archbishopric of Rouen. This was the man who, in 1070, was chosen 
 by William the Conqueror as archbishoi) of Canterbury. 
 
 2 Malm., De Gestis Pontif. (Roll Series), p. 70.;
 
 THE NORMAN LANFRANC 23 
 
 treated the Saxons as a conquered people, and looked 
 upon everything they found as barbarous and needing 
 reformation. The monasteries, being in the minds of 
 the new masters hotbeds of conservatism in which 
 the old Saxon spirit was deeply engrained, they must 
 be taken severely in hand and purged of all such 
 tendencies. Hence it was with a prejudiced eye 
 that writers, such as William of Malmesbury, looked 
 upon the native monk. His account must therefore 
 be taken for what it is worth. Besides, be it remem- 
 bered, by his express testimony morality was kept 
 in repute, and this hardly seems likely if the pic- 
 ture he draws is to be taken as an accurate one. 
 Where drinking, gaming, and feasting are, there 
 chastity is not likely to remain long : and yet they 
 are expressly exempted from such a charge by the 
 historian. His account does not tally with experi- 
 ence. That the rigour of discipline had fallen off 
 since the days when their cathedral and monastery 
 had been burnt by the Danes, and their archbishop 
 Elphege (loii) murdered might well have been. 
 But there must have been " grit " in them ; for by 
 1020 they had repaired their church and resumed 
 their life after the simple earnest ways of their 
 forefathers. Their number, however, was small; and 
 where numbers are small, observance is difficult. 
 
 Whatever their state may have been at Canterbury 
 at the time of the Conquest, one thing is certain, it 
 did not satisfy the more magnificent ideas of Lanfranc. 
 The simplicity of Saxon ritual did not accord with
 
 24 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 the splendour of worship which had been borrowed 
 from Cluni for Bee and then for his own abbey at 
 Caen. Canterbury must be brought up to the level of 
 the new ideas, and a favourable opportunity offered 
 itself. The cathedral church of Christ Church, the 
 mother-church of the land, had been burnt down 
 on St. Nicholas' day 1067, and although it had 
 been repaired, its condition but ill sorted with its 
 dignity. Lanfranc lent himself manfully to the task. 
 In a short time, but seven years, a new church arose, 
 or rather a new choir (1070) more commensurate 
 with his dignified ideas. Built in the Norman style 
 of the period, the few remains, such as they are, still 
 delight us. The monastery itself was rebuilt, and 
 soon one hundred and fifty monks were gathered 
 together and sang God's praises. For them Lanfranc 
 compiled his famous " statutes," a code of observa- 
 tion largely liturgical. It is in reality in most 
 points but little else than the " Use of Bee." When 
 he sent them to Henry, prior of Christ Church, he 
 enclosed a letter in which he says : — 
 
 " We send to you written customs of our Order 
 which we have gathered from the customs of those 
 monasteries which nowadays are of the greatest 
 weight in the monastic Order. We have also added 
 a very few things and changed also a little, especially 
 as regards the celebration of the festivals, deeming 
 they ought to be kept with greater excellence in our 
 Church on account of its having the primatial chair. 
 In which things, however, we do not wish in any
 
 THE NORMAN LANFRANC 25 
 
 way to hamper either ourselves or those who come 
 after us, so that we cannot either add to or take 
 away from, or change them if we think that these 
 matters can be improved on either as the result of 
 our own experience or by the example of others. 
 For however far advanced a man may think himself 
 to be, he is woefully deficient if he thinks that he 
 cannot improve. For a greater or less number of 
 brethren, a varying income, circumstances, differ- 
 ences of personal appreciation, often call for changes. 
 So that hardly any Church can imitate its neighbour 
 in all things." ^ 
 
 Lanfranc's changes were the work of time, 
 spreading over many years ; for, to quote William 
 of Malmesbury again : — 
 
 " Lanfranc was most skilful in the art of arts, the 
 government of souls, and knowing well that habit 
 is second nature, though bent on reforming, he did 
 his work with prudence, and plucking up the weeds 
 little by little, sowed good seed in their place." ^ 
 
 His nephew, Paul, who had been set over the 
 abbey of St. Alban's, took Lanfranc's constitutions 
 bodily and introduced them into his house, and 
 adopted his uncle's prudent methods also.^ What 
 the local influence and example of Lanfranc achieved 
 at Canterbury and at St. Albans, was done on 
 similar lines at other abbeys, where new rulers 
 
 ^ Apostolatus, iii. p. 211. 
 
 2 Malm., De Gestis Pontif. (Roll Series), p. 71. 
 
 ^ Walsingam, Gesta ahbatum monasterii S. Albani (Roll Series), vol. i. 
 p. 52.
 
 26 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 would naturally introduce such changes as they 
 themselves had been accustomed to in the Norman 
 abbeys wherein they had learnt the monastic life. 
 A general similarity would mark the movement, 
 but local influence would of course have had full 
 play; for whether we visited Glaston, St. Albans, 
 York, or Chester, we should have found these local 
 peculiarities which must grow round anything that 
 is worthy of the name of " home." 
 
 These changes were sore indeed to the Saxon 
 monks, and were sometimes brought about only 
 after great difficulty; for it was not every abbat 
 who, at a time when race antipathies were strong, 
 had Lanfranc's discretion. For instance, when Thur- 
 stan, a monk of Caen, was appointed as abbat of 
 Glaston, one of his first steps was to introduce the 
 fashion of chanting to which he had been used. 
 This was the signal for trouble; for, to quote the 
 words of Ordericius : — 
 
 " When the violent (protervus) abbat tried to force 
 the Glastonians to give up the chant the English 
 had learnt from the disciples of blessed Gregory, the 
 pope, and learn from these Flemings or Normans 
 another chant quite unknown or unheard of before, 
 so fierce a strife arose, which was soon followed by 
 the disgrace of the holy Order. For while the monks 
 would not receive these new regulations, and by 
 their contumacy the stubbornness of their master 
 continuing, lay-men, by the authority of their lord, 
 fell upon the luckless monks in choir with arrows,
 
 THE NORMAN LANFRANC 27 
 
 and some of them were cruelly hurt, and (so it is 
 said) even mortally wounded." ^ 
 
 A similar story is told of Malmesbury abbey. In 
 the case of Glaston, the result was in favour of the 
 monks. Thurstan was removed by the King, and 
 a more prudent man set in his place. 
 
 In the wake of the Normans, the monks of Cluni 
 entered England and brought with them the idea of 
 monasteries ruled by superiors, the mere nominees 
 at will of an abbat of the house beyond the seas 
 which counted them all her subjects. At the sug- 
 gestion of Lanfranc, it appears, William, Earl of 
 Surrey, the Conqueror's son-in-law, first brought over 
 in 1077 the cluniacs and settled them at Lewes. 
 In a few years, before William Rufus began his 
 reign, they had secured other houses in England 
 and thence spread. The houses of Bermondsey, 
 Northampton, Thetford, Wenlock, Lenton, Monta- 
 cute, and Castleacre, are some of their better known 
 foundations, and we may note that altogether there 
 were some thirty-eight houses of this Order in 
 England, besides three hospitals in London and two 
 manors depending on the abbey of Cluni itself. 
 Although the number of their houses was thus 
 considerable and many were large, their peculiar 
 form of government did not find favour with Eng- 
 lishmen, and their Order never became racy of the 
 soil. And even when some cluniacs were appointed 
 over English abbeys, this did not affect the inde- 
 
 1 Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. Migne, p. 335.
 
 28 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 pendence of these houses. Even those great English 
 abbeys which at times were ruled by cluniacs, kept 
 themselves aloof from any relations with Cluni itself, 
 except that their revenues — as, for instance, at 
 Glaston and Winchester — were used to free Cluni 
 from debt, and seem for four years practically to 
 have supported that house/ 
 
 This century was the golden age for monasticism. 
 Abbeys and priories sprung up on every side. The 
 burst of new life which the Conquest gave to 
 England, and the tone of mind induced by the 
 growth of chivalry, turned men's minds strongly to 
 the high and noble ideal of the monastic state. 
 The monk was the " Knight of God," and his victories 
 over sin and self appealed to ardent hearts which 
 consumed themselves in the task of accomplishing 
 deeds of valour and heroism. Hence to this period 
 we owe many of our greatest foundations, e.g. 
 Durham, where the bishop, AYilliam of St. Carileph, 
 formerly abbat of St. Vincent's at Mans, accom- 
 plished what his predecessor had vainly tried to 
 do. He gave the secular canons, who possessed 
 the church he designed for his cathedral, the choice 
 of either remaining as monks or of else departing. 
 All, except the dean, elected to go ; and for them 
 the bishop, by command of the Pope, instituted the 
 collegiate churches of Aukland, Darlington, and 
 Norton, and provided them with suitable pensions.^ 
 
 ' Cf. Sir G. F. Duckett's Charters and Records of Chmy, p. 79. 
 
 2 Simeonis Dunelmensis Hisioria de Dunel. Ecdesia., lib. iv. cap. 2 et 3.
 
 THE NORMAN LANFRANC 29 
 
 The monks from the old abbeys of Wearmouth 
 and Jarrow were translated to Durham in 1083 ; 
 and these houses thenceforth became merely cells 
 dependent on the cathedral-monastery. St. Mary's, 
 York, Battle Abbey, Colchester, Reading, Pershore, 
 and Gloucester are some of the many foundations of 
 this period, to say nothing of the new Order of the 
 white monks of Citeaux, and the black or augustinian 
 canons, and the white canons of Premontre.^ 
 
 In the midst of all this activity, one side of 
 the peculiar movement, which resulted in the new 
 Orders of Cluni and Citeaux, began to tell upon 
 the black monks here and elsewhere. We refer 
 to the constitutional organisation which now began 
 to develop itself. In France, for instance, the 
 abbats of St. Amand, Lobbes, Liesse, Anchin, Eebais, 
 Lagny, and others, all belonging to the ecclesiasti- 
 cal province of Rheims, agreed, about the year 1 132, 
 to hold annual meetings for the maintenance of 
 discipline.^ 
 
 An assembly in the year 1152 of the abbats of 
 Upper Lorraine at Metz, under the presidency of 
 
 1 The origin, and aims of the cistercians were briefly these : In 1098 
 Kobert, abbat of Molesme, with Stephen Harding and some com- 
 panions, left his monastery in order to carry out the Rule of St. 
 Benedict to the letter. They found a shelter at Citeaux. The cister- 
 cians had a halo of glory cast over them by the great St. Bernard, 
 abbat of the house of Clairvaux. In opposition to the cluniacs, they 
 rejected liturgical pomp. They turned their attention to husbandry 
 and agriculture. 
 
 ^ See Introduction to Monks of (he West, by Dom F. A. Gasquet, ed. 
 Nimmo, vol. i. p. 39 ; and Doionside Review, vol. v. p. 59.
 
 30 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 Jordan, cardinal - priest, may have had a similar 
 object. These meetings are interesting, for they 
 show that in the immediate neighbourhood of Cluni 
 the idea of some form of association was beginning 
 to work its way among monks who had preserved 
 their own independence. It was being slowly gene- 
 rated, and the time and opportunity for putting it 
 into practice upon strictly Benedictine lines was 
 close at hand. 
 
 Innocent III. in the year 1215 held a general 
 council at Rome (the Fourth Lateran) which was 
 attended by 412 bishops and nearly 1000 abbats 
 and priors, and there decreed, among other legisla- 
 tion, a system of union for black monks. What 
 this system was, and how well it meets both the 
 acknowledged want and the requirements of the 
 Benedictine ideal, will be seen in the following 
 chapter.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE BENEDICTINE CONSTITUTION 
 
 There are no such things, properly speaking, as 
 benedictine constitutions in the sense the word 
 is used in other orders. The benedictines do not 
 form one large body with a general at their head ; 
 for St. Benedict did not legislate for a world-wide 
 corporation but for a state of life. Such a form of 
 government as obtains, for instance, in the francis- 
 can or dominican orders would be entirely foreign 
 to the spirit of the holy Rule. Each of the modern 
 orders has some special work in view, to which all 
 their life is directed. They have to find their salva- 
 tion through the various works of charity for which 
 they were formed, or which they have taken up as 
 an integral portion of their work. Not so with the 
 benedictine. He has no external work peculiar 
 to his order. St. Benedict's ideal is that of the 
 common Christian life of the " Counsels " practised 
 to a higher degree than can be in the world. It is 
 simply the Gospel put into practice. The vows, for 
 instance, of Poverty and Chastity are not explicit as 
 to other orders; for when the Christian life is drawn 
 out to its perfection on the plain, broad Gospel
 
 32 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 lines, the spirit of poverty must be cultivated and 
 the body kept in subjection. 
 
 The vows the benedictine makes are three in 
 number : Stability, that is, to remain attached to his 
 monastery and not wander at will ; Conversion of 
 life, that is, until death to labour after attaining the 
 perfection of the state to which he is called ; and 
 lastly. Obedience to the abbat. The first two vows 
 concern mainly his interior life, the last his external 
 relation to his superiors. Obedience understood, 
 then, by a benedictine does away with the necessity 
 of laying down minute laws and tracing carefully 
 the lines in which a superior and a subject respec- 
 tively may move. Constitutions of this kind would 
 cut away entirely at the Benedictine idea of the 
 " home," which we may venture to describe as of 
 this kind. 
 
 As God made Society to rest on the basis of the 
 Family, so St. Benedict saw that the spiritual family 
 is the surest basis for the sanctification of the souk 
 of his monks. The monastery therefore is to him 
 what the " home" is to lay-folk. It is a self-contained 
 family, having friendly relations indeed with others,, 
 but in no wise losing its own independence and 
 individuality. It has its own peculiar way of look- 
 ing at things, its own ideals and its own kind of 
 work, which it has spontaneously undertaken, or 
 which has come to it unsought, and which it always 
 manages to stamp with its own peculiar mark. Of 
 this family the abbat is the father ; the monks are
 
 THE BENEDICTINE CONSTITUTION 33 
 
 his sons. The whole spirit is "homely." The 
 monks trust their abbat whom they have freely 
 elected. He loves them and has confidence in 
 them, and in no way can he effectually act except 
 through them. In the benedictine abbey which has 
 grasped the idea of its lawgiver, there will be order 
 and rule, for no family can exist without them : 
 but the yoke will be sweet and the burden light. 
 Largeness and breadth will be the spirit of every 
 house ; while from the fact that the influence of any 
 one monastery must necessarily be circumscribed to 
 its own immediate neighbourhood, there will be less 
 chance of friction between one house and another. 
 When each is independent and works out its for- 
 tune in its own way, it is an easy matter so to 
 steer the course as to keep clear out of the way of 
 others. From this family idea comes another re- 
 sult : the very fact that St. Benedict did not found 
 an Order but only gave a Rule, cuts away all 
 possibility of that narrowing esprit de corps which 
 comes so easily to a widespread and highly orga- 
 nised body. 
 
 Lanfranc in the above-mentioned letter to Henry, 
 prior of Christ Church, says : " One point is most 
 carefully to be attended to, namely, that these 
 things without which there is no salvation are to 
 be thoroughly observed : I mean, faith, contempt 
 of the world, charity, chastity, lowliness, patience, 
 obedience, sorrow for past sins, lowly confession of 
 sin, frequent prayers, a fitting silence, and many 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 34 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 other things of this kind. Where these are observed, 
 there truly may the Rule of Holy Benet be said to 
 be followed, and there the monastic order kept. No 
 matter how different other things may be ; for there 
 are points which have obtained differently in different 
 monasteries by the opinions of different people." ^ 
 
 This, then, being the idea, any form of govern- 
 ment which destroys the autonomy of each house, 
 or which tends to break up the family, is foreign to 
 the very first principles of benedictine life, and can 
 only be tolerated for a time under the plea of some 
 very great necessity. Confederation of houses for 
 mutual support and advice, on the other hand, is in 
 keeping with the family idea ; and for the general 
 good each family may give up some of its rights, as 
 is done in the State. But it must be so arranged 
 that the essential rights are preserved intact, other- 
 wise it is Socialism in its baldest form. There had 
 been, as we have seen, for some time past a move- 
 ment towards some kind of union among black 
 monks. The vitality which existed in each house is 
 enough to account for such a movement seeking to 
 share its principle of life with others ; and we need 
 go no further to seek for the cause. We have also 
 seen how the first steps towards such an end had 
 resulted in specifically distinct orders like those of 
 Cluni and Citeaux. The obvious plan was for the 
 heads of neighbouring houses to meet together, 
 bringing some of their monks, and discuss such 
 
 1 Apostolatus, iii. p. 211.
 
 THE BENEDICTINE CONSTITUTION 35 
 
 matters as were of general interest. This was the 
 plan the Church adopted and has expressed in the 
 Fourth General Council of Laterau. The twelfth 
 decree, the only one which concerns the monastic 
 order, in substance is as follows : — 
 
 In each province or kingdom let all the abbats 
 and priors of houses which are not abbeys meet 
 together (saving all episcopal rights) every three 
 years in some convenient monastery, and there hold 
 a chapter, to which all not lawfully excused are 
 bound to come. Let them, while new to the busi- 
 ness, invite, for advice as to procedure, two of the 
 neighbouring cistercian abbats as being accustomed 
 to such meetings ; ^ and to these must be elected 
 other two of their own, and the four shall preside 
 over the assembly. But let these presidents take 
 heed lest they claim any superiority ; for if it is 
 found expedient they may, after due deliberation, be 
 changed. The chapter must last for several days, 
 after the manner of the cistercians ; and it is to treat 
 of such things as the reformation of the order and 
 of regular observance. Whatever is decided and is 
 approved of by the four presidents is to be held 
 as binding upon all. Before the chapter closes, 
 the date of the next one must be fixed. Those who 
 attend must lead the common life, and bear pro- 
 portionately their share of the expenses. If room 
 cannot be found for them all in one house, then 
 
 ' The first cistercian chapter was held by St. Stephen Harding at 
 Citeaux, 11 16.
 
 36 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 several together are to lodge elsewhere. Certain 
 men of religions circumspection are to be chosen 
 by the chapter as visitors of every abbey in the 
 province or kingdom. They are to visit in the 
 pope's name both monks and nuns ; and correct 
 and reform what they find amiss. If on visitation 
 they find it necessary that any abbat or prior should 
 be deposed, they are to denounce him to his own 
 bishop that he may remove him. If the bishop 
 will not do so, then the case is to be referred to 
 the judgment of the See Apostolic. Any difficulty 
 that may arise in the application of this decree has 
 also to be referred to the pope. This decree also 
 is to be applied to all canons regular, each accord- 
 ing to their order. Moreover the bishops have to 
 take such heed to the state of the monasteries in 
 their dioceses, that when the capitular visitors 
 come, they may rather find matter for commendation 
 than correction. The bishops are also to take care 
 that their monasteries are not over-taxed by the 
 visitors, for while the Holy See desires to guard all 
 rights of superiors, she has no wish to injure the 
 subjects. The pope also distinctly orders both 
 bishops and presidents of chapters, under pain of 
 censure, to compel all lay-folk to desist from wrong- 
 ing the monks in person or property ; and offenders 
 are to be compelled to make due satisfaction, so 
 that the divine service may go on with all freedom 
 and peace. 
 
 Nowhere was the decree so loyally observed, both
 
 THE BENEDICTINE CONSTITUTION 37 
 
 in letter and spirit, as in England. Our monks put 
 it at once into force on the lines of the partition of 
 the ecclesiastical provinces of Canterbury and York. 
 No acts of the chapters held in the northern province 
 have come down to us, or, at least, have as yet been 
 printed/ In the Aijostolatus we have collected 
 decrees of a number held in the southern province.^ 
 These meetings went on, at least, to 15 16, when 
 there was a general chapter held in Coventry.^ 
 
 Three years after the Lateran Council, the pre- 
 lates of the province of Canterbury were holding a 
 chapter in September 12 18 at Oxford. The sessions 
 were put off until the 14th of September 12 19, 
 when it again met at St. Albans. Its presidents 
 were the abbats of Evesham and St. Augustine's, 
 Canterbury, both of whom had assisted at the 
 Lateran Council. The southern province does not 
 seem to have availed itself of the help of any cister- 
 cian abbats. Perhaps the two presidents, fresh from 
 Eome, felt quite capable of conducting the business 
 of chapter without any outside help. From 12 18 
 to 1 300 we have traces of no less than twenty-four 
 of these provincial chapters. Oxford and its neigh- 
 
 1 The acts of one cliapter of the northern province seemed to have 
 been in the hands of Dom Baker: "et aliud (Capitulum) Eboraci 
 circa annum 1266 cujus acta habentur et exordium eorum authentice 
 discriptum ad tendere possumus" {ApostolaUis, ii. 39). This chapter 
 is mentioned in Hist. iJunelm. Scriptor. tres (Surtees Society), p. 48, 
 in terms which imply a standing institute. 
 
 2 See also Downside lieviexo, vol. v. p. 59. 
 
 3 See the Statutes in the Appendix to vol. iii. of Historia et Cartu- 
 lurium Monasterii Sti. Petri, Gloucestrice (Koll Series), pp. 298, 299.
 
 38 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 bourhood seems to have been the usual place of 
 meeting, though Glastonbury, Evesham, London, 
 and Northampton were favoured, as well as St. 
 Albans and Reading. In 1236-37 a general chapter, 
 seemingly of all, was held in London preparatory 
 to the opening of the legatine Council of Otho. At 
 this council the legate passed a decree (No. 19) 
 concerning the use of flesh meat. The Italian was 
 judging of the state of English monasticism by 
 what he had been accustomed to in his own warmer 
 land. He says he had gladly heard that the abbats 
 of the order throughout England had lately held 
 a chapter in which they enforced perpetual absti- 
 nence according to the Rule of St. Benedict ; ^ which 
 decree he now confirms. This change, however, was 
 soon found impracticable ; and in the provincial 
 chapter held in 1300 at Oxford, under the presidency 
 of the abbat of Westminster, a decree was passed 
 to dispense with it, as impossible to be kept under 
 the circumstances. This chapter also did away with 
 the number of extra vocal prayers which had been 
 accumulatins: since the davs of St. Dunstan. The 
 meeting at Oxford, 21st September 1253, seems to 
 have been one of both provinces.^ 
 
 It was not long, however, before the benedictine 
 provinces of Canterbury and York were united into 
 one general chapter of a Congregation, coextensive 
 
 1 And, it appears, in accordance with the legate's -wishes. 
 
 2 Annales de Theokesberia, ed. Luard, p. 153 ; Annales de PFintonia, 
 ed. Luard, p. 94.
 
 THE BENEDICTINE CONSTITUTION 39 
 
 with the country. The Lateran decree had been 
 only fully carried out in England, and nowhere 
 else. Therefore in 1334 Benedict XII. issued from 
 Avignon on June 20th the famous bull called 
 the Benedictina, which enforced the Lateran de- 
 cree and extended its scope. The abbats of St. 
 Albans and of St. Mary's, York, one for each pro- 
 vince, were charged by the Holy See to execute 
 the bull in England. It is a long document, and 
 consists of thirty-nine chapters. As it is one of 
 the most important pieces of legislation for the 
 Order ever issued by the Holy See, it will be well 
 to give here a brief resimie of its more important 
 clauses. 
 
 After having re-enforced the decree of the Lateran 
 Council about triennial chapters, which ajQfects all 
 superiors, abbats Cathedral and other conventual 
 priors, the pope orders those who cannot attend 
 personally to send proxies, otherwise they are to be 
 fined a double amount of the usual tax levied for 
 chapter expenses. The power of the presidents is 
 to last from chapter to chapter. The two provinces 
 of Canterbury and York are to unite and form only 
 one chapter. (I.) Visitors are only to stay two days 
 at any house when on visitations ; and on such 
 occasions there are to be no feastings ; neither is 
 money allowed to be received or offered excepting 
 for the bare expenses. Penalties are inflicted against 
 those who infringe this law. (IL) Besides the 
 general chapter ; ewery year a chapter of each parti-
 
 40 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 cular house has to be held. (HI.) The general 
 chapter has power of taxation for general purposes. 
 (IV.) In every house in which there are at least six 
 monks, the daily conventual chapter is to held. 
 (V.) In every house a properly paid teacher is to be 
 appointed to instruct the monks in Grammar, Logic, 
 and Philosophy. Seculars are not to be taught with 
 the monks. (VI.) One monk in twenty must be 
 sent to the universities for higher studies, and he is 
 to have a fixed allowance. Superiors, under penal- 
 ties, have to seek advice as to whom they send to 
 the university. (VII.) Pensions are to be paid to 
 students according to their rank, out of which they 
 must find food, clothes, books, &c. A prior of the 
 home of studies is to be appointed by the presi- 
 dents. Each monk-student has once a month to 
 send in his list of belongings. (VIII.) Then, after 
 chapters on the general management of monastic 
 houses regarding business matters (IX. to XXV.), 
 come these laws. Every Wednesday and Saturday, 
 and every day in Advent and from Septuagesima 
 to Easter are days when flesh meat is forbidden 
 to monks unless superiors judged well to dis- 
 pense in individual cases. All are to sleep in 
 one dormitoiy, separate cells being strictly for- 
 bidden except for students who can use them for 
 purposes of study but not for sleeping. (XXVI.) 
 In monasteries all priests are to celebrate at least 
 twice or thrice a w^eek. Those who are not priests 
 confess at least once a week and communicate once
 
 THE BENEDICTINE CONSTITUTION 41 
 
 a month.^ (XXVII.) The rest of the decrees con- 
 cern benefices and other ecclesiastical injunctions of 
 no general interest.^ 
 
 This bull was duly announced by the two abbats 
 by letters dated March 10, 1337, and a chapter ap- 
 pointed to be held at Northampton, at the cluniac 
 monastery of St. Andrew, on the following June loth 
 for the publication of the bull. Northampton was 
 chosen as being most accessible ; and the pope 
 allowed the holding of chapters, if more convenient, 
 in houses belonging to another Order. 
 
 On June 10, 1338 (Wilkins gives this date), the 
 first united chapter was held as arranged.^ The 
 abbat of York said the mass, and afterwards he 
 of St. Albans preached in Latin prout decuit. As 
 soon as the chapter had begun its session, a royal 
 messenger, one Master Philip, a cleric of London, 
 was announced. He brought letters from the king 
 forbidding the fathers to do aught contrary to the 
 royal prerogative or to the laws of the land. The 
 
 * The old rule laid down in the Concordia Regularis was daily 
 Communion; even on Good Friday; and the reason was given in the 
 words of St. Augustine : " Because in the Lord's Prayer we do not 
 ask for our yearly but for our daily bread. ... So live as to be worthy 
 to receive every day ; for he who is not worthy to receive daily is not 
 worthy to receive once a year '" {Lib. de Verbis Domini). It must be 
 remembered that the wording of the Benedidina was made to apply 
 to all countries, the names of Canterl)ury and York being only inserted 
 in the copy sent to England. Hence the regulation in Chapter XXVII. 
 does not go to prove that in England, at least, monks had fallen off 
 from their old practice. 
 
 2 Wilkins, Concilia, vol. ii. pp. 585-613. 
 
 ^ Ibid. p. 626.
 
 42 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 session was prorogued for two days to consult how 
 to satisfy the king and obey the pope's commands ; 
 which they were able to do by showing the meeting 
 to be concerned only with their own internal affairs. 
 After this they proceeded to business, and the abbats 
 of Westminster, Gloucester, and Bardney were chosen 
 presidents. The bull was formally read, and was 
 ordered to be kept at Westminster, as the most 
 secure place of deposit. Visitors were nominated 
 for the whole of England, and a commission was 
 appointed, now that the two provinces were united, 
 to overlook the decrees of the former provincial 
 chapters and decide what was to be kept as binding 
 upon the whole Congregation. 
 
 These chapters, held then at fixed intervals until 
 the Dissolution, were regularly representative bodies, 
 consisting not only of the heads of the houses, 
 but also of ordinary monks deputed by their fellow- 
 religious to attend. The records of some of these 
 chapters still exist, and are full of interest, showing 
 as they do the practical working of the system. For 
 instance, at the third provincial chapter of the year 
 1343 some modifications by Clement VI. of the bull 
 of Benedict XII. were read.^ A demand was made 
 to chapter by the cardinals who had brought out the 
 bull, for payment of 300 crowns as their expenses, 
 and threats were used in case of non-payment. The 
 king took the matter into his own hands and for- 
 bade any such payments. An important decree was 
 
 1 Wilkins, Concilia, vol. ii. pp. 713-15.
 
 THE BENEDICTINE CONSTITUTION 43 
 
 passed, to the effect that all provisions of former 
 chapters were to be considered as revoked unless 
 reaffirmed by each succeeding chapter. In another 
 (1422), a stop was put to excessive cavalcades on 
 the part of those who came to the meeting. No 
 one, however dignified, was to have a train of more 
 than twenty horses.^ 
 
 Abbats were ordered to look after their monks 
 and to live among them, especially on feast days. 
 They were not to be absent from the monastery 
 more than three months in the year; and were to 
 be careful to spend Easter with their brethren. The 
 abbats agree once a year to make a full statement 
 to their monks of everything which concerns the 
 abbey. Their power of alienation was checked. 
 From September 15th to Lent no supper was to 
 be allowed except to the aged, sick, and those 
 below twenty years of age. A decree allowing of 
 eating meat was also passed, for the reason that 
 doctors and experience both teach that a total 
 abstinence from flesh is contrary to nature and 
 hurtful to the system : so were monks to be 
 confined to such diet alone, they would become 
 weak and suffer, a thing the rule neither orders 
 nor desires." 
 
 The visitations ordered by chapter were realities 
 and no merely formal visits. The reports were read 
 at the succeeding chapter. For instance, the abbat 
 of St. Albans, who had been appointed visitor of 
 
 1 Ibid. vol. iii. p. 419.
 
 44 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 St. Augustine's, Canterbury, reports to the fathers 
 assembled, in 1426,^ that he was grieved to have 
 found something there needing correction, about 
 which he would later on confer with them more 
 fully. The abbat of Cerne, on the same occasion, 
 reports well of all the houses he had to visit, with 
 the exception of Abingdon, about which he too 
 had something to report privately to the president. 
 At Shrewsbury, too, he says, there were strifes and 
 a want of concord. We do not find any account 
 of capitular visitation of nunneries ; and are thereby 
 led to conclude that the houses of women were 
 not considered (although the Lateran decrees gave 
 the power of visitation) as being formally part of 
 the Congregation at all. 
 
 The general chapter was for some time exercised 
 as to the repeated contumacy of the monks of Christ 
 Church, Canterbury, who refused to appear when 
 summoned." They were warned and threatened with 
 fines and excommunication again and again. But 
 with no effect. The monks of Christ Church pro- 
 tested that, as being the mother-house of all bene- 
 dictines in England and, sede vacante, holding the 
 primatial jurisdiction, it beseemed not their dignity 
 to be summoned to any general chapter. If general 
 chapter there need be, theirs it was to summon it, 
 and to preside over its deliberation. In 1360 they 
 wrote, in the name of the king, to the pope ex- 
 
 ^ Wilkins, Concilia, vol. iii. p. 464. 
 
 - Literce Cantuarienses, vol. ii. pp. 224, 398, 400, 448, 510.
 
 THE BENEDICTINE CONSTITUTION 45 
 
 posing their woes and claiming exemption ; and in 
 1363 appointed proctors in Rome to carry on the 
 appeal. But in 1373 the chapter still persisted 
 in its claim and began to threaten the monks of 
 Christ Church with further grave penalties, of 
 which the prior bitterly complains in a letter 
 to the archbishop. Five years later, Urban VI. 
 writes to archbishop Simon of Sudbury, and gives 
 full exemption to the monks of his cathedral- 
 monastery. 
 
 While the general chapter was exercising juris- 
 diction and sending visitors to the different abbeys 
 in the pope's name, we must not forget that these 
 same abbeys and other houses were also subjected 
 to the visitations of the bishops of the diocese. 
 The bishop was the ordinary of the whole diocese, 
 and had to correct whatever was amiss in his fiock.^ 
 He could, if necessary, even dispose an abbat whom 
 he found unworthy, and thus obviate any difficulties 
 
 1 In the Constitutions of Giles of Sarum (1256), the bishop lays down 
 this decree for his monasteries : " Since by the rule of the holy fathers, 
 religious men are bound to know by heart the psalms, hymns, and 
 certain other things to be read or sung according to their own ob- 
 servance, both in the night and day offices, we order that no one who 
 has entered now or at any future time a monastery in our diocese, 
 should he not know his office l)y heart, be promoted to any obedience 
 (i.e. any post of trust) unless it be a case of invincible ignorance. In 
 case of contravention of this law, both the appointer and the appointed 
 are suspended" (Wilkins, Concilia, vol. i. p. 718). The visitations 
 held in the diocese of Norwich, and published by the Camden Society, 
 show how strict and searching the visitations were ; and how much 
 indeed, up to the time of the Dissolution, depended upon the 
 bishop.
 
 46 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 which might arise from life appointments. His 
 leave was necessary for an election, and he was 
 called upon to confirm the choice of the monks. 
 It was the bishop of the diocese who had to bless 
 the newly appointed abbat, and who had to keep 
 his eye upon him and see he did his duty. There 
 were in England only five abbeys exempt from 
 episcopal control, viz., St. Albans, Canterbury, St. 
 Augustine's, Westminster, Evesham, St. Edmund's 
 Bury. In these abbeys, although there was freedom 
 from the bishop's visitation, they were under the 
 capitular jurisdiction. Their elections depended on 
 the pope for confirmation, and they had to pay 
 heavily for the privilege.^ They had to go to Rome 
 in person or by proxy for confirmation ; and there 
 the chancery fees were enormous. In 1308 the cost 
 of papal confirmation for the election of Richard de 
 Sudbury, as abbat of Westminster, was no less than 
 8000 florins. Towards the end of the fifteenth 
 century they got dispensation from going or sending 
 to Rome, and had, instead, to pay a yearly tax of 
 200 florins to the papal collector. 
 
 Now to go back to the abbey in itself. As be- 
 comes a father of the family, the abbat held his post 
 for life. It was only for some grave reason that he 
 could be deposed. Religious orders, and congre- 
 
 1 Tliey also had to pay heavy sums to the king for leave to elect. 
 In 1235 the monks of St. Albans had to pay the king 300 marks 
 (nearly ^4000 of present money) for the privilege. — Gesta Abb. Sti. Alb. 
 (Roll Series), vol. i. p. 306.
 
 THE BENEDICTINE CONSTITUTION 47 
 
 gations not belonging to the monastic state, find 
 in frequent changes of superiors advantages which 
 would by no means be such to monks. A dominican, 
 a franciscan, or a Jesuit, has no home in any one 
 house of his order more than another. He is here 
 to-day and gone to-morrow. But " home " is the 
 very idea of a benedictine monastery; and "home" 
 means oneness of surroundings and traditions, one- 
 ness of rule, of love and way of looking at things. 
 Around the monastery cling all those natural feel- 
 ings and sentiments which are the mainstay of 
 the family life. Here the monk is content to 
 live and die. Here will he dwell for ever, because 
 he has chosen it. Once more, "home" means one 
 father.^ 
 
 Another point to which we have referred. The 
 benedictine has no outside work peculiar to him- 
 self. He can therefore, when called by obedience, 
 take up all or any. He may follow the contem- 
 plative life or the active ministry of the Apostolic 
 mission. He may teach or may write books. He 
 may plant trees and till the soil, or he may follow 
 Art in any of its many branches. He may convert 
 
 1 The learned benedictine bishop Hedley of Newport thus writes on 
 this subject : " Every benedictine monastery is, and ought to be, a home ; 
 whatever the external work to which a monk may find himself called, tlie 
 normal thing must always be, to live in his own monastery. It would 
 be a mistake to encourage any one to profess himself a benedictine 
 unless he could look forward with pleasure to live "for better for 
 worse " till death itself in the home of his profession, under the Rule, 
 and in the daily work of the choiv. "—Ampleforth Journal, April 1896, 
 p. 248.
 
 48 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 the heathen or preside over the welfare of the 
 universal church from the Chair of Peter. Any- 
 work a Christian may do, he may do. Whether he 
 takes up one form of work or changes to some 
 other, it is all one to him. He is still a benedictine. 
 He works for work's sake ; for the discipline it 
 gives to the soul ; for the avoiding of idleness ; and 
 for his own support; for then, says St. Benedict, 
 " we are true monks when we live by the w^orks of 
 our hands." ^ Hence the wideness of his spirit and 
 the elasticity of his rule, which adapts itself to any 
 work required by the circumstances and the time. 
 In a word, the benedictine life is not so much that 
 of an Order as it is a State of Life, the life of the 
 Evangelical Counsels.^ 
 
 ^ Regula S. Benedidi, cap. xlviii. 
 
 2 When we use the term " order," as apiDlied to benedictines, it must 
 be remembered it has quite a different meaning to what it does when 
 used of the later religious bodies. In the benedictine meaning it is the 
 Bame as the term "state" in the "monastic state," and is analogous- 
 to the term " order" as when we speak of the clerical "order."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE MONK IN THE WORLD 
 
 Peofessing as he does to follow the ordinary 
 Gospel teaching, the monk cannot be unmindful 
 of the words, ''Bear ye one another's burdens."^ 
 Filled with the strength and the peace which has 
 entered his soul since his " conversion," ^ he is 
 always ready, when his abbat gives the word, to 
 labour for those left exposed to the cares and 
 dangers he has escaped. He is no misanthrope, 
 but is wise enough to know that the welfare of the 
 body is a great means towards securing the welfare 
 of the soul. For human misery, want, and poverty 
 are all so many obstacles in the way of Grace 
 working the change unto Life Eternal. Little is 
 the use of preaching to starving men, especially if 
 the preacher be himself well fed. Feed, clothe, and 
 house them ; and then will they be able to under- 
 stand that " Life is more than meat, and their 
 bodies more than raiment.'" ^ This common sense, 
 human way of looking at things, judging of others 
 
 * Gal. vi. 2. 
 
 ^ See the Oonversio monim suorum of the monastic vows. 
 ' St. Matthew vi. 25. 
 VOL. I. « D
 
 50 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 by the practical knowledge a man has gained of 
 himself, taught the monk to make his monastery 
 a centre for reaching the people among whom he 
 lived ; for an abbey was often possessed of vast 
 estates which afforded occupation and work to thou- 
 sands. The black monks were good landlords, who 
 lived in the midst of their tenantry and knew the 
 profit of keeping their people on the ground. The 
 personal welfare of their tenants, their comfort and 
 convenience, was as much a consideration to the 
 monks as were their own, and they were as well 
 looked after. Even with all the changes brought 
 about in land-holding as the result of the Black 
 Death, and the civil wars so impoverishing to any 
 country, the black monks, in spite of their genuine 
 distress, were but slow and sparing imitators of 
 those who had found it so profitable to inclose their 
 lands for pasturage.^ 
 
 "As agriculturists and judicious managers of 
 property the monks of a benedictine house had no 
 equals. They were business-like, exact, and prompt 
 in their dealings. They required from their tenants 
 and servants a just and faithful performance of their 
 different services and tasks ; but whilst they did so 
 they were not hard or ungrateful masters. . . . The 
 constitutions and regulations contained in the Glou- 
 cester Cartulary . . . are, as I firmly believe, the 
 
 1 The Cistercians were famous as wool-growers, and at one time seemed 
 to have had almost a monopoly of the wool trade. Hence pasturage 
 was more important to them than agriculture.
 
 THE MONK IN THE WORLD 51 
 
 production not of a parcel of drunken and besotted 
 monks, but of intelligent landlords and agricul- 
 turists who had a due care for the stewardship of 
 the things committed to their care. Agriculture was 
 one of the leading features of the Benedictine Order, 
 and in this the monks achieved a great success." ^ 
 
 Wherever there are great buildings, there work 
 will always be found for many. The bare keeping 
 in repair of places like Canterbury or Ely or 
 Peterborough must have meant a livelihood for 
 generations of artisans, and trained artisans too, 
 men whose artistic tastes were carefully cultivated. 
 There were also in the working of a great abbey 
 an example given of careful agriculture, of manage- 
 ment, of thrift, and of a higher ideal than could be 
 found elsewhere. All these must have tended to 
 elevate the tone of the people who dwelt near, 
 and been a means of culture which would infallibly 
 tell in the long run. 
 
 But these are indirect ways of helping one's 
 neighbours which perhaps are more efficacious as 
 not interfering with the spirit of sturdy inde- 
 pendence so important to a nation. There is a 
 difference between doing a thing for people, and 
 showing them how to do it for themselves ; and this 
 was the policy the monks followed. But children 
 and the sick are cases which are helpless, and this 
 was fully recognised. The monks became the great 
 
 1 Mr. Hart's Introduction : Historia Monasterii Gloucestcris (Roll 
 Series), vol. iii. p. xciii.
 
 52 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 educationalists of the day, and did not confine their 
 work to men of their own rank, but spread the 
 blessings of learning far and wide. For instance, as 
 early as the year 1198 the abbat (Sampson) of St. 
 Edmundsbury built and endowed a public school ; 
 while in the twelfth century the school of St. Albans, 
 successively under Neckham and Master Warin, was 
 of such fame that Matthew of Paris says: "There 
 was hardly a school in all England at that time more 
 fruitful or more famous either for the number or 
 the proficiency of its scholars." ^ 
 
 It is interesting to note that Master Warin, a 
 secular, was nephew both to the abbat and the 
 prior ; and was " so like his uncles in dignified 
 demeanour, worshipful life, and in learning, that he 
 truly deserved to be called the nephew of such men, 
 or rather their brother." ^ 
 
 The abbats of Evesham paid yearly ^10^ and 
 " horde and tabelying frely in the mouasterie to one 
 scholemaster for the keeping of a free schole in the 
 said town of Evesham." ^ 
 
 Westminster, Glaston, and all the great houses kept 
 free schools in their own towns and on the various 
 properties they held up and down the country.^ 
 
 1 Memoirs of St. Edmund's Abbey (Roll Series), vol. i. p. 296. There 
 was also a school at Beccles kept up by the same convent {ibid. vol. 
 iii. p. 182). 
 
 2 Gesta AbbcUum, vol. i. -p-p. 195-6. 
 
 3 Equal to about ^120 of our money. 
 
 * H. Cole, King Henry the Eighth's Scheme of Bishoprics, p. 117. 
 ^ For instance, the royal monastery at Westminster had possessions 
 in 97 towns, 17 hamlets, besides 216 manors.
 
 THE MONK IN THE WORLD 53 
 
 The claims of the sick, of the really poor, and of 
 the wayfarer were looked to. Where was the natural 
 resource for all in need or distress, but at the great 
 abbey? Food and shelter would be freely found at 
 God's house for those who wanted ; and the dole 
 would not pauperise the receivers. Day by day at 
 stated hours were the poor fed at every religious 
 house ; and guest-rooms were built to shelter those 
 who wanted to stay. For two days and nights were 
 travellers made welcome ; and during that time, if 
 their health allowed, they followed, as at Abingdon, 
 the spiritual exercises of the convent.^ They fared 
 the same as did the monks. When their time was 
 up, they were bidden god-speed and went on their 
 journey, sure of finding the same hospitality in the 
 next religious house at which they stopped. The 
 neighbouring poor had their daily dole ; and from 
 the monastic dispensaries the sick could always have 
 the medicines and attendance they required. In 
 fact, " the myth of the fine old English gentleman, 
 who had a large estate and provided every day for 
 the poor at his gate, was (as the late Professor J. S. 
 Brewer said) realised in the case of the monks, and 
 in their case only." '" 
 
 Not in bodily help only did they provide for the 
 people, but they looked also after their spiritual 
 profit. For dependent on the abbey were also many 
 tracts of land up and down the country, left as alms 
 
 1 MS. Cott., Claud., B. VI. f. 206. 
 
 2 Geraldi Cavibr. Opera, ed. J. S. Brewer, IV. p. xxxvi.
 
 54 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 to the monks.^ These lands, while sources of income, 
 also brought responsibilities. For the monks became 
 not only the temporal landlords but also the spiritual 
 pastors, and were obliged to look after the souls of 
 their people. But as the very idea of an abbey is, 
 as we have said, that of a home, it would not be in 
 
 ^ Archdeacon W. Hale, writing on the question of jaatronage and 
 tithes, says : " It is a prevalent idea that we owe our parochial system 
 to the centralised operation of bodies of clergy united under a bishop 
 at the cathedral who went forth to preach, and who planted churches 
 throughout the diocese, the mother-church being their parent as well 
 as their head. Whatever truth there may be in this opinion, we 
 regret to observe that it derives little support or confirmation from 
 those notices respecting patronage and tithes which are scattered 
 throughout this volume. If the bishops and their clergy were the 
 original cause of churches being built, the churches themselves appear 
 very soon to have become jjossessions of the laity, and, together with 
 lands and manors, to have passed as patrimony from father to son. It 
 is a remarkable fact that there is not a single church mentioned in this 
 volume the patronage of which, in the times hef ore the Conquest, did not 
 accrue to the monastery of Worcester from gifts made by laymen. . . . 
 But though all the rights of patronage which the monastery of Worcester 
 possessed were in the earliest times derived from the laity, it is worthy 
 of remark that, as respects the receipt of tithes from churches of which 
 the monastery were patrons, there is a marked difference in the case of 
 churches received before the Conquest and after that event. From the 
 churches of the former period tithes as well as pensions were generally 
 received ; from the churches of the later period pensions alone. It 
 would seem, too, from the fact of the Prior, the Sacristan, or the 
 Almoner receiving portions of the great tithes of the churches given 
 to the monastery in the earlier period, that the appropriation of tithes 
 to religious houses and the establishment of vicarages have a much 
 earlier origin than is commonly supposed." — Introduction to the 
 Registrum Prioratus B.M. Wigorniensis, pp. xxvi., xxvii. (Camden 
 Society, 1865). This raises the question whether the prevalent ideas 
 are not theories based on fancy, and whether the origin of so many 
 parish churches is really not due to the monks. The whole matter 
 requires reconsideration on the basis of an investigation into facts.
 
 THE MONK IN THE WORLD 55 
 
 keeping to send monks out away from their cloister 
 for any length of time to do the work of parochial 
 clergy.^ Sometimes it was so done, according to 
 Kennet ; but the result was not satisfactory ; and 
 from an early date, in many monasteries, they began 
 to look about for secular priests to do this duty for 
 them. Hence rose the present system of Vicars. 
 Difficulties of administration came, and there were 
 cases in which the monks did not always act fairly 
 to their vicars. For when a church was appropriated 
 or impropriated ^ it was always stipulated that a 
 certain proportion of the income was to go to the 
 priest who did the work. For instance, when in 1 1 70 
 the living of Lamberton was appropriated to Tavis- 
 tock abbey by Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter, he 
 declared in the deed of gift that the monks " should 
 
 1 There was a marked difference in the position of the black monks 
 and the white monks respecting this question of monastic vicars. The 
 policy of the cistercians was to overcrowd their houses ; and when there 
 came a time of agricultural depression, they had to cast about how to live. 
 From the very nature of their organisation a sort of general policy 
 ensued. With the benedictines, on the contrary, the policy was to 
 restrict the commvinity to the number the foundation would support. 
 With the independence of each house, difficulties were met according 
 to local views and circumstances. 
 
 2 Impropriation is the alienation of titles to laymen. Appropriation 
 is the assignment of them to clerical corporations, which thus became 
 responsible for the performance of the duties. It is calculated that 
 within 300 years of the Conquest about one-third of the benefices in 
 England had fallen by appropriation into the hands of the religious 
 orders, sees, colleges, &c. That abuses came from this is natural ; for 
 corporations are never as active in the discharge of duties as individuals 
 are. On the whole question see Kennet's Case of Impropriations and 
 Sheldon On Tithes.
 
 S6 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 hold it on the terms expressed in that donation, viz., 
 one half to the abbat and monks, and the other 
 moiety to the vicar." ^ 
 
 The general rule seems to have been for the 
 monastery to receive two thirds, and the vicar 
 one.^ This at first seems an unfair division ; but 
 when we consider that the monks undertook the 
 repairs of the church, which in many cases they 
 themselves had built at their own cost, and also 
 held themselves responsible for all the poor of the 
 parish, it is pretty clear that Master Vicar, who 
 got his one-third clear, a house free of rent, and 
 all his stole fees and dues, w^as by no means in 
 so unfavourable a position as some modern writers 
 make out. 
 
 But often, it appears, the monks did not keep to 
 their bargains, especially when the churches were 
 far away from the abbey. The vicars began to 
 complain, and complained so loudly that it reached 
 the Court. Richard II. passed a law securing a 
 proper maintenance to the priest who served the 
 
 ' Kennet's Case of Imi^ropricdions, p. 40. Spelman, The Larger 
 Treatise concerning Tithes (1647), p. 151. 
 
 2 This was on the lines of the old canonical division : one third 
 for the support of the Church, or, as it was called, for God ; one 
 third for the Poor ; and one third for the Priest. St. Gregory, in his 
 letter to St. Augustine (Bede, Book I. chapter 27), speaks of and 
 recommends the custom of a fourfold division, a share for the bishop 
 being included. It is difficult to say the exact proportions that 
 obtained in England, but the principle was there ; the burthen and 
 the profits were divided between patrons and priests. See also 
 Lingard's Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, p. 83.
 
 THE MONK IN THE WORLD 57 
 
 churches the monks either had built or had received 
 together with the land at the time of gift.^ 
 
 Henry IV. went further, and altogether forbade 
 the monks to act as parochial clergy, and ordered 
 them to institute to the livings members of the 
 secular clergy." 
 
 The monks, as patrons, retained however the 
 rights of presentation, as we find expressed in the 
 Privileges of St. Alban's abbey (1257) : — 
 
 "Item that we may make choice of priests for 
 them, and present them to the diocesan of the 
 place, and assign to them their portions ; the which 
 priests shall be answerable to the ordinaries of the 
 place in spirituals^ and to us in temporals." 
 
 The bishop was obliged to institute their nominee 
 unless there was some canonical objection. The 
 vicars, who were either for life or removable at 
 will, had to swear fidelity to the abbat and convent, 
 and pay each year certain sums as rectorial first- 
 fruits. These payments were often assigned to 
 divers officers of the abbey, obedientiaries as they 
 were called, for the discharge of their office. For 
 instance, the profits of a certain set of vicarages 
 would go to the Sacristan or to the Precentor, or 
 
 ' e.g. Glaston had no less than seventy-one churches dependent 
 upon it. 
 
 2 Dixon's History of the Church of England, voL i. p. 89. 
 
 3 Sometimes, as at St. Albans or Evesham, the abbat was ordinary 
 of the place, and had the rights of archdeacons. There is a curious 
 verse containing sixteen " reserved cases " in the jurisdiction of St. 
 Albans. See Rev. P. Newcome's I'he History of the Abbey of St. Albans, 
 p. 221.
 
 58 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 to the Infirmarian. Sometimes in the deed of gift 
 the land or church was left for a specified purpose ; 
 even (as there were cases) for providing a better 
 brew of beer for the brethren, or an extra pitance on 
 the anniversary day of the donor. ^ In other cases 
 it was the abbat who allotted the means of revenue 
 for each department. There were often charges, 
 too, upon the gift which materially lessened the 
 value to the monks, in the shape of corrodies'^ to 
 different friends or relatives of the donor. These 
 charges went on sometimes for generations. 
 
 The system of vicars in churches appropriated to 
 benedictines, may seem to have put the secular 
 clergy into an undue state of dependence. But a 
 
 1 A pitance, from inetas, was an extra dish over and above the 
 monastic commons, and was given out on special days — such as feast 
 days, anniversaries. It might take the form of dessert, or of eggs, or 
 of an extra amount of fish or even meat. St. Benedict provides for 
 it in his Eule {Oh. XXXIX.) : " If, however, their work chance to 
 have been hard, it shall be in the abbat's power, if he think fit, to 
 make some addition " {to their iisual allotoance), " avoiding above every- 
 thing all surfeiting, that the monks be not overtaken by indigestion.'' 
 A practical warning wlien men ate generally only once a day. 
 
 2 A corrody was a monk's portion of food and drink. One given 
 by the abbat of Tavistock to John Amadas in the time of Henry 
 VIII. consisted of "one white loaf, another loaf called ' Trequarter ; ' 
 a dish called ' General,' another dish of flesh or fish called ' Pitance ' ; 
 three potells of beer or three silver halfpence daily ; also a furred 
 robe at Christmas yearly, of the same kind as those of our esquires, 
 or the sum of 20s." Whenever John chanced to be at the abbey, he 
 was to have a proper chamber, with firing and three candles called 
 "Paris candells" ; and also stabling for his horse. When the abbey 
 was dissolved, the king ordered the corrody to be commuted into a 
 yearly pension for the lucky John of an annuity of ^5 in lieu of 
 all these daily comforts and perquisites. See Preface to Oliver's 
 Monasticon Diocesis Exoniensis, p. vi.
 
 THE MONK IN THE WORLD 59 
 
 consideration will show if there were dependence 
 it would also be that begotten of gratitude. For it 
 must be remembered it was from the free schools 
 kept by the monks that most of the clergy got their 
 education, and thence the very means of entering 
 the priesthood. For, by the common law of the 
 Church which then obtained, no cleric could be 
 ordained unless he had a "title" ; or in other words 
 some one to fall back upon, who undertook in case 
 of need to be responsible for his support : and these 
 titles had to be obtained from those who had them 
 and were willing to present. In a note attached to 
 his work on Henrij VIII. and the English Monas- 
 teries, Dom F. A. Gasquet points out that in the 
 diocese of York, between the years 1501 and 15395 
 there were 6190 priests ordained. Of this number 
 141 5 were religious of various kinds; 4698 were 
 seculars presented on titles furnished by a monastery 
 or college, and only 77 on a title provided else- 
 where. The yearly average of ordinations was over 
 158. When the troubles began for the monas- 
 teries these numbers fell at once. In 1536, 92 
 only were ordained priests; in 1537 no ordinations 
 are recorded; in 1538 only 20; and in 1539 only 
 8.^ So that, were it not for the monasteries, secular 
 priests would have hardly had any means of living. 
 
 It was not only the civil law which looked after 
 the interests of the vicars. The Church was provi- 
 dent also. At that time the usual stipend for a 
 
 1 Vol. i. p. XXX.
 
 6o THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 chaplain was 5 marks (about ;^4o) a year, and this 
 was advanced to 6, 8, and 10 marks, which latter 
 sum equals about ^80.^ 
 
 But provincial constitutions settled that the 
 portion allowed to vicars should never be less than 
 12 marks a year; that is to say, close upon ^100,^ 
 an income considerably better than Goldsmith's 
 Vicar, who was " passing rich on forty pounds a year," 
 and who had a wife and family to boot. 
 
 The monasteries were also schools for the nobility. 
 Under the care of the abbat were youths often 
 of the highest rank, who were to be brought up 
 in the courtesy and polite education which made 
 the monasteries far better schools for Christian 
 gentlemen than the Court. For the abbey had its 
 friends throughout the country ; and the abbat of 
 the greatest houses, being generally a peer of the 
 realm, had his seat in Parliament and entered into 
 the council of kings. So he and his monastery were 
 well known to the great. Besides, there were other 
 ties. Many members of noble and gentle families 
 were monks themselves, and to these the benedic- 
 tine, whatever his birth, was akin through the 
 discipline of his life, his circumstances and his 
 surroundings, and through that tone and bearing 
 which come to him who lives habitually in God's 
 sight. Many of the great ones of the land wished 
 to be united in some kind of spiritual bonds with 
 
 ^ Kennet, ihid. pp. 57, 58. 
 2 Lyndewood's ProwjiciaZe (ed. Oxford, 1679), ^^ officio Vicarii, p. 64.
 
 THE MONK IN THE WORLD 6i 
 
 an abbey where they had relatives or friends ; and 
 we find them suing for admission to friendship or 
 confraternity with the monks. The effects of this 
 confraternity were that they became real members 
 of the house and shared in all its good works and 
 merits. The Confrater was sometimes allowed an 
 honorary seat in the chapter. Special prayers were 
 offered for him at his death, and his anniversaries 
 were kept with Dirge and Eequiem. He, on his 
 side, promised always to befriend the abbey and to 
 help and protect it to the best of his abilities. The 
 petitioner for confraternity would present himself 
 in the chapter-house before the assembled monks, 
 and there prostrate himself until the abbat asked, 
 " What asketh thou ? " to which he answered, " I ask 
 through God's mercy and yours, and that of all the 
 elders, the brotherhood and goodwill of this monas- 
 tery." The abbat then said, " May the Almighty 
 Lord grant thee what thou seekest, and may He give 
 thee a fellowship with His elect." The petitioner 
 then knelt at the abbat's feet who gave him the book 
 of the Rule, and, both putting their hands on the 
 sacred text, said : " We admit thee into fellowship 
 and into brotherhood. Now as thou art henceforth 
 for ever a sharer even as one of ourselves in the 
 masses, hours, prayers, watches, disciplines, fasts, 
 alms, and other spiritual good deeds that are done 
 in this church, let us also be made partakers in thy 
 ijood works." He was then received to the kiss of 
 peace by all the convent, and was entered in the chart
 
 62 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 as a confrater. Kings and princes considered it an 
 honour to become confratres of abbeys. William 
 the Conqueror was a confrater of Cluni and also 
 of Battle abbey, which he had founded. In 1460 
 Henry VI. coming to Croyland, and being dehghted 
 with the religious life of the monks, stayed three 
 days and begged to be admitted into their brother- 
 hood ; which being granted him, he, in return, 
 gave them his charter whereby their liberties ^ were 
 confirmed. 
 
 High ecclesiastics, like Wolsey at Evesham in 
 1 5 16, sought for fellowship ; or great officers of State, 
 as Blessed Thomas More," " Lord Chancellor of this 
 most flourishing kingdom of England," at Christ 
 Church, Canterbury, where he had been a boy at 
 school. The neighbouring nobihty and gentry were 
 eager to be on good terms with the monks, and their 
 names, still extant on some of the registers which 
 have come down to us, show that the privilege was 
 highly prized. 
 
 But this connection with the great was not without 
 its disadvantages too ; for monasteries became not 
 only the shelter for the poor, but also for the rich. 
 They were the hotels of the day. Kings and nobles 
 put up with the monks, and often over-stayed their 
 welcome, filling the place with their retinues and 
 disturbing the peace of the cloister. A favourite 
 time for the royal visitors to spend some weeks at 
 
 1 Steven's Additions to Dugdale, vol. i. p. 374. 
 
 2 See Report of Historical MSS. Com., vol. i. p. 121.
 
 THE MONK IN THE WORLD 63 
 
 an abbey were the holiday seasons of Christmas, of 
 Easter, of Whitsuntide. He would add the majesty 
 of his presence and of all his train to some function 
 in the Church, and the splendour of the celebration 
 of such or such a feast would remain long in the 
 memories of monk and people to whom the Church's 
 ceremonies were living realities. The monasteries also 
 afforded asylums to honourable families in reduced 
 circumstances. Dom Gasquet produces a letter from 
 the son of the duke of Buckingham to Henry VIII. 
 in which the writer says that he " hath no dwelling 
 place meet for him to inhabit (and he was) fain to 
 live poorly at board in an abbey this four years day, 
 with his wife and seven children." ^ 
 
 They were also often called upon to provide 
 pensions and grants to favourites, and thus vicari- 
 ously pay for services done to their royal patrons. 
 
 " In some case the abbats were bound to give 
 endowments to scholars of the king's nomination or 
 provide them with competent benefices, pensions ; and 
 corrodies were granted under the privy seal to yeomen 
 ushers of the wardrobe and the chamber, to clerks 
 of the kitchen, servers, secretaries, and gentlemen 
 of the chapel royal ; and these were strictly en- 
 forced, whatever might be the other encumbrances 
 of the house." ^ The monks, although themselves 
 men of peace, had to provide their quota of knights 
 and men-at-arms for the royal service, and in the civil 
 
 ' D. Gasquet, '^ Henry VIII. and the English MoTiasteries," vol. i. p. 34. 
 2 Ibid. vol. i. pp. 28, 29.
 
 64 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 wars so frequent in England soldiers were quartered 
 upon them. 
 
 Hence we may conclude, if the monks had vast 
 possessions they also had vast responsibilities, and 
 responsibilities to which they nobly rose. They 
 looked upon their wealth as so much entrusted to 
 them for the welfare of others. And if in times 
 of prosperity they knew how to spend lavishly, it 
 was more in the service of their neighbour than for 
 themselves. Their vast hospitalities, the exactions 
 of kings, social changes and disasters such as fires 
 and diseases/ often crippled them and reduced them 
 to the verge of destruction, but they never forgot 
 the saying of the Lord : "/f is more blessed to give 
 than to receive." ^ They went on their beneficent 
 way as long as their homes stood, ''Doing good to 
 all, but especially to those of the household of the 
 faith:' ' 
 
 1 During the plague known as "the Black Death" (1348-49), the 
 monks, as well as the rest of the clergj^, suffered severely. It ia 
 calculated that about two-thirds of the clergy died. It is very likely 
 that the monastic orders would in proportion suffer more severely than 
 the parochial clergy, for the chance of infection is always greater when 
 there are a number together. At Westminster the abbat and twenty- 
 six monks died, and found a common grave in the southern cloister. 
 So it was all round, wherever the plague raged. 
 
 2 Acts XX. 35. ^ Gal. vi. 10.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY 
 
 The question now arises : What was the private life 
 of those monks who thus spent themselves in the 
 service of God and their neighbours ? What was 
 the secret of their life, the spring from which they 
 got their strength 1 In this chapter we will en- 
 deavour to give a sketch of the life of a monk in 
 his monastery, and note the sort of effect on his 
 character of his vows. 
 
 But it is not possible for us to take an example 
 from any one particular house as typical of the rest. 
 First of all because we have but few references to 
 the inner life of any one monastery. Where all went 
 on calmly and regularly, what need to record the 
 conditions of a life all knew and experienced daily ? 
 It is only on occasion of some important event that, 
 as it were by accident, the veil is lifted and for a 
 moment we catch a glimpse of cloister life. Even 
 had we a full and detailed account of some one 
 house, it would not necessarily tell us about the 
 particulars of the life in others. 
 
 But scattered here and there in our numerous 
 records are indications of what was done in various 
 
 VOL. I. ^5 E
 
 66 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 houses, so that a picture, true in its details, as finding 
 a counterpart in real life, may be pieced together 
 and a sufficiently vivid picture given of the general 
 outlines of the life of an English monk in the later 
 mediaeval times. Whatever the local variations 
 might be (and in every house with a vigorous life of 
 its own, there would always be its own peculiar way 
 of looking at things and its own development, based 
 on conditions obtaining there and not elsewhere), 
 still, from the intrinsic power of the Eule and a 
 living tradition, there would be necessarily in every 
 house certain features which would find themselves 
 repeated in all benedictine monasteries. There 
 would be that peculiar tone amid all sorts of varia- 
 tions which clearly marks off" the benedictine from 
 other religious, and which finds its root in the dis- 
 tinguishing feature of St. Benedict's Rule, the ample 
 discretion allowed in interpretation. 
 
 But in order to give a picture to the reader of the 
 inner life of a monk, we are obliged to combine in 
 one whole such details, gleaned from all parts, which 
 may be fairly considered as truly representative, in 
 the broad outlines, of life as it really existed through- 
 out England. Without dwelling unduly upon local 
 customs, save as far as they go to prove the existence 
 of a principle which would find its counterpart else- 
 where, we will throw into the form of an imaginary 
 biographical sketch what may be useful for our 
 present purpose. The facts are true ; but the reader 
 must bear in mind that the setting is imaginary.
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY 67 
 
 John Weston was a monk of Lynminster, an 
 abbey with a history counted by centuries. The son 
 of a knight, at an early age his widowed mother 
 had placed him in the claustral school at this, the 
 most famous abbey in the neighbourhood. Here his 
 father and uncles had also received such education 
 as had fallen to their lot. To this abbey he had been 
 offered by his mother, according to the old ceremony. 
 One day at mass, after the gospel, the chalice was put 
 into his hands and the priest wrapped up the child's 
 hands in the altar-cloth^ as a sign that he was, if 
 found worthy, to be dedicated to the service of God. 
 From his earliest days — he was but seven — he was 
 kept under strict discipline ; ^ and wore in the 
 monastery a form of the monk's dress, and had his 
 head shaven in the form of a crown. He was 
 taught along with other boys, perhaps in the free 
 school or in the singing-school, which most of the 
 great abbeys supported for the services of their 
 minsters. He had a sweet voice and some talent 
 in singing ; so it is likely he found a place in the 
 singing-school. The treatment was kind but severe. 
 If he became a monk, it were well he should know 
 from his earliest days that a monk had to work and 
 not live an idle life ; and if he returned to the world, 
 what better lesson could he take out than the great 
 law of labour ? John was taught among other things 
 
 1 Rule of St. Benedict, Ch. LIX. 
 
 2 " The children are to he kept under discipline at all times and by 
 every one" (Rule, Ch. LXIIL).
 
 68 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 reading, writing, his Latin grammar, some simple ele- 
 ments of the art of reckoning, his prayers and faith, 
 the laws of politeness, and the great art of holding 
 his tongue. Singing would not be forgotten. Plain- 
 song and prick-song had mysteries the knowledge of 
 which was highly considered ; and beside John, with 
 all his companions, had to attend in the great minster 
 every day and sing at the solemn mass and vespers. 
 
 While there was a good deal of solid instruction 
 going on, and a good deal of knowledge was being 
 instilled into him, the boy's mind was being educated 
 and its powers developed. He was quietly and un- 
 consciously drinking in the influence of the place. 
 His character was forming itself to habits of industry, 
 self-restraint, thrift, charity in his dealings with 
 others ; and he was gaining a sense of the reality of 
 life. All he saw in the lives of those with whom he 
 passed his days ; their earnestness and diligence, their 
 prompt obedience to the abbat, and their frequent 
 little practices of humility, and above all the solemn 
 chanting of the office and the daily sacrifice, acts 
 not of this earth, all these must have had their effect 
 on the boy. The more so as it was the outcome of 
 what he saw and observed for himself, more than 
 anything said or preached at him. For at Lynminster 
 there was little of that sort of thing. Monks after 
 St. Benedict's mind are not what the world thinks 
 them to be. Religion being the very atmosphere in 
 which they live, God's side of every question comes 
 so natural to them, so much a matter of course, that
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY 69 
 
 there is no trying to be always " improving the 
 occasion " nor striking attitudes, mental or otherwise, 
 which are foreign to their simple idea of what He 
 requires. The monks preferred, if God was calling 
 the boy, to let Him do His own work in His own 
 way. They dared not force or hurry on what they 
 knew was in wiser hands than theirs. 
 
 John was a boy, merry of heart and fall of life and 
 fun, as all healthy English boys are ; and though 
 these qualities have to be regulated like everything 
 else, yet, as they are most valuable, his teachers 
 were careful not to repress them too much. He, 
 no doubt, was mischievous as others are, and had 
 his fling of boyish spirits. Nor was he without 
 his share in all the sports and manly excitements 
 suitable to his age and condition. These were all 
 useful to make him what he ought to be — a reason- 
 able being, giving a reasonable service to his Maker. 
 There is one thing abhorrent to all benedictine 
 ideas of education, and that is the formation of 
 the prig. So we may be sure the result in the 
 case of John Weston was not that. 
 
 For some time, since his fourteenth year, there 
 had been going on a gradual awakening of the 
 boy's soul ; and he was beginning to question him- 
 self. The old problems we have all had, doubt- 
 lessly, presented themselves over and over again : 
 "What is the meaning of Life? Why was I 
 made?" Sometimes in the midst of his play or 
 of his study, maybe when singing the Credo at
 
 70 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 high mass or the Magnificat at vespers, a serious- 
 ness and awe would fall upon him ; and something 
 ('twas the Voice of God, but, at first, he knew it 
 not) whispered to him: "God made you for Him- 
 self." The truth sank deeper and deeper in his soul, 
 and he began to realise it was a personal and entire 
 service God asked of him. And day by day the 
 example he saw began to tell more and more on the 
 lad. "The monks are serving God. That is why 
 they are here. How peaceful and happy they are." 
 Such thoughts as these flashed across his mind ; and 
 the high ideal of life which the monastic state aims 
 at began to attract him. 
 
 Then came one day, never to be forgotten ; a 
 great light dawned upon his soul. God spoke to 
 him clearly and distinctly in one of the many 
 ways He speaks to His creatures. Maybe it was 
 some sudden sorrow, the death of his mother 
 or of some other loved friend ; or perhaps some 
 sudden inrush of joy at a realisation of God's 
 Fatherhood ; or some word of the daily-heard office 
 which suddenly broke upon him with a new mean- 
 ing and struck home ; or maybe some sin into 
 which he had fallen and which mercifully revealed 
 to him his own weakness : I must give myself to 
 God ; and " Here will I dwell for ever." ^ With heart 
 full of emotion and joy at his call, he told his 
 master the hope he dared hardly express. But 
 the monk, skilled in the art of counsel, while 
 
 1 Ps. xxiii. 6.
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY 71 
 
 giving him encouragement also set before him in 
 grave words the hardness of the life to which he 
 aspired, and the sacrifices he would have to make. 
 He spoke, doubtlessly, too of the sweetness there 
 is for them whom God calls to serve Him, So he 
 wisely bids the lad pray, and wait a while, and try 
 himself, lest the desire may come from human 
 motives rather than from God. If the good monk 
 knew that the lot of those who have entered the 
 cloister to follow God is sweet beyond words, on 
 the other hand he knew full well that those who 
 come into the fold not by the door of Vocation, may 
 expect nothing but unhappiness and bitterness. 
 
 After much prayer and trial, John, now in his 
 nineteenth year, has persevered, and in the chapter- 
 room has been admitted by the abbat, and clothed 
 as a novice.^ No longer a mere school-boy, he 
 
 1 "The Book of Ely," f. 106 [Lambetli MSS., No. 448], contains the 
 outfit required in that cathedral-monastery by a novice. 
 
 Necessaria yioviciis noviter ad religioiiem venientihus providenda. 
 
 Imprimis i matras (matrass). 
 
 Item ii par blankettys. 
 
 Item ii par straglys (quilts). 
 
 Item ii couverlytes. 
 
 Item i furrypane. 
 
 Item i blewbed de sago (Ijed- curtains of serge). 
 
 Item i cuculla cum froco (cowl and frock). 
 
 Item i tunica nigra furra (black furred tunic). 
 
 Item i tunica nigra simplex (for summer wear). 
 
 Item ii tunica alba. 
 
 Item i amita simplex (amuce). 
 
 Item 1 zona, cum i powch, cultela, tabula et pectine, filo et acu 
 
 in les powch. 
 
 Item i parva zona pro noctibus.
 
 72 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 wears the habit, and is given into the charge of 
 the novice master, whose duty it will be to train 
 him in the spiritual life. In the noviciate the real 
 work was one more of education than instruction. 
 Dom or "Dan"^ John, as he was now called, was 
 shown, as it were, two mirrors. One reflected the 
 imaee of what God intended him to be ; and the 
 other what he really was, with all his faults and 
 weakness. He was a true novice ; he read the 
 pictures aright. St. Benedict has given his monks 
 seventy-two " instruments " by which they are to 
 
 Item iii par stamainorum (woollen under-garments). 
 
 Item iiii par bracarum (breeches), cum brygerdel (a kind of belt) 
 et poyntes (garters). 
 
 Item ii par caligarum (slioes). 
 
 Item iiii par de le sokke. 
 
 Item ii par botarum pro diebus. 
 
 Item i par botarum pro noctibus. 
 
 Item i pylche (a pilche, a fur garment = toga pellicea). 
 
 Item iii par flammeole (kerchief ? v. Du Cange). 
 
 Item iii pulvonaria (pillows or cushions). 
 
 Item i pileo albo pro noctibus (nightcap). 
 
 Itevi ii manutergia (towels). 
 
 Item i pokett pro vestibus lavandis (soiled clothes-bag). 
 
 Item i schavyn cloth. 
 
 Item i crater a bowl (lamp ? v. Du Cange). 
 
 Item i ciphus murreus (a mazer goblet, generally of valuable 
 materials). 
 
 Item i coclear argent (silver spoon). 
 The above is interesting as showing that the English benedictine culti- 
 vated a certain amount of dignified manner of life. Everything was 
 good, simple, and plain. The cold moist climate of Ely, and in most other 
 English monasteries, made the use of fur in winter-time a necessity. 
 
 1 In old Catholic England monks kept their baptismal names, and 
 were known also by their surname, or the name of the place whence they 
 came. In the old lists that have come down to us most of the names 
 are territorial ; names, too, generally of places in the immediate neigh-
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY 73 
 
 work out their salvation. These were carefully 
 studied and their meaning and use examined ; and 
 with them Dom John, diligently and soberly, set to 
 work to make the two pictures correspond. He was 
 not expected in his novitiate to become suddenly 
 perfect. But he was expected to see his faults and to 
 show his determination to labour at their correction.^ 
 Now there was one of his companions, Dom 
 Gilbert of London, a youth whom all loved ; one 
 kindly and thoughtful for all, devout at his prayer 
 and diligent at his books. But when he looked at 
 himself in the second mirror, he forgot what manner 
 of man he was, and sighed and gave up the attempt 
 at self-correction. He was wanting in the manliness 
 and determination needed for a monk. So he went 
 his way out into the great world ; and Dom Gilbert 
 was heard of no more. This failure was of use to 
 our Dom John. It made him humbler, and steadied 
 him down to a slower and surer growth. Perhaps 
 
 bourliood. As a moiik used to be called either by liis family or terri- 
 torial name, sometimes by one and sometimes by another, it is often 
 difficult to identify a name we come across. The practice of giving 
 new names, generally those of some saint, seems to have been intro- 
 duced at some places just before the dissolution occurred. It came 
 from abroad. We find them at Glaston under abbat Bere (1524), 
 who probably introduced the custom from Italy ; the names adopted 
 were generally " house " names, of saints to whom there was a special 
 local veneration. See also list of Bath monks in the Monasticon, 
 vol. ii. p. 271. In 1500 Eichard Kidderminster, abbat of Winchcombe, 
 went to Rome on the affairs of his order and was there a year. "He 
 informed himself in learning, and improved himself in several useful 
 regulations belonging to a monastic life " (Dodd's Church History, 
 vol. i. p. 229). He also may have introduced the custom, 
 1 Rule, Ch. IV.
 
 74 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 he had begun to run before he could walk, as 
 novices often try to do. 
 
 Besides thus setting his feet in the way of per- 
 fection, the master taught him the psalms and 
 hymns and responsories which had to be learnt off 
 by heart, since most of them would have to be sung 
 at matins, and at that early hour (midnight) there 
 would be but little light to read by. The books 
 he loved to watch the monks copying and illumi- 
 nating, were too precious for such as he. He must 
 make a copy for his own use from which to learn 
 them. Then there were the ceremonies to be got 
 up both for church and elsewhere. Conduct had 
 to be regulated according to a fixed method, which 
 was based upon a sense of the Presence of God, 
 and was no empty form. He would have to learn 
 also the language of signs, which was commonly 
 used in all religious homes, not as a means of con- 
 versation, but of expressing one's wants without 
 disturbing others. Then, no doubt to try him, at 
 times he would be put to do menial work, such 
 as the house servants did.^ For in those days in 
 English benedictine monasteries there were no lay- 
 brothers, but servants were kept to do the house- 
 hold work. 
 
 After his trial, generally a year, during which the 
 convent watched him narrowly to see whether they 
 would care to admit him into their family as a life- 
 long companion, and he, on his side, whether he 
 
 » Eule, Cli. LVIIL
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY 75 
 
 could live until death with them (for the profession 
 of a novice is a serious thing to those admitting 
 as well as to those admitted) ; and after the Rule 
 according to the injunctions of St. Benedict had 
 been read to him several times, together with the 
 warning, "Behold the law under which thou desirest 
 to fight. If thou canst observe it, enter in ; if thou 
 canst not, depart freely ; " ^ the abbat took counsel 
 with his monks, and they agreed to admit him to 
 profession. Then one morning the abbat sang 
 solemn mass, and during the solemnity Dom John 
 was led forward to the altar, and in the hearing of 
 all vowed Stability, Conversion of his Life, and 
 Obedience. Then, with arms outstretched, three 
 times did he sing the verse : " Uphold me, Lord, 
 acco7'ding to Thy Word, and I shall live; and let 
 me not he frustrated of my hope ;"^ and the whole 
 community repeated it as many times, adding there- 
 unto the Gloria Patri. Then, clothed in the full 
 monastic garb, the newly-received brother cast him- 
 self at the feet of all, begging them to pray for him 
 and receive him to the kiss of fraternal love. Dom 
 John Weston was now a monk. 
 
 AVhat was his life, now that he had reached the 
 goal of his desires ? 
 
 He rose a little before two o'clock^ and was down 
 
 1 Rule, Ch. LVIII. 2 pg. cxix. 116. 
 
 3 The hour for matins varied in each house. Some, as at Durham, 
 rose at midnight, while others, as at Westminster, got up at 2 p.m. In 
 all cases they went back to bed for the time between matins and lauds. 
 This was one of the clianges Lanfranc introduced. According to the
 
 76 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 in his stall ready to begin matins, the longest office 
 of all, which lasted from one hour and a half to two 
 or more hours. In the darkness of the night, while 
 the rest of the world was sleeping, Dom John took 
 his place among his cowled brethren and worshipped 
 God with psalm, and hymn, and canticle. Sometimes, 
 he listened to reading of Holy Writ or to one of the 
 fathers of the Church, and anon joined in some soul- 
 lifting responsory. The organ, too,^ added its solemn 
 strains to the voices and helped to lift his soul up to 
 Him Who dwelt there in sacramental presence over 
 the altar.^ This time of matins was one of the 
 happiest hours in his day ; for then he was fulfilling 
 one of his greatest privileges, " the work of God." 
 This, the liturgical prayer, was the source of his 
 strength. There lay the whole secret of his spiritual 
 life. For to a benedictine the liturgical spirit is all 
 
 Rule, monks are to rise for the night office at the eighth hour, a 
 varying period, which in winter would be, in the latitude of Eome, 
 about 3 A.M., and earlier in the summer, when the hours were shorter. 
 
 1 " The monks, when they were at their matins and service at mid- 
 night, then one of the said monks did play on the organs themselves 
 and no other." — Rites of Diorham (Surtees Society), p. 54. 
 
 2 In monastic churches, as in all others at that time, it was an 
 unheard of thing to banish Our Lord to a side chapel. The Gospel 
 idea of prayer is that He is in our midst when we pray. The whole 
 value of our prayer (and the divine office is the prayer imr excellence) 
 is that it is made with, by, and in Him who is the one Mediator 
 between God and man. The Church recognises this : and orders in 
 monastic churches the Blessed Sacrament to be kept at the high 
 altar (S. C. Epis., loth Ftb. 1579 cmd 29th Nov. 1594). Abbey churches 
 are not cathedrals ; and a custom warranted by the requirement of the 
 latter is no reason why, against all rule, such a practice should obtain 
 elsewhere.
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY 77 
 
 in all.^ He wants nothing more than the common 
 prayer of the Church. Every other devotion he con- 
 siders as nothing compared with its might and 
 ineffable dignity. It is "the Work of God" in its 
 fullest sense ; for the Divine Head of the Church 
 uses man as an instrument whereby He, the Incarnate 
 Word, praises the Eternal Father. Hence it is that 
 to a benedictine, brought up as Dom John was, the 
 office is the foundation of all his spiritual life." 
 
 The long midnight office with its concluding lauds 
 being sung, back to bed goes Dom John, tired 
 indeed, but at peace. 
 
 At five o'clock, he again rose, this time for prime, 
 which was duly followed by chapter, at which he 
 
 1 " It is with this voice of the divine office the monk speaks not 
 only to his Creator, but to his fellow-men as well. The perpetual 
 round of prayer and praise is something more than an intercessoiy 
 power. It, rightly understood, is the medium of intercourse between 
 the monastic body and the people in the midst of which it dwells. 
 No one is so dull that he cannot understand the faith in the unseen, 
 the hope of another world and burning love of God which are mani- 
 fested in the perennial sacrifice and song of praise in the monastic 
 choir. Through the individual preaching of the monk, through his 
 works, through his words of counsel and of comfort, through his 
 hospitality, through his dealings with his fellow-men in all the varied 
 relations of life, he exercises some portion of his aj)ostolate ; but the 
 choir of the monastery is the monk's real pulpit, and the daily otlice 
 his most efficient sermon." — From Dom Gasquet's Introduction to The 
 Monks of the West, p. xvii. 
 
 - The monk's private prayer is affective or contemplative. Long and 
 formal meditations were not known in those days. St. Benedict pre- 
 scribes (Ch. XX.) that prayer be short and pure ; except it be perchance 
 prolonged by the inspiration of Divine Grace. " But," he adds, " let 
 prayer made in common always be short : and at the signal given by 
 the one presiding let all rise together."
 
 78 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 had to make public confession of his breaches of the 
 Rule and do penance.^ Here also he had to listen 
 to words of spiritual instruction from his abbat, and, 
 perhaps, receive directions about the work of the 
 day. After prime in winter, and before in summer, 
 he changed his night-habit for his day one and 
 washed. 
 
 At six the short chapter mass, generally of " Our 
 Lady Saint Mary," was sung, at which he assisted. 
 He then studied in the cloister till near to nine, when 
 the bell summoned him to choir again for the holy 
 hour of terce. This was followed by the central 
 act of the day, the sacrifice of the mass, celebrated 
 with all the wealth of ceremonial at the disposal of 
 the abbey. If it were a high feast day, the abbat 
 would pontificate, and w^ear his mitre ; ^ and Dom 
 
 ^ The beuedictine makes use of corporal austerities as a means of 
 keeping liis body in subjection : according to St. Paul's words, " / 
 chastise my body" (i Cor. ix. 27). But his life is more ascetic than 
 austere. The discipline, besides that administered in punishment, 
 used to be taken publicly in chapter by all as a mortification. This, 
 which had hitherto been a private act, was introduced by St. Peter 
 Damian, and in all the convents he founded it was taken every Friday. 
 The custom soon spread, and we find traces of it at Evesham, Croyland, 
 and Christ Church, Canterbury. It probably became i^niversal in the 
 later mediaeval ages. In the list of " Instruments of good works " 
 (Ch. IV.), St. Benedict, without specifying the particular means, 
 gives "To chastise the body" as a principle ; also "To fear the Day of 
 Judgment," and " To be in dread of hell." These are quite enough to 
 account for the growth of the pi^actice of self-flagellation and other 
 usages of the ascetic life. 
 
 2 The first abbat in Christendom to get the rights of 'pontificalia 
 was the abbat of St. Augustine's abbey, Canterbury. The grant was 
 made by Pojie Alexander II. in 1063, but Lanfranc would not allow 
 it to be used {Hist. Monast. S. Augusf. Cantuar., Roll Series, p. 27).
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY 79 
 
 John might assist in the sanctuary and carry the 
 abbat's crosier unless he was wanted in the choir. 
 The sacrifice of the mass was the centre of all his 
 life, and the light of his day. To it, either as pre- 
 paration or thanksgiving, were directed all his prayers. 
 It was the mass that gave the meaning to his office, 
 and was the jewel of rare price which was set in the 
 gold of the psalter. At the altar, too, did he often 
 kneel and receive the bread of life and become 
 more and more united with Him his soul loved. 
 The mass was followed by the office of sext. 
 
 Then about eleven he had his first meal, if it were 
 not a fasting day, in which case he would break his 
 fast after nones or after vespers according as it 
 was a fast day of the Rule or the stricter fast of 
 the Church. The meal was eaten in silence. Dom 
 John sat with others at a table ; and a portion of 
 food was set in a dish between so many. A curious 
 account has been left of the food at Christ Church, 
 Canterbury, on a fish day. In this document we 
 read : — 
 
 "To every two monks, when they had soles, there 
 
 It was again renewed in 11 79, and a like i^rivilege was granted to most 
 of the other abbeys. Most cathedral-monasteries seem to have ob- 
 tained the same privilege before the end of the fifteenth century, but 
 the priors seem to have been confined to the use of a knobbed staff 
 instead of the ordinary episcopal stave affected by the abbats. The 
 right of singing mass pontifically, of giving the solemn blessings and 
 singing vespers, was much prized hy the abbats, and gave a dignity and 
 grandeur to the great festivals hitherto known only in cathedrals when 
 the bishop ofhciated. As a rule, the abbat only sang mass jjontifically 
 seven or eight times a year. He had the right, too, of using his 
 pontificalia in any house or church belonging to his abbey.
 
 8o THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 were 4 soles in a dish ; when they had plaice, 2 
 plaice ; when they had herring, 8 herrings ; when 
 they had whiting, 8 whiting ; when they had 
 mackrell, 2 mackrell ; when they had eggs, 10 
 eggs. If they had anything more allowed them 
 beyond this ordinaiy fare, it was either cheese or 
 fruit or the like." ^ 
 
 Canterbury is near the sea, so fish was abundant. 
 It must be remembered in estimating the allowance 
 that it was the only meal in the day, and the monks 
 had been up and at work nearly ten hours. Besides, 
 it is perfectly evident that in those days people ate 
 much more largely than we do. Bread was of course 
 allowed ; so much and no more. And St. Benedict, 
 in his fatherly thoughtfulness, orders that two dishes 
 should be prepared, so that the monks may have a 
 choice of dish and every one be satisfied. At dinner 
 Dom John drank cider or ale, which was sometimes 
 a very poor creature, should the home have a pro- 
 curator or cellarer too careful, not to say stingy, with 
 his malt. This would sometimes happen. Or he 
 might have wine, especially on feast days ; for some 
 of the monasteries cultivated the grape, and had 
 vineyards of their ovrn, either here or in more 
 favoured France.^ 
 
 If he had meat it would be three or four days in 
 
 1 Quoted from a Reg. Eccl. Cant, by Battely in his continuation of 
 The Antiqxiities of Canterbury (Sonmer), Part IL p. 96. 
 
 2 Christ Church, Canterbury, had vineyards at Triel and St. Brice. 
 See LitercB Gantuarienses (Roll Series), vol. i. p. 211.
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY 8i 
 
 the week, and never during Advent or Lent, In 
 his turn, he took his share of waiting on his breth- 
 ren or of reading to them during the meal from 
 the high pulpit in the refectory. He would read 
 to them from Holy Writ or from some other book 
 comfortable to their souls. Dinner over, he went 
 in procession, for such was the custom in some 
 houses, with the rest of the monks to the cloister- 
 garth where the dead were buried. There all bare- 
 headed the brethren stood " a certain long space, 
 praying among the tombs and ' throwghes ' for their 
 brethren's souls, being buried there. And when 
 they had done their prayers they returned to the 
 cloister and there did study their book." ^ 
 
 The cloister was the scene of their daily work, and 
 where all the life of the monastery was carried on. 
 It was generally situated on the southern side of the 
 church, thus getting what sunshine might be. The 
 western side of the cloister was the part which Dom 
 John at first frequented, for there was held the school 
 for the younger monks. Sitting at desks one behind 
 the other, they studied the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, 
 and dialectics) and quadrivium (music, arithmetic, 
 geometry, and astronomy), under which all knowledge 
 was then summed. " Their master had a pretty seat 
 of wainscot adjoining . . . over against the stall 
 where they sat." ^ Let us hope that sometimes, when 
 youthful spirits found vent in tricks upon one another, 
 the discreet master was not always looking. 
 
 ^ Durham Rites, p. 74. 2 Ihid. p. 70. 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 82 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 The northern side of the cloister was reserved for 
 the elder brethren, where they pursued their studies, 
 commonly in little oaken carrels, three to each 
 window — each one separate, and containing " a desk 
 to lie their books on." These little studies were 
 handsomely wainscoted, " all but the fore part, which 
 had carved work which gave light in at their caiTell 
 door . . . and over against the carrels against the 
 church wall did stand certain great cupboards of 
 wainscot all full of books, with a great store of ancient 
 manuscripts to help them in their study, wherein did 
 lie as well the old ancient written Doctors of the 
 Church, as other profane authors, with divers other 
 holy men's works, so that every one did study what 
 doctor pleased them the best, having the library at 
 all times to go study in besides their carrels." ^ 
 On the south side, or near the chapter-house, sat 
 the abbat and the elders ; and there the business 
 was done, and there also would Dom John go on 
 Sundays after prime to be shriven. The windows 
 in the cloister were glazed ; and in the winter-time 
 straw or hay was spread on the ground for warmth's 
 sake. In one side of the cloister, often the south, 
 and close to the refectory door was the lavatory,^ 
 
 ^ Durham Rites, pp. 70, 71. 
 
 2 " Within the cloister-garth, over against the Frater house door, was 
 a fair Laver or Conduit for the monks to wash their hands and faces at, 
 being made in form round, covered with lead, and all of marble saving 
 the very outer walls (and with) many little conduits or spouts of brass 
 with xxiiii Cocks of brass . . . having the closets or almeries . . . 
 kept always with sweet and clean towels, as is aforesaid, to dry their 
 hands " {Durham Rites, p. 70).
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY S^ 
 
 where the monks would wash their hands before 
 dinner ; for cleanliness is a virtue as well as a 
 necessity in a monastery. 
 
 A cloister in the days of Dom John would be a 
 very different sight from what they are nowadays. 
 Then they were the workshops of the monastery. 
 But a strange workshop it was, in truth ; for the 
 workmen were all silent, and no busy hum of worldly 
 work was heard. Recollection reigned over all the 
 place ; no hurry, no bustle. These men worked for 
 eternity, not for time ; and knew that God rewards 
 not the amount done but the love with which it is 
 wrought. This is the secret of the success of the 
 work and the spirituality of the art of the old days. 
 This also explains the reason why modern work, 
 done in all the turmoil of life, so often fails in 
 grasping the spirit of repose and strength which 
 characterise the work of olden days. Here, then, 
 while some would be busy in study, others would be 
 writing, others illuminating, others designing, others 
 €mbroidering. Others, again, would be engaged in 
 the details of administration, unless they had sepa- 
 rate offices, as was often the case. Place for all 
 pursuits was found ; and the debt the world owes 
 to those patient silent workmen of the cloister 
 cannot be measured. On Saturdays it was the 
 scene, too, of the weekly washing of feet.^ Then, 
 
 ^ At stated intervals, the mysteries of the bath were practised and 
 changes of clothes given out. A dirly monk would be a nuisance to 
 all around him, and this was guarded against by the ordinary routine.
 
 84 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 too, at stated intervals of a week or so, and always 
 before the greater feasts, would the brethren shave 
 one another — a difficult task ; for not only the face 
 but the whole head, save a ring or crown of hair, 
 was shaven. But so clumsy were some of the 
 operators that, as at St. Augustine's, Canterbury 
 (1252), laymen were often deputed to shave the 
 brethren. Here also, four or six times a year, was 
 the solemn practice of the minutio gone through. 
 This, in other words, was that panacea for all bodily 
 ills, blood-letting. Those who had been bled had 
 for three days extra food and rest to recover them- 
 selves. Here also, round the cloister, were made 
 the procession on Sundays and feasts, during 
 which the priest sprinkled with hallowed water the 
 various places. 
 
 In this cloister, then, would Dom John after dinner 
 remain at work, or perhaps even napping, until tiuo, 
 when nones were sung in the church, after which 
 work again till vesper-time, which was at six. But 
 an hour before vespers the house had been shut up, 
 and no more strangers were admitted. Vespers, the 
 sacrifice of the evening incense, were sung with 
 great solemnity. It was followed, if it were not a 
 fasting day, by a small collation, so called originally 
 from the spiritual reading, generally from Cassian's 
 CoUationes or Conferences, which were read during 
 the repast. A manchet of bread with a drink of 
 beer or such like was all. Rising from the collation, 
 they went straight into the church for compline,.
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY 85 
 
 which being over, left them free to be in bed 
 before 8 p.m/ 
 
 As they had spent the day together, so the night 
 found them in one common dorter, or sleeping- 
 house. This was either one large open-room with 
 uncurtained beds, as more than one constitution 
 ordered, or the room was divided off into cells. 
 " Every monk having a little chamber of wainscott, 
 very close, several, by themselves and their win- 
 dows towards the cloister . . . the partition 
 between every chamber was close wainscoted one 
 from the other, and in every of their windows 
 a desk to support their books for their study." ^ 
 As a rule the dorter was kept most strictly for 
 sleeping purposes, although at Durham it seems 
 to have been allowed to be used for study as 
 well. Perhaps at the time of the afternoon 
 sleep, often the custom, those who did not want 
 to sleep read. The furniture of the cells was 
 simple. The monks of Christ Church, Canter- 
 bury, for instance, had a mat and a hard pillow 
 to lie down upon, and a blanket or rug to keep 
 them warm. They slept in their clothes.^ At St. 
 Albans the bedsteads were of oak, says Matthew 
 of Paris. Strict silence was always kept in the 
 
 ^ We have taken the horariam mainly from "Westminster. 
 
 2 Durham Rites, p. 72. 
 
 ^ Beg. Eccl. Cant, quoted by Battely, ut swpra. It will be remem- 
 bered, from the list given in the " Book of Ely " and elsewhere, that the 
 monks had special garments for night wear which correspond to the 
 modern idea.
 
 86 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 dorter ; and a light, according to St. Benedict's 
 Rule,^ burnt the whole night. 
 
 This was a long and a hard day for Dom John 
 and his fellow-monks. Eight hours were given to 
 choir work, for besides the day's office, there would 
 be also the office of the dead and that of Our Lady 
 to be said as well. Eight hours were given to the 
 body for food, sleep, and recreation ; and the other 
 eight to study, or to the administration of such 
 offices as were committed to their charge. We have 
 said nothing, however, about recreation. The bow 
 cannot be kept over-bent, or the result would be to 
 make a very dull monk of Dom John. 
 
 There were times and places of recreation duly 
 fixed. There was the "frayter," or common house, 
 where the monks could meet at lawful hours for 
 conversation. It was generally in the afternoons 
 they met here ; and merry and bright would it be ; 
 for in that monastery was one Dom Edward, a 
 merry wight, full of jokes and stories mirthful. 
 At times of recreation he would amuse the brethren 
 with some droll conceit or merry quip ; a certain 
 little gesture of his lent a point to his story, and a 
 twinkle of his eye betrayed the coming jest. But 
 withal, be it remembered, he was a grave doctor, 
 learned in divinity and much looked up to ; for had 
 he not been to Rome itself, on business connected 
 with the abbey, and seen its wonders, and had many 
 tales to tell of the monasteries he had visited and 
 
 1 Ch. xxn.
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY 87 
 
 edified ? In the " frayter " was also a fire in winter- 
 time, to which the monks could come to warm them- 
 selves. The room was hence often called the 
 " Calefactory." Hard by, at Durham for instance, 
 was a garden for pleasaunce, and a bowling alley at 
 the back of the house for the recreation of the 
 younger men when it pleased their master to give 
 them leave. ^ Besides, there would be the whole of 
 the enclosure to take exercise in. These enclosures 
 were sometimes very large. That at Glaston, for 
 instance, was sixty acres in extent. But outside of 
 this the monks were never allowed to go without 
 leave. This was a very strict rule, and its infringe- 
 ment subjected them to severe penalties. 
 
 But Dom John was not kept a close prisoner. 
 He could get leave to go out. He would go away 
 at intervals to one of the granges or cells which 
 Lynminster had in various parts of the country. 
 What the sort of life was, during these visits, may 
 perhaps be gathered from a letter of the prior 
 of Durham to the prior of the cell at Finchal, 
 written in 1408. As the cathedral-monastery was 
 
 1 Durham Rites, p. 75. There were periods of recreation at the times 
 of the great feasts of the year. Visits of great men, or any extraordinary 
 function in the church would also break the routine of the cloister life. 
 There would be little feasts occasionally, with something extra in the 
 way of cakes, &c. For instance at Durham, in the common house, " the 
 master of it kept his Sapientia once a year, viz. between Martinmas and 
 Christmas, a solemn banquet that the prior and convent did use at that 
 time of the year only, when their banquet was of figs and raisins, ale 
 and cakes, and thereof no superfluity or excess, but a scholastical and 
 moderate congratulation among themselves." — Durham Rites, p. 75.
 
 88 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 then in difficulties, the recreations which the monks 
 used to have were for a time suspended, and instead 
 the brethren were sent to Finchal, there to have a 
 little relaxation. And in view of this the cathedral 
 prior makes some regulations. Four monks, for 
 three weeks at a time, will be sent from Durham to 
 Finchal to join the little community, then consist- 
 ing of a prior and four religious. Two of the 
 visitors have to be present daily at matins, mass, and 
 vespers, and at all other choir duties ; the other two 
 are to be free to go about in the country religiose 
 et honeste, but are bound to attend the mass and 
 vespers unless for some reasonable cause the prior 
 of the house grants a dispensation. This liberty 
 next day is to be given to the other two. While 
 all are to use the common dorter, the prior is 
 to provide a room properly furnished with a fire 
 and all things necessary for the visitors, and a 
 special servant is to be appointed to wait on them.^ 
 But such excursions would be at present rare in 
 the case of Dom John ; for he had to be broken in 
 to the willing monotony of monastic life. But the 
 time was coming when he must leave his abbey for 
 a while and go up to the university to take his 
 degree,^ and come back learned in the law, or 
 perhaps a master in theology. 
 
 1 The Priory of Finchal (Surtees Society, pp. 30, 31). See also the 
 rules for the country house at Redburne belonging to St. Albans. 
 Gesta Abbatum (Roll Series), vol. ii. pp. 202, 205. 
 
 2 Sometimes the youths attached to a claustral school went up to 
 Oxford to the benedictine houses and studied there and took their
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY 89 
 
 In 1283 John Gifford, Lord of Brimsfield, during 
 the abbacy of Reginald de Hamone, founded for 
 thirteen monks of St. Peter's, Gloucester, a house at 
 Oxford for students at the university. The church 
 of Chipping Norton was appropriated for their 
 support. The abbat, not able to carry on the house 
 satisfactorily by his unaided efforts, got other houses 
 to join with him. In 1290 the general chapter 
 took up the matter of the higher education of their 
 monks. They were pretty well forced to take some 
 action, because the friars already at the univer- 
 sities ^ were carrying everything before them by the 
 brilliancy of their studies and the hosts of students 
 they attracted. The general chapter ordered that 
 one monk in every twenty out of each house should 
 be sent to the university, to the house known from 
 its first owners as Gloucester Hall, and there go 
 through his university course.^ Each house had to 
 support its own men, making them a fixed allowance 
 for necessities besides contributing their share of the 
 common tax. By degrees each of the principal 
 
 degrees in arts before l)ecoming monks. Sometimes they returned to 
 the university after they had laeen for some time in the monastery. 
 We shall see later on (Ch. IX.) an example of this. See, also, an 
 interesting account of the Canterbury claustral school, in Dom Gasquet's 
 The Old English Bible and other Essays, p. 260. 
 
 1 The dominicans made their first English house at Oxford 1221, 
 and the franciscans settled there about the same time. 
 
 ^ The sister university of Cambridge also had its home of studies, 
 the rebuilding of which was stopped through the attainder of the duke 
 of Buckingham, its munificent benefactor, in the reign of Henry VIII. 
 About three fourths of the benedictine students went to Oxford, and 
 only one fourth to Cambridge.
 
 90 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 houses who used this hall besides the original 
 owners, St. Albans, Glaston, Tavistock, Burton, 
 Chertsey, Coventry, Evesham, Eynsham, St. Ed- 
 mundsbury, Winchcombe, Malmesbury, Norwich, 
 Rochester, and others, built separate sets of cham- 
 bers, existing to this day, for their own students, 
 and marked with the heraldic device of their own 
 monastery.^ 
 
 To this house, then, was Dom John Weston sent 
 from Lynminster. His mode of life was somewhat 
 modified at the university, for he had to get in as 
 much time for study as he could. But it was still a 
 hard life, and contrasted greatly with the free and 
 easy tone always found in university towns. He 
 was kept strictly from intercourse with seculars, who 
 might waste his time, and on no account was he 
 allowed to study with them. He got up between 4 
 and 5 o'clock each morning ; from 5 to 6 was spent 
 in prayer; from 6 to 10 study and lectures, and 
 then he broke his fast. Shortly after dinner he 
 resumed his study until 5 p.m., when he supped 
 much in the same way he had dined. Then study 
 again until 9, when he went to bed.^ Out of the 
 
 1 The bishop of Durham founded a house in 1337 at Oxford, for 
 thirteen students from his cathedral-monastery, as a memorial of the 
 king's victory over the Scots at Halidon. From a letter of the prior, 
 we learn that in this home the divine office had to be said daily in 
 choir by all vel ad minus duo. On Sundays and all double feasts all 
 were obliged to attend at the hours, which, although not sung, were to 
 be said tractim. They sang both mass and vespers on these days, and on 
 the principal feasts the whole office and the mass si tevipus hoc permiserit. 
 
 - Fosbroke's British Monasticism, p. 186.
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY 91 
 
 time allotted for study he had to find the time for 
 his office and the necessary recreation. After some 
 years of this severe life, Dom John returned to 
 Lynminster with the coveted degree of Doctor of 
 Theology, which meant much in those days, and 
 gave the holder a certain position in the community 
 as well as in the outer world. 
 
 He had now to look forward to the priesthood. 
 Already had he received the clerical tonsure and 
 the minor orders from his abbat ; but for the 
 sacred orders he had to go to the bishop of the 
 diocese. Lynminster, not being exempt from episco- 
 pal control, could not call in any bishop at pleasure 
 for ordinations, blessings, and consecration. Most 
 likely Dom John had to go to the cathedral city 
 for the general ordination, and there receive his 
 priesthood together with the rest of the clergy. 
 But wherever it was, it was a great day for him ; 
 and his first mass was the occasion of much re- 
 joicing at Lynminster. He had to provide a feast 
 for his brethren, such was the custom, and wrote to 
 his friends and relatives to help him on the occa- 
 sion.^ Owing to his university training, or rather 
 to the good use he had made of his time there, he 
 was a man likely to rise in his house and to hold 
 high office — all of which came about in course of 
 time. 
 
 But meanwhile he had to take up the work of 
 teaching the novices ; for his old teacher was past 
 
 > D. Gasquet's The Old English Ihble and other Jusaiis, p. 283.
 
 92 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 his work, and his abbat was anxious to keep the 
 intellectual tone of the monks up to the level of 
 the best house in England. For the abbat who 
 then presided over Lynminster knew well that a 
 house, to be prosperous and vigorous, must have 
 a high standard of intellectual life ; otherwise its 
 men become children, unable to think for them- 
 selves, or cope with any emergency, and, as a 
 result of such a system, would by-and-by, like list- 
 less drones, live without any interests in life. This 
 unhealthy tone the abbat was determined not to 
 allow while he held rule. For in his younger days 
 he had seen the ill effects of a contrary policy ; and 
 now that he was called to the abbat's chair, he was 
 determined to do his best to remedy them. In the 
 days of his predecessor (good but too easy-going 
 man), studies had been neglected, a lax tone had 
 crept in, and everything had gone down. Visi- 
 tations, both diocesan and monastic, could keep 
 things in check indeed, but could not get at the 
 root of the evil. With the new abbat it took 
 some time and the help of able obedientiaries to 
 restore things to a proper efficiency. 
 
 In this abbey the chief office-holders were : the 
 Precentor, whose duty it was to arrange all details 
 of the services in the church : he also had the charge 
 of the library, and had to provide parchment, colours, 
 paper, ink, and other material for the monks. Then 
 came the Sacrist, who had care of the church and 
 its furniture : he was charged with the provision of
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY 93 
 
 vestments, lights, and wine, &c. Then there was 
 the Almoner, who had to see to the distributions 
 of alms to the poor ; the Refectory Master and 
 the Pitance Master,^ important officials who were 
 responsible for the meals and supplies of all kinds. 
 Then there was the Chamberlain, who had charge 
 of the dormitory and of the monks' clothes ; the 
 Infirmarian, Guestmaster, Treasurer, whose names 
 denote their offices. The Cellarer, however, ruled 
 supreme in the department of domestic concerns, 
 and was looked upon as the second father in the 
 monastery.^ He held the most important place, for 
 he was the business manager of the abbey ; and 
 upon him depended in a great measure whether 
 life ran on as smoothly as it should. 
 
 The abbat was a wise man. Although he had 
 the whole control over his abbey, yet he gave full 
 scope to all his officers, and did not keep every 
 detail in his own hands. He wanted his monks to 
 be men, not children. As long as they kept within 
 certain limits he left them free, and did not interfere 
 or scold at every mistake. For it was by their very 
 mistakes he wished them to learn how to rule and 
 administer. If a monk turned out an irremedial 
 failure in his office, he was removed and another 
 substituted. The result of the abbat's wise policy 
 
 1 An interesting manuscript [Harl. 1005] of about the latter half of 
 the fourteenth century gives a full and detailed account of the nature 
 and occasions of the pitances, or "scholastical and moderate congratu- 
 lations," at St. Edmundsbury. 
 
 ^ Ejj. at Peterborough.
 
 94 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 was that Lynminster became a strong house in every 
 way. Among its monks were to be found master- 
 men and good sohd religious, capable of fulfilling 
 with credit any work set upon them. The good 
 the abbat did, died not with him. There had been 
 such a quiet, steady development of energy that 
 the results were lasting ; and Lynminster, when 
 the day of trial came, was found one of " the solemn 
 monasteries in which religion was, thank God ! 
 right well observed." 
 
 Under such an abbat, Dom John Weston was 
 sure to get on ; and in due course rose to the highest 
 office. He went through various grades of adminis- 
 tration, and then was set to rule his brethren as prior. 
 He it was who carried out in detail the abbat's 
 principles, and under him Lynminster was a happy 
 and united brotherhood. 
 
 But alas ! he was sent off to London on important 
 business for the abbat and there caught the plague, 
 which was making one of its periodical visits. When 
 he was first seized, he was staying at a house be- 
 longing to his monastery which the abbat kept up 
 for the use of his monks.^ He did not die from the 
 malady, but his health utterly broke down. He 
 lingered on through the long summer days. His 
 one desire was to get back home, to be with his 
 brethren. Taking advantage of a fallacious rally, 
 he was brought by slow degrees back to Lynminster 
 
 1 The abbat of St. Albans kept up such a house. See Gesta Abbatum 
 (Roll Series), vol. i. p. 289.
 
 THE MONK IN HIS MONASTERY 95 
 
 and put in the infirmary, a large building with its 
 own chapel, on the north-east side of the church. 
 There he was tended with loving hands. Three 
 times was he solemnly visited by all the community, 
 who came to pray by him. The abbat received his 
 public profession of faith. Then was he houseled 
 and annealed, and thus strengthened, could look 
 with confidence to his coming passage into eternity. 
 
 And when in a few days the end came, the 
 bells rang, and the monks came into the chamber 
 of death with the crucifix, and sweet singing of the 
 Credo, and psalms and litanies.^ They found prior 
 John Weston clad in his cowl and, in penitential 
 spirit, laid on sackcloth and ashes. And as they 
 watched and prayed his life gently ebbed away. 
 At last the conversion of his life, promised at pro- 
 fession, was complete ; he had been obedient until 
 death, and his stability had been confirmed for ever. 
 With sorrow his brethren paid the last offices. The 
 body, wrapped in a shroud but uncoffined, was 
 carried on a bier to the church. And Placebo and 
 Dirige were chanted, and the abbat himself sang 
 Requiem; and the monks said there were tears in 
 his voice. Then was the body of prior John Weston 
 borne forth, and was laid in the garth that was 
 in the midst of the cloisters. 
 
 For thirty days his obsequies were celebrated with 
 office and mass and daily visit to his grave. And 
 
 •• Officium EcclesiasHcum Ahbatum sec. usum., Eveshamien. Monas. 
 (Henry Bradshaw Society), p. 1 1 7.
 
 96 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 the prayers of the poor were also invoked for his 
 soul. In the refectory during all that time a black 
 cross was set in his place at table ; and his portion 
 of food and drink was bestowed on the poor. His 
 name was written in the obit-book to be read out, 
 year by year, as the date of his death came round. 
 And word was sent round to all the monasteries in 
 England to which Lynminster was united in spiritual 
 relationship to beg for prayers for his soul. And 
 each house did its share of prayers for the assoiling 
 of his soul. His memory was kept green for a long 
 time in his old home. For no love here below is so 
 lasting and faithful as that between those who have 
 given up all earthly loves and found them again in 
 the Lord.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 WOMEN UNDER THE RULE 
 
 Whether St. Scholastica was a nun or not is uncer- 
 tain, although St. Gregory tells us she was dedicated 
 to God from her earliest childhood.^ There are no 
 historical traces remaining for us to decide the 
 question ; though venerable tradition records that 
 St. Benedict founded also a community of virgins 
 consecrated to God, and placed his sister at their 
 head. While there is not a word in his Rule ^ about 
 such a community, and St. Gregory in his dialogues 
 is also silent, still, on the other hand, there is 
 nothing in the teaching of the great lawgiver which 
 cannot be applied to women. We know also that 
 he seems to have undertaken the spiritual direction 
 of his sister and had conferences with her, one of 
 which was so beautifully illustrated by God granting 
 a prayer the brother had refused,^ 
 
 But whether St. Scholastica was a nun or not, 
 one thing is certain, that before her brother's time 
 there were cloisters of women dedicated to God. 
 
 ^ Dialogues of St. Gregory, book ii. chap, xxxiii. 
 
 2 The word " woman " does not even occur in the Rule. 
 
 3 Ibid. 
 
 VOL. I. 97 (J
 
 98 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 They flourished in the East, whence St. Benedict drew 
 much of his law. Cassian, at least, had introduced 
 them into the West, and had founded a convent at 
 Marseilles, whence Cesarius, bishop of Aries (542), 
 persuaded his sister, Cesaria, to come and join him 
 and preside over a convent he was then founding. 
 
 Tradition ascribes to St. Martin the foundation 
 of various communities for women ; ^ and in St. 
 Gregory's time we know, from an account of the 
 procession instituted on account of the plague then 
 devastating Rome, that there were abbesses and 
 nuns ; for they were appointed to walk in the pro- 
 cession along with the priests of the first region.^ 
 
 If St. Benedict founded a religious community for 
 women it was nothing unheard of ; but whether he did 
 so or not, we may be sure it would only be a short 
 time before he, too, was looked upon as guide and 
 father to the many convents already existing. How- 
 ever this may be, here in England we have no doubt 
 but that, as in the North, columban nuns existed at 
 any rate very soon after the introduction of Chris- 
 tianity : so in the South, where the Roman bene- 
 dictine influence was the stronger, it is almost as 
 certain that the numerous convents, that sprang up 
 as it were by magic, were benedictine. But, as we 
 have elsewhere remarked, there was no antagonism 
 between the two Rules ; and the process of assimila- 
 tion, or perhaps absorption, of the Celtic Rule by that 
 
 ^ Dupuy, A., Histoire de S. Martm, p. 176. 
 ^ Mabillon, Annales Ordinis S. Benedicti (ed. Paris, 1 703), torn. i. p. 2 1 7.
 
 WOMEN UNDER THE RULE 99 
 
 of St. Benedict was so gradual as almost to be im- 
 perceptible. The Oriental tinge of severity so per- 
 ceptible in the former would have to give way to the 
 wider spirit of the West, which dealt with men as it 
 found them. The two Rules were typical of their 
 origins — that of the East unchanging and stereo- 
 typed ; that of the West keeping in touch with the 
 times, ever adapting itself to the unceasing flow and 
 development of humanity. 
 
 Hilda in the north at Whitby, and Eanswith in the 
 south at Folkestone, are the two prominent found- 
 resses of the religious life for women in our land. 
 Little is known of either of them ; especially as to the 
 beginning of their religious lives. Hilda was one of 
 Edwin of Northumbria's household, and in her four- 
 teenth year was baptized at York, on that Easter-day 
 (627) that saw Paulinus, the benedictine monk, re- 
 ceiving the king and court into the Church of Christ. 
 
 "Nothing is known of the life of Hild (Hilda) 
 between the ages of fourteen and thirty-four ; but 
 evidently she had not dwelt in obscure retirement, 
 for the Scottish prelate Aidan in 647, knowing that 
 she was living in the Midlands, begged her to return 
 to the north. It is a noteworthy circumstance if, 
 in an age when marriage was the rule, she remained 
 single without taking the veil, but she may have 
 been associated with some religious settlement." ^ 
 
 ^ Eckenstein, Women imder Monasticism, p. 82. But Bede says "she 
 withdrew to the province of the East Augles," with the intention of 
 ^oing to Chelles (lib. iv. cap. xxiii.).
 
 loo THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 She became foundress of Whitby, at first a columban 
 monastery for men and women. It afterwards re- 
 ceived the benedictine Kule as well, perhaps through 
 the influence of Wilfrid. Of Eanswith we know still 
 less. Her father, Edbald of Kent, after he had put 
 away his heathen wife, married a princess of the 
 Franks. About the year 630 he gave his daughter a 
 piece of land at Folkestone, where she founded a 
 convent. It would be a curious point for speculation 
 to discover whether this beginning in Kent was 
 due to the influence of the Northumbrian Edwin's 
 widow, Ethelburga, who with her children and 
 Paulinus had taken refuge at her brother's Kentish 
 court, or whether the Frankish princess had taken 
 the initiative. But there was Paulinus the bene- 
 dictine at hand to give a direction to the new settle- 
 ment. However, her convent was destroyed or 
 deserted at the close of the century ; for there is a 
 charter of Athelstane (927) giving the land to Christ 
 Church, Canterbury, " the house having been de- 
 stroyed by the pagans." ^ 
 
 Queen Ethelburga was herself the foundress of a 
 house at Liming. It would naturally be, coming from 
 the north, that her foundation should be modelled 
 on the great abbey of Whitby. But that is no proof 
 that the house was governed by the columban Rule 
 pure and simple. Sexburgh, queen of Erconbert, 
 the successor of Edbald, founded another convent 
 at Sheppy. At this time, says Bede, "there were 
 
 1 Dugdale, vol. i. p. 451.
 
 WOMEN UNDER THE RULE loi 
 
 not yet many monasteries built in the regions of 
 the Angles. Many were wont, for the sake of the 
 monastic mode of life, to go from Britain to the 
 monasteries of the Franks and of Gaul ; they 
 also sent their daughters to the same to be in- 
 structed and to be wedded to the Heavenly Spouse 
 chiefly in the monasteries of Brie, Chelles, and 
 Andelys."' 
 
 Mildred was the foundress of the famous abbey of 
 Minster in Thanet. She had been brought up at 
 Chelles, where, says the legend, the abbess Wilcoma 
 wanted the girl to marry one of her kinsmen. 
 Irritated by her refusals, she ordered her to be cast 
 into a roaring fire whence she came forth untouched. 
 She escaped back to England. Some time towards 
 the latter half of the seventh century we find 
 Egberht, king of Kent, giving her land in Thanet as 
 a blood-fine for the murder of two of her brothers. 
 " She asked for as much land as her tame deer 
 could run over in one course, and received over ten 
 thousand acres of the best land in Kent." ^ On this 
 land she built a monastery ; and her name as abbess 
 appears signing a charter of privileges granted by 
 King Witred to the churches and monasteries 
 of Kent. Her name comes the first of the five 
 abbesses who sign the document after the arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury and the bishop of Rochester. 
 A noticeable fact, the names of these five women 
 
 ^ Hist. Eccles., book iii. chap. viii. 
 2 Dugdale, vol. i. p. 447.
 
 102 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 come before that of the priests who attested the 
 charter.-^ 
 
 Of the other nunneries famous in Saxon days was 
 Ely, founded (673) by Audrey or Etheldreda, the 
 friend of Wilfrid. This seems to have been a double 
 convent, or at least to have had a convent of monks 
 hard by. One of her successors was Werburg, to 
 whom was entrusted, by her uncle King Ethelred, 
 the oversight of all the nunneries in his domains. 
 She is known to have founded houses at Trentham, 
 and at Hanbury, and at Weden.^ 
 
 Coldingham was founded by Ebba, also a friend 
 of Wilfrid's, and of Cuthbert too, that holy bishop 
 of Lindisfarne who did so much by his gentleness 
 and sweetness to introduce Roman usages among 
 the columban monks in England. "Ebba wrote 
 begging him to come and condescend to edify 
 both herself and the inmates of her monastery 
 by the grace of his exhortations. Cuthbert accord- 
 ingly went thither, and tarrying for somfe days 
 he expounded the ways of justice to all ; these 
 he not only preached, but to the same extent 
 practised." ^ 
 
 Osith of Aylesbury, Frideswith of Oxford, Osburg 
 of Coventry, Modwen of Burton, Everild of Evering- 
 ham, are names which, as foundresses and abbesses 
 
 ^ Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, vol. iii. 
 p. 240. 
 
 2 During the Danish invasion her relics, which were at Hanbury, 
 in 875 were carried off to Chester, whose patron she became. 
 
 ^ Bade, Life of St. Cuthbert, chap. x.
 
 WOMEN UNDER THE RULE 103 
 
 of holy houses, were sweet in the ears of our Saxon 
 forefathers. 
 
 But among them all stands out pre-eminent Ethel- 
 burga, sister of Erkonwald (693), bishop of London, 
 who made a home for his sister at Barking, which 
 "he established excellently in the regular disci- 
 pline." ^ This renowned house was also a famous 
 place for the education of high-born children. The 
 great scholar Aldhelm " wrote his treatise on Virginity 
 for the nuns of this convent ; and the whole tone of 
 the book, besides several direct passages, shows that 
 the intellectual life there must have been of a very 
 high order. He quotes freely from the Fathers, and 
 refers to the classics of antiquity. He praises 
 especially the nuns for being devoted to study : like 
 bees they gather, he says, everywhere material for 
 study. Scripture, history, grammar, poetry, are 
 among some of the subjects which he mentions. 
 But evidently he looks upon Barking as an oasis 
 in the worldliness which even then (the beginning 
 of the eighth century) had entered into nunneries. 
 He describes nuns elsewhere as wearing " a vest 
 of fine linen of a violet colour. Above it a scarlet 
 tunic with a hood, sleeves striped with silk and 
 trimmed with red fur ; the locks on the forehead 
 
 1 Bede, lib. iv. cup. vi. Miss Eckenstein states that Barking -was 
 a double monastery. We can find no proof of this anywhere. Bede 
 says : " In which (Barking) she could live as the mother and nourisher 
 of devout women" (ibid.). 
 
 2 Aldhelm was abbat of Malrasbury, and became bishop of Sher- 
 borne.
 
 I04 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 and the temples are curled with a crisping-iron ; 
 their dark head-veil is given up for white and 
 coloured head-dresses, which, with bows of ribbon 
 sewn on, reach to the ground ; their nails, like those 
 of a falcon or sparrow-hawk, are found to resemble 
 talons." ^ This last reminds us that Aldhelm was 
 a poet ; and this may have been one of his licenses. 
 
 Wimborne, the last of the foundations of the early 
 Saxon period, was founded from Barking by Cuthburg 
 {725), a sister of Ina, king of Wessex, and wife of 
 Ealdfrid of Northumbria. A famous inmate of this 
 house was Lioba, one of the friends of Winfrid 
 better known as St. Boniface. He wrote to the 
 abbess Tetta begging her, " as a comfort in his 
 wanderings and as a help in his mission, to send the 
 virgin Lioba, the fame of whose holiness and teaching 
 of godly life had penetrated across wide lands and 
 filled the mouths of many with her praise." ^ She 
 went, and became abbess of the famous house of 
 Bischofsheim near Mainz. 
 
 In her life, written by Rudolf of Fulda (850), we 
 get a glimpse of the life in these double monasteries. 
 '* There were two settlements at Wimborne, formerly 
 erected by the kings of that people, surrounded by 
 lofty and strong walls, and endowed with ample 
 revenues. Of these, one was for clerics, the other for 
 women. But neither, for such was the rule of their 
 foundation, was ever entered by any members of 
 
 1 S. Aldhelmi: De Laudibus Virfiinitates (ed. Migne), vol. 89, p. 157. 
 
 2 Vita S. Liobce, Pars IL Acta Sanctorum (Sept. 28), p. 713.
 
 WOMEN UNDER THE RULE 105 
 
 the other sex. No women had permission to come 
 among the congregation of men, no men to enter 
 into the dwellings of the virgins, the priests alone 
 excepted, who entered their church to celebrate mass, 
 and withdrew to their own part at once as soon as 
 the service prayer was solemnly finished. . . . More- 
 over, the mother herself of the congregation, when- 
 ever it was necessary that she should give orders in 
 the affairs of the monastery, spoke through a window, 
 and decided whatever was considered to be best." ^ 
 
 Most of the nunneries perished during the invasion 
 of the Danes, and but few were rebuilt. Only those 
 which were in connection with the royal house of 
 Wessex remained at the close of the tenth century. 
 Those of the Northern and Midland districts had 
 entirely disappeared. Some were deserted ; others 
 had been laid waste during the Danish invasion. It 
 has been observed that with the return of tranquillity, 
 not one of the houses for women was restored. 
 Seculars " took possession of them, and when they 
 were expelled, the Church claimed the land, or the 
 settlement was restored to the use of monks. Some 
 of the great houses formerly ruled by women were 
 thus appropriated to men. Whitby and Ely rose in 
 renewed splendour under the rule of abbats. Repton, 
 Wimborne, and numerous other nunneries became 
 the property of monks." ^ 
 
 The chief convents which survived to the Conquest 
 
 1 Ibid., Pars I. p. 711. 
 2 Eckenstein, Womeii under MoJiasticism, pp. 201, 202.
 
 io6 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 were Shaftesbury (founded in 893 by Alfred the 
 Great for his daughter Ethelgiva), Amesbury, Romsey, 
 Winchester, Wilton, and Barking. Like all founded 
 before the Conquest, these houses were abbeys,^ and 
 their abbesses were women of great political power 
 in the kingdom. Those of Shaftesbury, Wilton, 
 Winchester (Nunna - minster) and Barking held 
 their lands of the king by an entire barony, and 
 had the privilege, at a later date, of being summoned 
 to Parliament, though this lapsed on account of 
 their sex.^ 
 
 The abbess had most of the privileges of the 
 abbats, and in her possession were many lands, 
 together with their churches, from which she drew 
 her revenues, and to which she exercised the rights 
 of presentation. She had to do service to the Crown 
 and supply her quota of knights for the king's 
 
 1 The houses founded after the Conquest were generally priories. 
 Of the sixty-four benedictine convents founded for women after Saxon 
 days, only three, viz. Godstow, Mailing, and Elstow, were abbeys. " The 
 explanation is to be sought in the system of feudal tenure. Women no 
 longer held property, nunneries were founded and endowed by local 
 barons or abbats. When power from the jjreceding period devolved on 
 the woman in authority, she retained it ; but when new appointments 
 were made, the current tendency was in favour of curtailing her power." 
 Cf. Women under Monasticism, p. 204. When the house was founded by 
 an abbat it remained under his jurisdiction, and the house was visited 
 both by abbat and by bishop, unless the abbey itself was exempt ; then 
 all houses depending upon it shared in the privilege, e.g. Sopwell 
 nunnery in relation to St. Albans, and Kilburn to Westminster. 
 Although the Lateran constitution gave general chapters the visitation 
 of nunneries, yet we do not find any traces of capitular visitors going 
 to any nunnery. Their oversight was left to the bishops. 
 
 2 Dugdale, vol. ii. p. 472.
 
 WOMEN UNDER THE RULE 107 
 
 service.^ She held her own courts for pleas of 
 debts, and was altogether a most important per- 
 sonage. Of course she was elected for life, but 
 could be deposed. 
 
 We will look a little more closely at the life of 
 nuns, or " mynchyns," as they were called in the 
 Southern parts of England, and make use of such 
 information as we can glean from historical remains. 
 
 One feature of the life which strikes the reader 
 at once is the fact that the benedictine nun in 
 England, like her sister abroad, was not bound by 
 the same law of enclosure as the nun of the last 
 three hundred years. Her cloister was her home 
 indeed ; and there she loved to dwell in peace and 
 retirement. But she did not hesitate to go out 
 when the service of God required it. The pages 
 of history are so full of examples, that one is sur- 
 prised to find that any can doubt that the original 
 benedictine nun had practically as much freedom 
 as the monk. From the days of St. Scholastica 
 herself, who came out to visit her brother, all during 
 the Saxon times, and up to the Reformation, English 
 benedictine nuns had a mitigated form of enclosure. 
 And not the English " mynchyns " only, but in 
 Germany, where the great names of Hildegarde, 
 
 1 The abbess of Shaftesbury, Agnes Ferrar, in 12 51 was summoned 
 to Chester to take part in the military proceedings against Llewellin ; 
 and a successor of hers, Juliana Bauceyn, twenty years after, had a 
 similar call made upon her. The abbesses of Shaftesbury, as baronesses, 
 had to supply the king's service with a certain number of knights to- 
 gether with their full complement of soldiers. Cf. Dugdale, vol. ii. p. 473.
 
 io8 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 Gertrude, and the two Mechtildas were those of nuns 
 as much unenclosed as their English sisters who 
 went to help Winfrid and Willibald and Winibald 
 in evangelising and civilising the German heathen/ 
 
 The majestic vision of Hilda taking part in synods, 
 of Werburg inspecting the convents in her uncle's 
 kingdom, of Withburga following the pilgrim-track 
 to Rome, of Frideswide working a miracle on the 
 public road at Oxford, of Edith at the court of her 
 father Edgar ; all come up at once to our memory as 
 names of unenclosed nuns doing God's work in the 
 world, and keeping themselves unspotted therefrom. 
 
 Later on we find many a reference to nuns being 
 out of their convents. For instance, in the four- 
 teenth century bishop Stapleton was on visitation 
 in his diocese of Exeter, and among other decrees 
 made for the benedictine nunnery of Polslo, was 
 that they were not to be allowed to go out and 
 visit their friends more than once in the year. 
 They had to get the prioress' leave ; and she was 
 charged with providing a professed nun as a com- 
 panion, who had to be changed each year.^ 
 
 1 It is a fact worth moralising upon, that no canonised saint has 
 been found among the benedictine nuns since they kept strict enclosure. 
 Other orders, in which enclosure is of the essence of their vocation, have 
 had them in abundance. 
 
 2 Hingeston-Randolph. The Register of Walter de Stapledon ( 1 307-26), 
 p. 317. We give here a license for a nun to go out for a while from 
 her convent. P. C. Priorissae E. Precibus charissimse nobis in Christo 
 filiae Dominse . . . consanguinis Domini . . . militis nostri dioecesis 
 favorabilibus inclinatus, ut ad earn justis et honestis ex causis Domina 
 . . . hujus dicti vestri prioratus commonialis, cum alia ejusdem prior-
 
 WOMEN UNDER THE RULE 109 
 
 Sometimes law business took the prioress away. 
 "When I rode to London for the suit that was 
 taken," says the prioress of Pree in her account for 
 1487-89, and notes down the money (20 shillings) 
 paid for herself and " my priest and a woman 
 and two men.'" The abbess of Shaftesbury, Joan 
 Formage, had leave from her bishop in 1368 to 
 go to one of her manors to take the air and divert 
 herself.^ Nuns, however, did not always hke this 
 sort of thing ; and when visitation time came round 
 they would complain to the bishop that my lady 
 abbess was always riding off somewhere or other; 
 and they were quite sure it was not always on 
 business.^ 
 
 But they themselves could go out at times.* 
 Their customs allowed them to go abroad, if they 
 were ill, to take the waters, to console sick parents, 
 to attend their funerals. They could be absent for 
 three days only when out for relaxation or illness, 
 but a special dispensation was needed for any 
 further extension of absence.^ 
 
 atus ipsam associente accedere valeaut ; valeant equestri, non obstan- 
 tibus vestris consuetudinibus contrariis, dispensatione, ex causis Ileitis 
 nobis sufficienter doctis, in quantum de jure possumus, quatenus 
 obedientiam et honestatem disciplin;u regularis literarum tenore 
 praesentium duximus indulgendam, &c. &c. (MSS. Harl. 2179, f. 78). 
 ' Dugdale, vol. iii. p. 360. 
 
 2 Hutcbins, J., The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset^ 
 vol. ii. p. 17. 
 
 3 Ihid. p. 474. 
 
 * Blaauw, W. H., EfiscojioL Visitations of the Benedictine Nunnery 
 of Easebourne (Sussex Archaeological Collections), vol. iv. p. 7. 
 5 Lyndewood, Provinciale, p. 212.
 
 no THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 Chaucer was too true an artist to include, in 
 the gay company meeting at Southwark that April 
 morning all bound for Canterbury, two nuns, a 
 prioress and her companion, if such characters 
 would have been out of place in a band of 
 pilgrims. His description of " Madame Eglentine " 
 the prioress is full of charming touches, and shows 
 us a lady, well-bred and friendly, in a dignified 
 way, with all her company. She did not ride on 
 demurely and silently. In the general entertain- 
 ment she tells her tale of the little boy-martyr, 
 a legend such as she would read at home in her 
 convent. And her companion was not behind- 
 hand either, but contributes a prettily told story 
 of St. Cecily. 
 
 How did the nuns occupy themselves in their 
 convents ? Study and intellectual pursuits have 
 always been favourite employments with benedic- 
 tine dames, and one may almost gauge the state 
 of observance in a convent by the standard of 
 intellectual activity which there obtained. When 
 that was high, the convent flourished both in 
 number and in exactness of rule. Where learning 
 was neglected, almost everything else showed signs 
 of decay. When Winfrid was in Germany he 
 kept up an active correspondence with nuns in 
 England, and from them received presents of books 
 copied out with their own hands. " Often," says 
 he in 725 to Eadburga, abbess of Minster, "gifts 
 of books and vestments, the proofs of your love,
 
 WOMEN UNDER THE RULE iii 
 
 have been to me a consolation in misfortune. So 
 I pray you will continue as you have begun, and 
 write for me in golden letters^ the epistle of the 
 holy apostle St. Paul, my master," &c.^ Nor was 
 she an exception ; for, as Montalembert says : — 
 
 "The Anglo-Saxon race above all was rich in 
 women of this kind : many are to be found among 
 the princesses established in the numerous abbeys 
 of England — such as Edith, natural daughter of 
 King Edgar ; who, brought up by her mother in 
 the nunnery at Wilton, was famed there equally 
 for her knowledge and her virtue." He goes on 
 to speak of Lioba of Wimborne, who went to join 
 Winfrid. " She was so eager for knowledge that 
 she never left her books save for divine service. 
 She was well versed in all that were then called 
 the liberal arts ; she was thoroughly acquainted 
 with the writings of the Fathers and canon-law ; 
 cultivated Latin verse and showed her attempts 
 to St. Boniface (Winfrid) who admired them greatly. 
 . . . To her is due the honour of having trained 
 in Christian knowledge the young girls who filled 
 the new nunneries, founded under the teaching 
 of the Saxon missionaries. The Germans really 
 owe to her the introduction among them of that 
 monastic culture which, later, was to shine with 
 
 1 Saxon nuns excelled in illuminating manuscripts. "Wilfrid brought 
 to England the art of writing in gold, and owned a copy of the Gospels 
 written on purple-coloured parchments, in letters of pure gold. 
 
 2 S. Bonafacii Ejnstolce (ed. Migne), n. xix. p. 712.
 
 112 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 such brilliance in the person of Hroswitha, the 
 illustrious nun of Gandersheim, whose greatest 
 glory was to have composed the plays which she 
 caused to be acted in her abbey. These dramas 
 astonish us by the extraordinary acquaintance they 
 prove with the authors of classic antiquity — Plautus, 
 Virgil, Terence, and Horace — and yet more by a 
 knowledge of the human heart truly remarkable in 
 a woman completely shut out from the world." ^ 
 
 The nuns knew Latin and could write it. For 
 the superiors this was almost a necessity. It was 
 not till after the rise of the universities, when 
 learning ceased to be a monopoly of the religious 
 houses, that documents for nuns began to be written 
 in French, then as now the language of culture, 
 or in English. This decline in learning coincided 
 with the period when convents of women were at 
 a lower ebb than they had ever been, both in point 
 of numbers and of influence. 
 
 Besides intellectual studies of all kinds, needle- 
 work held an important place. The embroidering 
 of our English nuns earned a reputation far and 
 wide as the finest work to be had. Bishops and 
 popes prided themselves on specimens of the famed 
 ojnis Anglicanum, and were consumed with envy 
 when they saw the richly embroidered vestments ^ 
 
 1 Monks of the West (ed. Nimmo), vol. v. pp. 133, 134. 
 
 ^ Professor J. H. Middleton points out, in a note to his Illuminated 
 Manuscripts in Classical and Medieval Times, p. 112, that the popes 
 of the period, when they sent the pall to a newly elected archbishop 
 of England, suggested they would like in return some embroidered
 
 WOMEN UNDER THE RULE 113 
 
 of English bishops or abbats sitting in council 
 with the rest of the clergy. 
 
 "The most famous embroidered vestments now 
 preserved in various places in Italy are the handi- 
 work of English embroiderers between 1250 and 
 1300, though their authorship is not as a rule 
 recognised by their present possessors." ^ 
 
 The convents were almost the only houses of 
 education for girls, and even for little boys. Dom 
 Gasquet quotes old John Aubrey, as witness for 
 what he knew of St. Mary's convent near Kington 
 St. Michael in Wiltshire. 
 
 "There the young maids were brought up (not 
 as at Hakney Sarum Schools, &c., to learn pride 
 and wantonness) but at the nunneries, where they 
 had examples of piety, and humility, and modesty, 
 and obedience to imitate and to practise. Here 
 they learned needle-work, the art of confectionery, 
 surgery (for anciently there were no apothecaries or 
 surgeons — the gentlewomen did cure their poor 
 
 vestments of English work. And Matthew Paris has an instructive 
 passage on the point. When Innocent IV. saw the beautiful vestments 
 worn (in 1246) by the English prelates who came to Kome, he asked 
 where they were made ; and on hearing in England, he exclaimed, 
 "Truly England is our storehouse of delights, a very inexhaustible 
 well : and where much abounds much can be extorted from many." 
 He incontinently sent letters to the cistercian abbats here, ordering 
 them to forward to him gold embroidery for the use of his chapel, 
 " as though," says Matthew, " they could get it for nothing." — Chronica 
 Majora (Roll Series), vol iv. pp. 546, 547. 
 
 1 Middleton, p. 112. Such as the " Lateran Cope" in Rome, the 
 "Piccolomini Cope" at Pienza, and those at Anagni, Florence, and 
 Bologna. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 114 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 neighbours : their hands are now too fine), physic, 
 writing, drawing, &c. Old Jacques could see from 
 his house the nuns of the priory come forth into 
 the nymph-hay (meadow) with their rooks (distaff's) 
 and wheels to spin, and with their sewing work. 
 He would say that he had told three score and ten ; 
 but of nuns there were not so many, but in all, with 
 lay sisters, as widows, old maids, and young girls, 
 there might be such a number. This was a fine 
 way of bringing up young women, who are led more 
 by example than precept ; and a good retirement for 
 widows and grave single women to a civil, virtuous, 
 and holy life." ' 
 
 From this we may gather that convents afforded 
 also a place of retreat and quiet life to women who, 
 not having any vocation for the religious life, wished 
 to share in some of its privileges without under- 
 taking the obligations. 
 
 The religious life of the nuns was the same as 
 that of their brethren. The ever-recurring sacrifice 
 of prayer and praise formed their lives to a simpli- 
 city and singleness of eye. 
 
 The records of visitations^ tell us there was a 
 
 1 Dom Gasquet, Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, vol. ii. 
 p. 224. 
 
 ^ In the Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich (Dr. Jessop) we get a 
 useful light on the inner life of convents in these parts ; provided 
 we bear in mind that these visitations record only the complaints 
 made and the murmurings, without going into the question whether 
 they were founded or unfounded ; whereas, if all goes well, the whole 
 business is despatched in a word or two : Omnia esse bene (Camden 
 Soc. Publications, New Series, No. XCIII.).
 
 WOMEN UNDER THE RULE 115 
 
 great deal of human nature in convent life, then, as 
 there must be always. One of the very charms of 
 the monastic life is that it does not try to destroy 
 nature but to elevate it. That this is a long process 
 in some cases is clear, and one uncomfortable both 
 to oneself and to others. But this is just the point 
 in which the common life is of service in the work 
 of moral education. Bearing and forbearing is the 
 secret of happiness, when living with our fellow- 
 men, and how much more in the family life of a 
 monastery? This was one of the human sacra- 
 mentals that St. Benedict relied upon so strongly 
 in forming his disciples to the image of Christ. The 
 various spiritual exercises of recent introduction are 
 not of the essence of the benedictine vocation, 
 though some find a use in them. But the large and 
 deep minded Dom Baker (of whom anon), the most 
 original and remarkable spiritual writer among 
 English Catholics in the days of persecution, who 
 was so fully possessed by the spirit of his state, lays • 
 the greatest stress on the careful fulfilling of the 
 duties of the common life as a necessary require- 
 ment in those who, as the result of long probation, 
 are called to the simple and direct union with God 
 in contemplation. 
 
 Here we will leave the subject of the daughters 
 of St. Benedict, closing with the words of a recent 
 writer on their social influence : — 
 
 " It is unnecessary to speak of the many blessings 
 which must have accrued to a neighbourhood by
 
 ii6 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 the presence of a convent of cultivated English 
 ladies. Their gentle teaching was the first ex- 
 perience of the youthful poor ; from them they 
 derived their early knowledge of the elements of 
 religion and of Catholic practice ; to them they 
 went in the troubles and cares of life as to a source 
 of good advice ; theirs was the most potent civi- 
 lising influence in the rough days of the Middle 
 Ages ; and theirs was the task of tendering the sick 
 and smoothing the passage of the Christian soul to 
 eternity." ^ As has been well said, benedictine 
 nuns " were indeed not of the world, but they 
 were in it, actively and intelligently to do a good 
 work to it — to elevate, to console, to purify, and to 
 bless." " 
 
 1 Dom Gasquet, oji. cit. p. 221. ^ Ihid. p. 220,
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CONGREGATION. I 
 
 Hitherto we have been occupied with the his- 
 tory of the black monks in England up to the 
 period when the general chapter was appointed 
 for the whole of England. We must now con- 
 tinue the history up to the eve of the fall of the 
 monasteries. 
 
 The great abbeys at this period had reached their 
 zenith, and by their wealth and numbers were some 
 of the most important institutions in the country. 
 Their influence was felt not only in the neighbour- 
 hood of each monastery — for great landlords, such 
 as the monks were, will always have power — but 
 also in Parliament. There the abbats of the black 
 monks alone outnumbered even the bishops ; for 
 no less than twenty-eight of them sat as barons of 
 the realm to some eighteen bishops.^ And there 
 are respects in which they were more in touch with 
 the common feeling of the country than even were 
 the bishops ; for these last were rulers of large 
 
 ^ Together with tlie other abbats who had seats in Parliament, the 
 number was fifty-two. The cathedral priors of Canterbury who were 
 mitred also had a seat.
 
 ii8 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 dioceses, were often statesmen, and immersed in 
 affairs necessitating their absence from home ; while 
 the abbat was, with the exception of his attendance 
 at Parliament, almost always living in the midst of 
 the people. The mutual relations of benedictine 
 abbat and secular bishop were on the whole good ; 
 for, with the exception of the five exempt monas- 
 teries, the bishop had all rights of visitation over 
 the houses of black monks in his diocese.^ With 
 these exemptions friction was more likely to occur, 
 especially when the exact limits of rights on either 
 side were not defined. But for the last hundred or 
 hundred and fifty years the mutual privileges were 
 known and respected, and therefore a greater har- 
 mony existed. 
 
 Of the disputes between monastic chapters and 
 their bishops (after the thirteenth century very rare), 
 one very noteworthy example occurs in the case 
 of the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, who 
 formed the chapter of the primatial church, and 
 the archbishop of the see, Edmund Rich, known to 
 history as St. Edmund. The dispute seems to have 
 arisen (1237) in this manner. The archbishop was 
 ex-officio abbat of the house : but this in reality 
 meant less than appears. The affairs of the mon- 
 astery and all internal discipline were governed by 
 the cathedral prior, who however was appointed to 
 
 1 It ia to be understood that all the houses of the cluniacs, the white 
 monks or cistercians, and the white canons or premonstratensians, 
 were exempt.
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CONGREGATION 119 
 
 his office by the archbishop after the convent had 
 been consulted. He also had the power (a most 
 important one) of admitting any one into the 
 novitiate^ and to profession, and also selected one 
 out of the three names elected for the greater 
 officers. These rights, together with a power of 
 visitation, were about all the abbatial functions of 
 the archbishop. But this did not satisfy archbishop 
 Edmund. A saintly man, of great personal austerity, 
 with a high ideal of his position, of inflexible pur- 
 pose when he once saw what he considered to be 
 his rights and duty, he was just the sort of man 
 who naturally would not stay to consider any other 
 view of things. He seems to have acted as though 
 he had the faculty of intuitively arriving at a con- 
 clusion without being obliged to consider the steps 
 by which it is reached. The result was inevitable. 
 He found himself embroiled in perpetual disputes. 
 The irony of fate was the more remarkable, for all 
 his biographers state that personally he had the 
 greatest horror of litigation. In these matters, un- 
 fortunately for himself and for all with whom he 
 had to do, he trusted himself into the hands of 
 others, notably Simon Langton, one of the arch- 
 deacons, a bitter and disappointed man. What- 
 ever cause may be assigned to it, the fact remains 
 
 ' At Worcester, and therefore more likely at the other cathedral 
 monasteries, the prior, sede vacante, had also the right of admitting 
 novices. See Registrum Priorahis B. M. lFigor7iiensis (Camden Soc), 
 p. 138. As to Christ Church, see LitercB Uantiiarienses (Roll Series), 
 vol. i. pp. 18, 117.
 
 I20 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 that the archiepiscopate of St. Edmund was by no 
 means a peaceful one/ 
 
 In the case of Christ Church, Canterbury, Edmund 
 claimed ^as abbat the right of disposing of the 
 monastic property, and had acted to the grave pre- 
 judice of the rights and liberties enjoyed by the 
 monks in respect to certain churches appropriated to 
 the monastery, to certain manors, possessions, perqui- 
 sites, and services due from their tenants, &c. The 
 monks in self-defence appealed to the pope (Gregory 
 IX.). He, on December 22, 1235, appointed as 
 judges in the dispute three abbats, who to avoid 
 partiality were taken from the cistercian, premonstra- 
 tensian, and augustinian orders.^ The parties con- 
 cerned were summoned in the pope's name to appear 
 on May 10, 1236, at Rochester. The monks were 
 represented there by their proctor, but no arch- 
 bishop. Again was he summoned for June 20, but 
 he took no notice. An attempt was made to settle 
 the matter by compromise, but with no effect. At 
 last, after several other citations, of all which the 
 archbishop took no notice, when the final one was 
 
 1 The state of the Church in England in St. Edmund's day was not 
 happy. On one hand the kings, John and Henry III., were by no 
 means nursing fathers ; and on the other the popes, or those on whom 
 they relied, were using it to enrich Italian clerics. Men who neither 
 resided in England, nor knew a word of the language, were appointed 
 to good livings in England, overriding the rights of patrons who either 
 themselves or by their ancestors had founded these benefices. Deep 
 and bitter was tlie resentment in the land ; and it found expression in 
 the laws excluding non-resident aliens from English livings. 
 
 * The abbats of Boxley, St. Radegund, and Lesnes.
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CONGREGATION 121 
 
 issued for May 7, 1237 (a year after the first), then 
 King Henry III. suddenly intervened and forbade 
 the judges to proceed. At this sudden interference 
 of the civil power in behalf of the archbishop, the 
 judges dared take no further steps. Henry, who 
 was anxious just then to keep on good terms with 
 the pope (from whom he was daily expecting a 
 legate to support his claims against the stand made 
 by Edmund and others on behalf of English liberties), 
 ordered (July 10) that nothing more should be done 
 until he could talk over the matter with the legate. 
 The pope meanwhile had also written ordering, in 
 case of opposition, the whole case to be brought 
 before his supreme tribunal. After the arrival of 
 the legate, Otho, the judges saw him, and then held 
 a meeting at Boxley, on August 31, w-hence they 
 wrote a letter to the archbishop, who still kept 
 away. After rehearsing all that had taken place in 
 the matter, and stating they were hindered by the 
 king from obeying the pope's commission, the 
 abbats, in accordance with the apostolic mandate, 
 fixed January 26, 1238, as the day upon which the 
 litigants should appear before his holiness in Kome. 
 Edmund, perhaps, now had begun to see the 
 matter in another light, and was anxious to make 
 amends — the more so as it had reached his ears 
 that he was being charged with ingratitude to the 
 men who had elected him archbishop. This was 
 a new aspect of things ; and he began to realise 
 that they were a body with rights of their own. To
 
 122 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 see this and promptly act was characteristic of the 
 archbishop's impulsive and humble soul. He went 
 to Canterbury and " entered the chapter-house in 
 an attitude of deep humility, in the hope of allaying 
 the commotion by calm reasoning and sweet modera- 
 tion ; for he did not wish to be thought unmindful 
 of the confidence which the monks had bestowed 
 upon him ; indeed it cut him to the quick to think 
 he should even appear ungrateful. Consequently he 
 conceded all their requests so far as to remove any 
 obstacle to an honourable and satisfactory arrange- 
 ment being made. The monks, one and all, gladly 
 consented to his terms, and they thanked God and 
 the archbishop for this happy termination of the 
 dispute. Edmund then announced to the chapter 
 that he would go to Rome to get the approval of the 
 Holy See to the arrangement that had been made." ^ 
 The archbishop had several other disputes on 
 hand, with various houses of black monks who had 
 appealed to Rome for protection against his claims. 
 He wanted to make a visitation of Westminster 
 abbey, a house exempt from all episcopal control, 
 and, moreover, not even in his diocese. In this 
 project he was opposed both by the monks, who 
 claimed their privilege, and also by the bishop of 
 London, who protested against his intrusion. St. 
 
 1 Eustace's Vita Sancii Edmundi, f. 139, given in Life of St. Edmund, 
 by Dom Wilfrid Wallace, O.S.B., and quoted at p. 235. The author 
 was a monk of Christ Church, but attached to the person of the 
 archbishop as chaplain.
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CONGREGATION 123 
 
 Augustine's at Canterbury, too, was another stone 
 of offence to the archbishop. Exempt itself, the 
 abbey claimed for all its churches and manors free- 
 dom from episcopal visitation. A compromise, on 
 the whole favourable to the monks, was entered into. 
 They did not care, perhaps, to push matters too 
 far, as it was said some of the bulls on which they 
 relied would not bear too close inspection.^ Then, 
 again, in the neighbouring diocese of Rochester 
 Edmund was involved in disputes with the monastic 
 chapter; for he claimed the right of appointing the 
 bishop, and would not allow of the monks' right 
 of election. In all the cases that went to Rome, 
 Edmund was worsted. He practically had no case 
 except sic juheo sic volo. 
 
 1 Forgery, or the art of making history, was certainly not unknown 
 in those happily uncritical ages ; and one is constantly thwarted in 
 research by documents which turn out not what they purport to 
 be. We should doubt, however, if the intention of the writers of 
 such documents always was to deceive. When the courts insisted, 
 in cases of litigation, on the production of charters in regard to 
 property held for four or five hundred years, the original deeds of 
 which had been destroyed by foreign invasion or civil broils, the 
 case was met by the production of documents, not original indeed 
 but embodying the facts. " Forgery " applied to such a case needs a 
 gloss, and it must not be at once assumed that the "forgers" were 
 the rogues implied by our own modern use of the term. It is a 
 commonplace in legal history, that when courts of law will press their 
 conditions in a way wliich is felt to be undue, they will generally 
 meet their match on their own ground ; for instance, the whole question 
 of conveying estates for uses or bequests for masses for tlie dead. In 
 the twelfth and thirteenth centuries people went a much more simple 
 way to work ; but the principle was the same. The history of the 
 methods employed to meet on their own grounds laws felt to be 
 unduly pressed, is a subject Avorthy of the " Philosophic Historian."
 
 124 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 When Edmund reached Rome (1238), he found, to 
 his intense surprise, some of the Canterbury monks. 
 A strong feeling had been gaining ground in that 
 convent that they had gone beyond their legal 
 rights in compromising many points with the arch- 
 bishop. Their feelings had been touched, and, 
 under that influence, had given a consent which 
 after-thought did not warrant. The archbishop 
 and his party were bitterly affected at finding an 
 appeal pending on a matter they thought had been 
 settled. Archdeacon Langton, Edmund's chief ad- 
 viser, did not scruple to deny the validity of their 
 grants ; and, in the words of the continuator of 
 Gervase, " vomited forth his venom before the pope, 
 and said : ' Holy Father, there is no species of 
 forgery which is not perpetrated in the Church of 
 Canterbury. They forge in gold, in lead, in wax, in 
 anything you please.' " ^ To settle this question, 
 the pope sent orders to Otho to go to Canterbury 
 and make a search into the monks' claims. All 
 duplicate documents were to be shared between the 
 archbishop and the chapter ; but any found to be 
 forged or of suspected authenticity were to be 
 sent to Rome for the pope's inspection. When the 
 charge of forgery was gone into, it turned out to be 
 that a charter of St. Thomas a Becket, well known 
 to exist, had been damaged beyond repair ; and 
 three of the monks, in all simplicity, had made a 
 new copy to which they had attached the old seal. 
 
 1 Gervasii Opera (Roll Series), vol. ii. p. 132.
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CONGREGATION 125 
 
 But while at Eome, finding unavailing all hopes 
 of a compromise with the agents of the monks, the 
 archbishop was urged on to issue excommunication 
 against all disturbers of the peace, or rather of his 
 peace. He left E-ome, as we have said, worsted upon 
 all matters in dispute, and with the difficulty with his 
 chapter still open. On reaching England, he went 
 with the cardinal legate to investigate the charge of 
 forgery, which resulted, as stated above, in a moral 
 acquittal; although punishment was inflicted upon 
 the monks who had appended the old seal to the new 
 copy, and the prior was deposed by the archbishop. 
 
 The archbishop's pretensions were only increased 
 by the firm opposition he met with ; and now he 
 went so far as to take steps to transfer the cathedral 
 into the hands of secular canons. The dispute be- 
 came a matter of life or death with the monks, and 
 they fought the archbishop with grim pertinacity. 
 Suspensions were issued and were treated with scant 
 respect ; for the archbishop had for the time being 
 no longer jurisdiction over them on the disputed 
 points, their cause being before the Holy See. He 
 refused to appoint a new prior until the monks had 
 returned to their obedience, a question which they 
 persisted was still suh judice. Matters got graver, 
 and each party more obstinate. At last, on January 
 9, 1239, he interdicted the whole convent, and later 
 on excommunicated his primatial chapter, and on 
 November 3, 1239, published the sentence through- 
 out the whole province.
 
 126 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 But meanwhile the cause at Rome was dragging 
 on its weary length. At home it seems that the 
 sentence of excommunication, certainly invalid, was 
 not taken much notice of by the people of the 
 diocese. This made the archbishop more deter- 
 mined to enforce his will ; and he appealed to the 
 secular power, in the shape of the sheriff of Kent, to 
 enforce his decree. The idea got abroad that the 
 archbishop intended to seize the temporalities of 
 the monastery. The monks in alarm appealed to 
 the king, who ordered his sherijQTs not to interfere. 
 Tresh excommunications are sent out against all 
 who should support the monks ; and then, all of 
 a sudden, matters drop. The archbishop, sick at 
 heart and hopeless, leaves his diocese and retires to 
 the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny, in the neighbour- 
 hood of which he died, November i6, 1240. 
 
 We have dwelt on this dispute in order to let the 
 reader see the sort of trouble monastic chapters had 
 to put up with until the situation was cleared ; 
 troubles in this case all the harder to bear, because 
 the personal holiness of the archbishop was so great. 
 It is no disrespect to the memory of a great saint 
 to say he was not made of the stuff out of which a 
 ruler is made, and was wanting in that tact so neces- 
 sary for dealing with men.^ 
 
 1 A recent Life of St. Edmund, by Dom Wilfrid Wallace of Erdington, 
 takes a view of the dispute diametrically opposite to the one given 
 above. The conclusion we have arrived at is based primarily on the 
 very evidence the writer brings forward to support his contention. The 
 author, a former student of St. Edmund's College, Ware, seems to have
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CONGREGATION 127 
 
 This dispute was the greatest and practically the 
 last of the disputes between bishops and monastic 
 chapters. It cleared the air and made the rights of 
 either party known ; and so the way of peace was 
 henceforth smooth. 
 
 The Lateran Council had ordered certain reforms 
 to take place among the benedictines of each 
 country. As we have seen, steps were immediately 
 taken in England (and England alone it was that 
 obeyed unquestionably) to carry out the pope's de- 
 sire. When the legate Otho came to England, he 
 held a national council in London late in 1237; 
 and among decrees affecting the English Church at 
 large, he made some (No. XIX.) regarding the black 
 monks. ^ But two years after, a conference of the 
 benedictine abbats was held under his presidency 
 in London, at which some of these regulations, 
 notably about the perpetual abstinence, were modi- 
 fied. The decrees of this conference were carried 
 out by the abbats. What these regulations were, 
 it will be useful to mention ; for unfortunately " re- 
 formation " has a bad sound in England, and, in 
 
 overlooked the fact that eminent personal sanctity does not necessarily 
 imply those gifts which a governor, unless he is to fail, must posse'^s. 
 As a matter of fact, St. Edmund fell foul of every one from the highest 
 to the lowest, priest and laymen, with whom his great office brought 
 him in contact. Bishoj^ Stuhbs with his "best of archbishops" (Ger- 
 vase of Canterbury, II. -p. xx.) falls into the same mistake. Edmund's 
 sudden retirement to the cistercian monastery of Pontigny seems 
 evidence that the saint recognised himself, and had the courage to act 
 on the knowledge. 
 
 1 Wilkins, Concilia, voL i. p. 653.
 
 128 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 the popular mind, "reformation of monks" implies 
 a state of immorality and vice as existent. While 
 on one hand it would be idle to deny that, among 
 so many, some few might be found who were un- 
 worthy, this is only to say that human nature exists, 
 and is never destroyed. But when the aim of the 
 monk's life is considered, the safeguards with which 
 he is surrounded, and the public opinion, both in 
 and out of the monastery, it is impossible for any un- 
 prejudiced mind, in face of the facts, for a moment 
 to entertain the idea that monasteries could ever, 
 unchecked, get to a depth of depravity such as the 
 vulgar, for whom tradition has been falsified, love 
 to imagine. The reforms, of which we give a 
 summaiy, instituted by Otho, with the cordial con- 
 sent of the abbats, show in what direction changes 
 were considered desirable. 
 
 Monks were not to be professed before twenty 
 years of age ; novices, after their probation, were 
 either to be professed at once or dismissed ; no 
 payment was to be exacted from those who wished 
 to enter as monks ; no monk to have anything of 
 his own ; they were not to farm landed property ; 
 no monk is to be set to a charge which will require 
 him to live alone ; all officers, three times a year, 
 have to give in their accounts ; the abbat once a 
 year to all his community ; possessors of private 
 property were to be punished ; silence duly ob- 
 served ; flesh meat forbidden (this was modified 
 two years later) ; monks to be properly clothed, to
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CONGREGATION 129 
 
 sleep in one common dormitory, all to be present 
 at divine office, at least for collation and compline ; 
 abbats and prelates to be moderate in their equipages 
 and expenditure, &c. 
 
 No word, no hint of any deep-seated depravity, 
 but only an endeavour to recall the monk to those 
 observances which hedge in the higher paths to 
 which he had bound himself by his vows. 
 
 We have now to consider the question of the alien 
 priories, which were found to be a somewhat disturb- 
 ing element in English monasticism as being under 
 foreign influence (this holds good in particular of 
 the cluniac houses), and ruled according to foreign 
 modes of thought. The Normans, when they came 
 to England, left friends behind them. They were 
 also descendants of the founders of many noble 
 monasteries. It was but natural that the conquerors 
 should wish to share the sweets of victory with their 
 friends. Consequently they gave English churches 
 and tithes and manors to Norman and French abbeys. 
 The monks of these houses abroad, in order to 
 protect their rights, and gather in their rents and 
 dues, built cells or small convents on their newly 
 acquired property. This was the origin of the alien 
 priories, which existed simply and solely for the 
 benefit of foreign prelates. Having for the most 
 part no interest in England except material profit, 
 these alien priories formed the weak spot in monastic 
 affairs ; and it was not long before the civil power 
 had to take cognisance of their existence. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 130 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 The houses were of two kinds. Some, regular 
 convents, only paying a yearly tribute (apportus) to 
 the house abroad ; and others, depending entirely 
 upon the foreign prelates, who appointed at will 
 superiors and subjects, with the main duty of reap- 
 ing a harvest, and promoting the interest of those 
 at home. As can be easily understood, the English 
 found in these alien houses had to accommodate 
 themselves to the law of those with whom they had 
 incorporated themselves. The fact, too, that the 
 monks were far away from their own superiors over 
 the seas naturally opened the door to abuses. The 
 general chapter began to take the matter in hand, 
 and summoned the superiors to attend the meetings 
 under pain of excommunication, unless they could 
 show due cause of exemption. But before anything 
 effectual could be done, the civil power took up the 
 question.^ 
 
 King John began the work and made the priories, 
 then eighty-one in number, pay into his hands the 
 money they used to send abroad.^ But in 1294, 
 on the occasion of his war for the recovery of 
 Guienne, Edward, among other means of extorting 
 
 1 From first to last there were between loo and 150 of these alien 
 priories. "The cluniac houses alone during the reign of Edward IIL 
 are said to have forwarded no less than ;£20oo a year (about ^60,000 
 of our money) to the monastery at Cluni. Wlien France and England 
 were at peace, this transmission of wealth out of the country was 
 tolerated by the English rulers ; war however brought the subject 
 prominently before them, and led to various acts of suppression and 
 confiscation" (Dom Gasquet, vol. i. p. 42). 
 
 2 Canon Dixon, History of the Church of England, vol. i. p. 321.
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CONGREGATION 131 
 
 money, seized all the alien priories and used their 
 revenues for the purposes of war ; and, to prevent 
 the foreign monks from acting as spies and helping 
 his enemies, he removed them twenty miles from 
 the sea- coast. ^ 
 
 So convenient a way of getting money, with the 
 additional pleasure of knowing it was hampering 
 the enemy, was sure to commend itself to other 
 kings. Edward II., and then Edward III. (who at 
 first had restored many of them) pursued the same 
 policy. 
 
 Not only the king, but Parliament also saw the 
 danger of these houses. Several acts had been 
 passed declaring it unlawful for religious persons 
 to send money to their houses beyond the seas. 
 And a few years after the conclusion of the peace 
 with France (1361), Parliament pointed out that, 
 *' in consequence of the priories and other religious 
 houses subject to foreign monasteries being filled 
 with Frenchmen who acted as spies," such houses 
 were danger-spots in the whole body politic. 
 
 In the earlier years of Edward III., some of these 
 monasteries became naturalised or made denizen on 
 their own petition." 
 
 1 Ibid. 
 
 '^ In the cluniac houses, which in course of time numbered English 
 subjects, there was for long a feeling of dissatisfaction, which at last 
 found vent in a petition to Parliament (1330) stating their grievances, 
 and asking for a remedy. The causes of such dissatisfactions may be 
 sufficiently gathered from the record of the visitations published by 
 Sir G. F. ]3uckett. " For example, the monks of Thetford abbey re- 
 presented that the appointment of their superior was in the hands of
 
 132 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 At last some of the foreign houses began to sell 
 their English property for what they could get. 
 Under Henry IV. their position became every day 
 more precarious. The outcries of the Lollards 
 against the wealth of the abbeys, and the clamours 
 not only for their confiscation but for that of all 
 church property, pointed out the approaching doom 
 of at least the alien priories. Henry V. in 14 14 
 took the final step, and suppressed them all. Their 
 estates were vested in the Crown, and were mostly 
 bestowed upon other monasteries or schools. In 
 the instructions drawn up for his ambassador to the 
 Council of Basle, where it was thought some of 
 the foreign houses would attempt to regain their 
 property, Henry V. declares he had applied to the 
 pope (Martin V.) for leave to convert the revenues 
 into endowment for religious houses and other 
 sacred purposes. He also says that liberal com- 
 pensation had been paid to the former owners for 
 the loss of their possessions.^ 
 
 Suppression or absorption was the inevitable end 
 of the alien priories. Those houses which continued 
 as denizen priories had not got rid of the foreign 
 
 the abbot of Cluni. This might have been tolerated when the religious 
 were foreigners, but not when they and their prior were all of them 
 English. They wished therefore to be free from their union with the 
 French abbey, and from the subsidy required of them by their foreign 
 brethren. In the same way the priory of Holy Trinity, York, asked to 
 be declared an English foundation on the same footing as other religious- 
 houses " (Dom Gasquet, vol. i. p. 48). 
 
 1 Beckington Correspondence. Roll Series, vol. ii. pp. 263-265.
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CONGREGATION 133 
 
 influence when the dissolution came, and were some 
 of the very first to succumb to the attack. 
 
 Another great feature in the Chronicles of the 
 Consresation of English black monks was the 
 terrible visitation called the " Black Death," in 
 1348-49. Its effects were lasting, and had a great 
 deal to do, as Dom Gasquet ^ shows, in shaping the 
 course of events leading to the Eeformation. The 
 monasteries felt the scourge to the utmost. For 
 instance, at Westminster the abbat and twenty-six 
 of his monks succumbed. The effect of this terrible 
 disaster was felt for many succeeding generations. 
 *' According to Knighton's Chronicle there existed 
 such distress dnd such a universal ' loosening of the 
 bonds of society' as is 'only to be found,' says 
 Mason, ' in the description of earthquakes in South 
 America ; ' whole villages died out, cities shrunk 
 within their walls, and the houses becoming unoccu- 
 pied, fell into ruins. The agricultural population 
 suffered as severely as that of the towns. The land 
 fell out of cultivation on account of the difficulty 
 of securing labourers, except at enormous wages. 
 Flocks were attacked by diseases, and perished from 
 want of herdsmen to watch them. The corn crops, 
 which were unusually rich in the year 1348, rotted 
 on the ground, as no honest men were to be found 
 to reap them. The monastery of Christ Church, 
 Canterbury, even with its rich endowments, felt the 
 pinch of poverty. In asking from the bishop of 
 
 1 Cf. " The Black Death," i)assim.
 
 134 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 Rochester the impropriation of the Church of 
 Westerham to help them to keep up their old 
 hospitality, they pleaded excessive poverty, caused 
 by * the great pestilence affecting man and beast ! ' 
 In furtherance of this suit they forward to the 
 bishop a list of their losses in cattle, which amount 
 to 257 oxen, 511 cows with their calves, and 4585 
 sheep, estimated to be worth in money ^792, 
 I2S. 6d., or more than ^16,000 of our money. 
 Nor is this all, for they declare that 1212 acres of 
 land formerly profitable to them had been rendered 
 useless by an inundation of the sea, from the 
 impossibility of getting labourers to maintain the 
 sea walls. ^ 
 
 The economic changes resulting from such a visi- 
 tation were tantamount to a social revolution. The 
 feudal system gave way. Retainers could no longer 
 be kept on a land which failed to support even the 
 owners. Only the largest landlords could possibly 
 stand the strain. The peasant proprietor had to 
 give up his holding and take to trade or handicraft 
 in the town. In the course of the fifteenth century 
 the old historic nobility of England became so im- 
 poverished, or reduced by the civil wars, that their 
 power left them ; and a new nobility arose, who 
 looked to the king and depended upon him for 
 their lives and possessions. The direct outcome 
 was the despotism of the Tudors, who found none 
 to question their wills. 
 
 ^ Gasquet, vol. i. pp. 4, 5.
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CONGREGATION 135 
 
 One of the immediate effects on the monasteries 
 was the diminution of the numbers of their inha- 
 bitants. The times were in a state of upheaval, 
 and were thus unfavourable to the development of 
 the peaceful benedictine life. Comparatively few 
 new men came to fill the ranks thinned by death. 
 Roughly speaking, the communities were reduced 
 to one half, corresponding, as far as can be inferred, 
 to the reduction of the population. 
 
 After the visitation of 1348-49, there had been a 
 real difficulty in finding religious of mature age 
 and of sufficient experience to take the place of 
 the superiors who had succumbed. This, together 
 with the other causes we mentioned, inevitably 
 tended to a relaxation of the higher life. In 1422, 
 Henry V. summoned the abbats and other prelates 
 to meet him at Westminster to discuss the situa- 
 tion. It appears from Thomas of Walsingham, 
 that certain false brethren had prejudiced the king 
 against the order by asserting that many, both 
 abbats and monks, had fallen away from the primi- 
 tive institution and observance of the monastic state, 
 and that a reform was urgently needed. It may 
 have struck the reader, on the other hand, how all 
 along the body was possessed of so much strength 
 and vitality, that it was able from time to time to 
 shake off, without outside pressure, any relaxations 
 and abuses which had crept in unawares. So it 
 was in this case. Sixty abbats and other superiors, 
 together with over three hundred monks, assembled
 
 136 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 at Westminster/ The king, accompanied by only 
 four persons, went to meet them in the chapter- 
 house, and at his request Edmund Lacy, bishop 
 of Exeter, one of his suite, addressed the monks. 
 Then the king himself reminded them of the piety 
 of his ancestors and others, in the foundation and 
 support of so many religious houses ; he expected 
 them to remedy any abuses which they might find 
 to exist, and to return to the former strictness which 
 of old had made the orders so renowned. And 
 here it may be mentioned in passing how the kings 
 of England, comparing in this with the kings of 
 France, had always fostered, protected, and defended 
 the benedictines, until the days of the despoiler 
 Henry VIII. ; not only protecting them in their 
 material interests, but by showing a regard for 
 their best and highest welfare. The premier abbat, 
 William Heyworth of St. Albans, presided at the 
 following deliberations, and several articles were 
 agreed upon and drawn up, to be presented to 
 the next general chapter for approval.^ From the 
 decrees we see the nature of the reforms, which 
 were entirely on the lines of former regulations. 
 The abbats are to moderate their style of living, 
 they are to live more among their brethren ; ^ once 
 
 ^ It is useful to note how large these gatherings were, and how truly 
 representative of all interests. 
 
 2 Wilkins, Concilia, vol. iii. pp. 413-427. 
 
 3 This was evidently a weak point, and the very greatness of their 
 position was a real drawback in the case of men of a less high ideal.
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CONGREGATION 137 
 
 a year they have to give in a fall account to the 
 monks of the state of the abbey ; they are to take 
 care of and not alienate the monastic property. 
 The monks are to be clothed alike. The use of 
 meat is regulated, and the monastic fasts enforced. 
 The monks are not to handle money, but are to 
 have their wants supplied in kind. They are only 
 to go out once a year to visit their friends. The 
 abbat is to supply them with the necessary funds, 
 for which on return they must account. He also 
 has to supply suitable companions for the journey. 
 The old rule of sleeping in their habits to be en- 
 forced.^ At the general chapter that followed, most 
 of these reforms were accepted. One change was 
 made as regards money supplied to the monks for 
 any purposes of their own. They were, at least 
 once a year, to give in an account of what they 
 had spent, to the abbat, who could at will call 
 for such account. Any balance that remained had 
 to be returned to the house. x\s regards the fasts, 
 it was decreed that as in all well-regulated monas- 
 teries they were no longer observed, so instead 
 supper was not to be allowed on those days, unless 
 to the weak or old. 
 
 Thomas de la Marc, Clement Lichfield, John "Wheathamstead, and 
 Richard Whiting, show how a great position might be united with a 
 strict care for their ])rimary duties as fathers of their convents. 
 
 1 It must he remembered that St. Benedict legislated for the custom 
 of his monks sleeping in an open dormitory. Some form of night- 
 clothing was then required. But in the secular world, for centuries 
 after, the use of night-clothes was unknown.
 
 138 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 A new season of vigour came over the body. 
 And when, a hundred years after, the dissolution 
 came, it found the greater majority of the houses 
 of the black monks living lives in edifying obser- 
 vances. All, both monks and abbats, seem to have 
 risen to a sense of the requirement of the time. 
 Piety and learning were flourishing in their houses 
 at the moment when the hand of the destroyer 
 was laid upon them, and the tendency was always 
 in the upward direction. 
 
 But before taking up the story of the dissolution, 
 we must just give a glance at the state of Benedic- 
 tinism on the continent. For although the English 
 houses were independent of all foreign control, as 
 they were independent of one another, yet still, as 
 brethren united by an intimate tie of far more effici- 
 ency than any outer bond, they were influenced by 
 and felt the effects of a revival that was going on 
 simultaneously in Italy and Spain and Germany. 
 As these movements had a most important bearing 
 upon the history of the benedictines of England 
 after the Reformation, a word as to their nature 
 and history is here necessary. 
 
 The great cause of the decline of the benedictine 
 life on the continent, and especially in Italy and 
 France, was the hateful system of commendam} 
 Laymen got possession of the revenues of monas- 
 
 ^ Commendam never obtained in England. The only case as regards 
 the abbeys was that of Wolsey, who held the abbey of St. Albans in 
 commendam ( 1 5 2 1 ).
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CONGREGATION 139 
 
 teries and bestowed them on their children, who 
 received the tonsure only to avoid the law forbid- 
 ding any but clerics to hold ecclesiastical benefices. 
 To such a pitch did the evil get, that mere chil- 
 dren held abbacies ; who when they arrived at 
 man's estate differed in their mode of life no- 
 thing from the laymen about them. Certain abbeys 
 had come to be looked upon as the ordinary pro- 
 vision for the support of cadets of noble houses. 
 The monks were themselves to blame in great 
 part for a state which cut at the very root of 
 monastic life. They had allowed the income to 
 be divided into two portions ; one for themselves 
 and one for the abbat. This last became a "bene- 
 fice" ; and so an object of ambition on the part of 
 crafty and unscrupulous persons. Then, moreover, 
 the portion allotted to the support of the monks 
 became cut up and subdivided among the various 
 oflacers charged with the administration of the 
 house. These also became looked upon as bene- 
 fices, and were bought and sold and given away. 
 No wonder was it, then, with this break-up of the 
 common life, that the family idea, and with it mon- 
 astic discipline, decayed. Once the system was 
 introduced, those houses in which there was no 
 division were, if anything, worse off, for their 
 commendatory abbats possessed the whole income, 
 and, almost without exception, concerned them- 
 selves with drawing the revenues and assigning a 
 small pitance to the wretched and dwindling com-
 
 I40 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 munity, who had fallen into the position of mere 
 rent-charges. 
 
 The natural remedy would seem to have been the 
 reassertiou of community life and of the rights of 
 electing their own abbat and governing themselves ; 
 but such was the temper of the times, that all efforts 
 at remedying the evil seemed in vain. Thirty 
 synods had been held, and popes had issued decree 
 after decree, but all had been ineffectual. At last 
 the man appeared who should make the practice of 
 commendam no longer possible among black monks. 
 Barbo, abbat of the monastery of St. Justina at 
 Padua, began the work and achieved it by what was 
 no less than a complete revolution in the theory of 
 benedictine government. He constructed a system, 
 which, if it did not directly cut away the root of the 
 evil, at least killed its offshoots, and stood ready to 
 snip the bud of any attempt at future growth. In 
 his reform no officer, not even the abbat, was to be 
 appointed for a term of more than three years. 
 Hence there could be no vested rights in an office, 
 or anything approaching the nature of a benefice. 
 By ordering a triennial chapter at which all officers 
 had to give in an account of their administration, it 
 was out of the power of any one to appropriate, or 
 wish to retain, the property which belonged to all. 
 A return was made to the common life both for 
 abbats and monks, and the income was no longer 
 divided. When this system was developed and 
 other abbeys joined on to the reform of St. Justina,
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CONGREGATION 141 
 
 the election of abbats, &c., was vested in the general 
 chapter alone ; thus securing at least freedom of 
 choice from outward interference. The reform of 
 St. Justina, a drastic remedy for a terrible disease, 
 was successful and rapidly spread through Italy ; 
 and when Monte Cassino itself adopted it, Julius II. 
 gave the name of " Cassinese Congregation " to 
 the whole body of these reformed benedictines of 
 Italy. 
 
 The monasteries of Spain took up some of the 
 features of this reform from Italy ; and the famous 
 congregation of Valladolid formed itself in many 
 respects on similar lines to those of St. Justina's 
 abbey. 
 
 In Germany, too, the movement spread ; and the 
 great congregation of Bursfeld took its beginning 
 from John Dederoth, abbat of Rheinhausen, after- 
 wards of Bursfeld, which house became the centre 
 of the reform. The statutes of Bursfeld were gradu- 
 ally introduced elsewhere, until at last it began to 
 be looked upon as the central house of the reformed 
 monks of Germany. A general chapter was held 
 in 1446; and by 1502 no less than ninety houses 
 were on its roll. The Bursfeld Union made no 
 such break with tradition as did the Cassinese. 
 The abbats were elected for life. 
 
 In France a closer union of the black monks did 
 not take place until the seventeenth century, when 
 the congregations of St. Maur and St. Vannes re- 
 newed the benedictine glories of France. But the
 
 142 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 revolution in government, instituted by Barbo to 
 remedy an evil, brought with it an inherent weak- 
 ness which in time developed itself. This, the 
 break-up of the family, a fundamental idea of St. 
 Benedict, was the price that had to be paid.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE DOWNFALL 
 
 In the previous chapter we have seen events in 
 England, in the fifteenth century, shaping them- 
 selves in such a direction that, granted a man like 
 Henry VIII., he might turn them to his own ad- 
 vantage with but little fear of consequences disas- 
 trous to his own position. And while the events 
 we are now going to discuss resulted practically 
 from the system he represented, they, by the law- 
 less procedure characterising them, in their turn 
 reacted upon it, and made the Tudor despotism a 
 yet more potent weapon for evil in the hands of 
 unscrupulous men. 
 
 The trend of political and social events had of 
 recent years the effect of making monasteries in 
 general unpopular with those parties in the state 
 who looked to the king as the author of all their 
 prosperity. Though they evidently were not un- 
 popular with people at large, at any rate their great 
 wealth was tempting to the Crown. And there were 
 courtiers who said these were institutions which 
 might easily become strongholds of the pope's 
 authority. 
 
 *43
 
 144 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 Henry VIII. ascended the throne in 1509, and 
 for many years won golden opinions from his 
 subjects. If given, perhaps, rather too much to 
 pleasure and prodigality, these were, it was hoped, 
 but faults of a generous youth which, in time, 
 would give way to the staider and graver virtues 
 becoming a ruler. The minister upon whom he 
 relied in everything was Wolsey, archbishop of 
 York, chancellor of the realm, and cardinal of 
 the Roman Church. This great man, who has 
 never had justice done to him^ (for great he was 
 in spite of many failings arising mainly from his 
 position and the corruption of the times), had arrived 
 at the height of his power. In temporal matters he 
 was practically supreme. "He is the person who 
 rules both the king and the entire kingdom," ^ says 
 a foreign ambassador. The cardinal wanted powers 
 as extensive in ecclesiastical matters. Perhaps, had 
 he had them at first, and had reached to the papacy 
 he was aspiring after, Wolsey might have come 
 down to all times as the pope who had initiated 
 the reform in head and members that for a century 
 had been asked. His principles were excellent; 
 when he had a free hand and no ulterior aim in 
 view, we can see the lines he would have worked 
 on. But this by the way. 
 
 1 The way in which he spent the last months of his life in his own 
 diocese of York, showed that he possessed qualities which had never 
 had full play ; and if he had not been a great statesman he might 
 have been one of the greatest prelates of modern times. 
 
 2 Quoted by Dom Gasquet, vol i. p. 68.
 
 THE DOWNFALL 145 
 
 In due course, and after much pressure, Wolsey 
 did receive, as legate, powers perhaps more ample 
 than had ever been given. But he had already 
 committed himself to a policy which proved his 
 ruin, and therefore his legateship was not advan- 
 tageous to the Church. Unfortunately, he also 
 thereby accustomed the people to see vested in 
 the hands of one man, the supreme power both 
 in Church and State. It was not so difficult, then, 
 for them to acquiesce, later on, when Henry took 
 into his own hands the powers his minister had 
 wielded. 
 
 The cardinal wanted money. He had magni- 
 ficent tastes, and was a founder of colleges and 
 palaces. The pope had reluctantly given him ex- 
 tensive powers of visitation over certain smaller 
 monasteries, even with power to suppress such of 
 them as through fewness of numbers or poverty he 
 might judge to be useless. Their funds were to 
 be applied to the support of the colleges at Oxford 
 and Ipswich he was then founding. Much pressure 
 was used to force Clement VII. in 1524 to grant the 
 powers, and even then the pope made limitations. 
 Only such monasteries were to be suppressed as 
 were absolutely necessary, and only to the total 
 amount of 3000 ducats a year. The cardinal set to 
 work, and in spite of all difficulties suppressed thirty 
 monasteries in which the number had dwindled 
 down to some five or six, or even fewer members. 
 The visitors he employed to go round and inspect 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 146 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 the houses were Allen and Thomas Cromwell, the 
 latter of whom became so notorious. The visitors 
 had many complaints (only too well founded) made 
 about thera ; but this was beyond the intention of 
 their master. Bribery and violence were the weapons 
 they mostly used ; and superiors of the threatened 
 houses were led to believe they might buy off sup- 
 pression by offering gifts to the cardinal's colleges. 
 How much of these gifts stopped in the hands of the 
 visitors it is impossible here to say. But Cromwell 
 turned out later on such an adept in the receipt of 
 bribes, that it is most likely he proved his powers 
 on this occasion. 
 
 When Wolsey was impeached, the complaints 
 made about the way in which the suppression of the 
 monasteries was effected by the cardinal's agents 
 were not forgotten. With his fall Henry lost the 
 only check upon the downward course. In the place 
 of the fallen cardinal was Thomas Cromwell, whose 
 appetite for suppression had been whetted. He had 
 seen practically how defenceless the monasteries 
 were, and how easy it would be for the omnipotent 
 Tudor monarch to make away with them on any 
 convenient plea that could be raised ; and also he 
 had found out that in the process plenty of ad- 
 vantages would accrue to himself. The king had 
 also cast his eyes on their wealth. And not cupidity 
 alone influenced him ; but he also saw in them 
 institutions which might easily become, even after 
 a final breach with Rome, means of keeping alive
 
 THE DOWNFALL 147 
 
 the pope's authority, which he was now attacking 
 at its very foundation. Blood had ah'eady been 
 shed in its defence. Fisher and More, and the Car- 
 thusians had laid down their lives for the doctrine ; 
 and the people, restless and disheartened, were be- 
 ginning to give trouble. Taxation was heavy : but 
 the state of the country was such that it could 
 not be paid. Cromwell was afraid of exasperating 
 the people further by levying new taxes which 
 Parliament had lately granted to meet the require- 
 ments of the king, who was, as is clear from state 
 papers, at that moment reduced to great straits for 
 want of money. 
 
 The monasteries offered themselves as an ex- 
 pedient to the fertile brain of Cromwell for supply- 
 ing all these wants and remedying the complaints. 
 " In determining to strike a blow at the monastic 
 bodies, Cromwell had a twofold object, both of which 
 appealed to the king's present state of mind : to 
 overthrow the papal system in its principal strong- 
 holds, and to have the fingering of the riches with 
 which the piety of ten centuries had endowed them. 
 By the middle of the year 1334, commissioners were 
 busily journeying through England tendering in the 
 oath of supremacy to the religious. No special form 
 of oath had been presented by Parliament, so Crom- 
 well took advantage of the omission. He made 
 his agents tender to the monks a renunciation of 
 the papal supremacy and jurisdiction much more 
 stringent and explicit than that rejected by More
 
 148 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 and Fisher, and already subscribed to by many of 
 the secular clergy. The commissioners appear to 
 have met with only partial success. The intolerable 
 nature of the oath demanded seems to suggest that 
 the intention of its framers was to drive the religious 
 to refuse, and thus to create a pretext for falling 
 upon and destroying their houses." ^ 
 
 An obsequious Parliament had transferred, along 
 with other rights to the king from the pope, the 
 power of visitation over monasteries. A royal com- 
 mission was issued for the inspection of all religious 
 houses, with an ulterior view to the speedy sup- 
 pression of as many as possible. The chief men 
 employed were Legh and Layton, Ap Rice, London 
 and Bedyll, men whose names come down to pos- 
 terity noted with infamy. 
 
 " They were furnished with a set of eighty-six 
 articles of inquiry and with twenty-five injunctions, 
 to which they had power to add much at their dis- 
 cretion. The articles of inquiry were searching, the 
 injunctions minute and exacting. Framed in the 
 spirit of three centuries earlier, unworkable in 
 practice, and enforced by such agents, it is easy to 
 understand, even were there no written evidence 
 of the fact, that they were galling and unbearable 
 to the helpless inmates of the monasteries. . . . All 
 religious under twenty-four years of age, or who 
 had been professed under twenty, were to be dis- 
 missed from the religious life. Those who were 
 
 1 Gasquet, vol. i. pp. 247, 248.
 
 THE DOWNFALL 149 
 
 left became practically prisoners in their monas- 
 teries. No one was allowed to leave the precincts 
 (which even in the larger monasteries were very 
 confined as to limit) or to visit there. In many 
 instances porters, who were in reality gaolers, were 
 appointed to see this impossible regulation was 
 kept. What was simply destruction of all discipline 
 and order in the monasteries was an injunction that 
 every religious, who wished to complain of anything 
 done by his superior or any of his brethren, was to 
 have the right of appeal to Cromwell. To facilitate 
 this, the superior was ordered to find any subject 
 the money and means for prosecuting any such 
 appeals in person if he so desired." ^ 
 
 The object was clearly to drive the monks in 
 desperation to surrender their houses, and thus 
 save the king from the necessity of turning them 
 out of house and home. Another plan, in order to 
 give a colour to the project, was to see whether by 
 any possibility scandals, or even any suspicions of 
 scandal, might be found. The visitors, as is clear 
 from their own letters, were determined that scandals 
 should be found, and they scrupled not by threats 
 to extort, or to invent so-called confessions : nay, 
 even themselves to tempt to sin the helpless women 
 in their power. 
 
 Dom Gasquet has once for all vindicated the 
 memory of the monks and nuns of England at the 
 time of the dissolution, and with masterly hand 
 
 1 Gasquet, vol. i. pp. 255, 256.
 
 I50 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 analyses and shows the worthlessness of the royal 
 testimony upon which Parliament acted in decree- 
 ing the suppression of the lesser monasteries. Six 
 weeks only did these worthy styled commissioners 
 spend in visiting the monasteries and finding out 
 the state of religion. Short though the time was 
 for any real inquiry, it was enough for the end they 
 had in view. Their reports were sent in to Crom- 
 well in time for the opening of Parliament in 
 February 1536. These reports, the only evidence 
 that ever existed against the monasteries, are pre- 
 served to-day in the State Paper Office, and after a 
 careful examination Dom Gasquet says they are 
 utterly valueless as proofs of anything more than 
 " that these commissioners were ready to bring any 
 accusation against the monks, and that the fair 
 name of many, who possibly never heard anything 
 of the matter, was blackened by mere reckless 
 assertions," ^ 
 
 Parliament met on the 4th February. The only 
 evidence laid before the nation, in the very words 
 of the preamble to the Act passed by a packed 
 House of Commons to legalise the suppression, was 
 the king's own assertion that the reports of the 
 commissioners were true, and his own testimony 
 that he had received credible information that 
 
 1 Layton, e.g., writes from York to Cromwell, January 13, 1536: 
 " This day we begin with St. Mary's, whereas we suppose to find much 
 evil disposition, both in the abbat and the convent, whereof, God will- 
 ing, I shall certify you in my next letter" (Three Chapters of Letters re- 
 lating to the Suppression of Monasteries (Camden Society), p. 97).
 
 THE DOWNFALL 151 
 
 vicious living was rampant in the smaller monas- 
 teries. On the king's word alone, and, as far as 
 we know, without any further inquiry or even 
 examination of witnesses, Parliament prayed the 
 king to suppress and to take the property of such 
 monasteries as had an income under ^200 a year. 
 On the strength, too, of the royal word, Parliament 
 also publicly thanks God that in " divers and great 
 Solemn Monasteries of the realm, religion is right 
 well kept and observed." 
 
 It must also be noted that the Act does not give 
 the property of these monasteries absolutely to the 
 king, but only " in as ample a manner " as they were 
 possessed by their former owners ; that is, in trust for 
 God and the poor. It was by no means the inten- 
 tion to grant them for the purpose to which Henry 
 illegally afterwards applied them. 
 
 " It was ordered also that the king should provide 
 occupation and pensions for the monks not trans- 
 ferred to other monasteries. It was further enacted 
 that on the site of every dissolved religious house, 
 the new possessor would be bound under heavy 
 penalties to provide hospitality and service for the 
 poor, such as had been given them previously by the 
 religious foundations. By this provision not only is 
 the patrimony of the poor recognised as being seized 
 in the property of the monasteries, but a testimony 
 is afforded as to the way the religious had hitherto 
 discharged their obligations in this respect. The 
 neglect of these rights of the needy by those who
 
 152 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 became possessed of the confiscated property is one 
 of the greatest blots on our national history. It 
 has caused the spoliation of monastery and convent 
 to be regarded as the rising of the rich against the 
 poor."^ 
 
 To reconcile the people, Cromwell sent into the 
 country preachers " who went about to preach and 
 persuade the people that he could employ the 
 ecclesiastical revenues in hospitals, colleges, and 
 other foundations for the public good, which would 
 be a better use than that they should support lazy 
 and useless monks." ^ 
 
 These preachers spread abroad also that the money 
 gained for these smaller monasteries would save the 
 nation from any future taxation. Taxation already 
 ground them down to an intolerable state ; and this 
 measure was held out to them as a promise of relief. 
 The prospect of a share in the spoils, it was hoped, 
 would quiet them, at least outwardly, for the time. 
 Moreover, distinct affirmations were made that the 
 king had no intention of touching the great houses. 
 It was only the iniquity which existed in the smaller 
 monasteries which forced so pious a prince to sup- 
 press them. 
 
 Having got legal colour for his work, the king 
 appointed a court, "the court of Augmentations," to 
 deal with the property of the monasteries. Surveyors 
 
 1 Gasquet, vol i. p. 311. 
 
 * I^Iarillac, the French ambassador. Inventaire Analytique de 
 Archives, ed. Kanleck, Ko. 242.
 
 THE DOWNFALL 153 
 
 were promptly selected to go round and, aided by 
 the local gentry, decide which monasteries came 
 under the Hmit of ^200 a year.^ The surveyors 
 were instructed to make inventories of all plate, 
 jewels, and other goods and property, to take pos- 
 session of all deeds and muniments, and also of the 
 convent seal. They were to lay a charge on the 
 superior to take care of the king's property until 
 he was released. The rest of the community were 
 dismissed ; to other monasteries if they could find 
 admission ; or, if not, they were, with " some reason- 
 able reward," sent adrift in the world. ^ 
 
 "The system was the same in all cases, and the 
 history of one dissolution is that of all. ^Yhat the 
 arrival of the six royal commissioners with their 
 retinue of servants at monastery and convent must 
 have been to the inmates can be well imagined. The 
 Act of dissolution, it is true, had saved them from 
 the necessity, to which many of their more power- 
 ful brethren were constrained, of surrender. Their 
 houses, which pious benefactors had built genera- 
 
 ' Whenever the local gentry, who would naturally know more of the 
 reputation of any convent than the Government surveyor, pleaded for 
 the preservation of a house and bore witness " that religion was right 
 well observed," they made no impression upon Cromwell. 
 
 2 "What the effect of all these misdeeds was on a foreigner we see 
 from a letter written July 8, 1 536, by Chapuys, who says : " It is a 
 lamentable thing to see a legion of monks and nuns, who have been 
 chased from their monasteries, wandering miserably hither and thither 
 seeking means to live ; and several honest men have told me that what 
 with monks, nuns, and persons dependent on the monasteries sup- 
 pressed, there were over 20,000 who knew not how to live" {Calendar 
 S.P. Hen. VIII., vol. xi. No. 42).
 
 154 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 tions before, and in which, for centuries, men and 
 women of their order had served God and aided 
 their neighbours, were passing away from them for 
 ever; and the demand for and defacing of their 
 convent seal was the ending of their corporate life. 
 Henceforth they were to pass the remainder of their 
 days as strangers in a larger house, or as wandering 
 in a world which many had left years before, and to 
 which they could never belong. The desecration of 
 their churches, in which they and their forefathers in 
 religion before them had gathered by night and by 
 day for the service of God ; the seizure for the king's 
 use of their altar plate, in itself so often poor, to 
 them always precious by the association of the past ; 
 the rude appraising of their bells and the lead which 
 covered the roofs over their heads ; the hurried sales of 
 the mean furniture of their cells, and of the contents 
 of church, cloister, and frater, were all so many heart- 
 rending evidences of the passing away of all that for 
 which most of the monks and nuns really cared." ^ 
 
 The work began in April 1536, and took some 
 time to complete. According to Stowe, there were 
 376 houses dealt with, and the value of their lands 
 alone was some ^32,000 and more a year. Of their 
 personal goods more than ^100,000 Avas dealt with, 
 and the same authority considers that " 10,000 
 people, masters and servants, had lost their livings 
 by the pulling down of their houses at that time." 
 
 Henry made some exceptions. Fifty-two houses 
 
 1 Gasquet, vol. ii. pp. 13, 14.
 
 THE DOWNFALL 155 
 
 gained a respite, bought of course at an enormous 
 price, sometimes three times their annual income. 
 Dom Gasquet points out that several of the houses 
 there re-established were among the number of 
 those gravely defamed by Layton and Legh, the 
 prime managers of the visitation of 1535-36; and 
 in more than one case a superior incriminated by 
 them was reappointed on the new foundation.^ In 
 the course of the next year (1537) Henry actually 
 founded one or two monasteries, one of nuns at 
 Stixfold, to be called " the new monastery of King 
 Henry VIIL," and an abbey of black monks at 
 Bisham to pray for the king and Queen Jane. The 
 king also granted to the abbat (but lately abbat of 
 Chertsey, one of the suppressed houses) his royal 
 licence to wear a mitre like any other abbat of that 
 order, with large possessions in England. But this 
 was not to last long.^ 
 
 It is not our purpose to do more than refer to 
 the popular risings on behalf of the monasteries 
 in Lincolnshire in the autumn of 1536, nor of the 
 Pilgrimage of Grace and other subsequent move- 
 ments. They excited Henry's bitterest feelings 
 against the helpless monks whom he falsely accused 
 of fomenting them. They were the occasion of the 
 wholesale destruction of the monastic orders. He 
 wrote to the Duke of Norfolk, who was charged to 
 put down the rebels : — 
 
 • Gasquet, vol. ii. p. 21. - H'ld. p. 33.
 
 156 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 " Our pleasure is that before you close up our 
 banners again you shall cause such dreadful execu- 
 tion to be done upon a good number of the inhabi- 
 tants of every town, village, and hamlet that have 
 offended us, there may be a fearful spectacle to all 
 others hereafter that would practise any like matter. 
 . . . Finally, forasmuch as all these troubles have 
 ensued by the solicitation and traitorous conspiracies 
 of the monks and canons of these parts, we desire 
 you, at such places as they have conspired and kept 
 their houses with force save the appointment at 
 Doncaster, you shall without pity or circumstance 
 cause all the monks and canons that be in any 
 way faulty, to be tied up without further delay or 
 ceremony." ^ 
 
 Thus by force and blood all opposition was 
 quelled ; although the risings served as a temporary 
 check upon the king's schemes for further suppres- 
 sions. But a new expedient was found for getting 
 hold of some of the larger monasteries which had 
 hitherto escaped. This was by the attainder of 
 such abbats as could be charged with high treason. 
 Hitherto the penalties of attainder affected indi- 
 viduals, but not corporations. But Henry gave a 
 new interpretation to the law, and took advantage 
 of a clause slipped into the recent act, which put 
 the whole abbey into the power of the king on the 
 conviction of the abbat of high treason. Many of 
 the Cistercian, cluniac, and austin houses came into 
 
 1 Blunt's Hidory of the Reformation, p. 365.
 
 THE DOWNFALL 157 
 
 the king's hands this way soon after the Northern 
 risings. But there was the way of surrender also 
 to be made use of, to give the king legal posses- 
 sion, "and every pressure was brought to bear upon 
 the monks and nuns to induce them to resign their 
 charges into Henry's hands ; " ^ promises of pension 
 to those who willingly consented, and threats of 
 being turned out in utter destitution to those who 
 refused. 
 
 Of forty convents of women that survived the 
 first dissolution, thirty-three are on the rolls as 
 having surrendered. But an inspection of the ori- 
 ginal papers, says Dom Gasquet, shows that in 
 twenty-eight of the thirty-three cases the nuns never 
 signed at all. Of the others, one (Shaftesbury) is 
 signed by the abbess alone ; another (Tarant) has 
 twenty signatures, all in the same handwriting. 
 The number of nuns turned adrift seems to have 
 been 1560, more than one half of whom were bene- 
 dictine dames." 
 
 The commissioners were instructed, as we have 
 seen, to try by every means to get a willing sur- 
 render. But at any rate they were to get possession 
 of every house. This all the time, be it remembered, 
 without any sanction from Parliament. Between 
 1538 and 1540, fifty-four monasteries of black monks, 
 
 1 Gas(]^uet, vol. ii. p. 225. 
 
 2 Ibid. ii. pp. 228, 237. Before the dissolution there were eighty- 
 four beiiedictine houses for women, and only twelve of them were 
 worth more than the ;£200 limit settled by Parliament.
 
 158 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 1300 in number, were cajoled or forced into sur- 
 rendering their property. Besides, under various 
 pretences Henry had deposed many superiors who 
 proved too staunch to the oath taken when elected, 
 and put in their stead creatures of his own to make 
 the surrender when called upon. Three of the 
 abbats, those of Glaston, Reading, and Colchester, 
 condemned as it seems without trial even, were 
 declared guilty of high treason and were hanged, 
 drawn, and quartered on the spot in which they had 
 ruled with honour for many years. Nothing stopped 
 the king, neither pity nor reverence ; and he rested 
 not until not one house was left of all the monastic 
 glories of England. It is not our purpose here to 
 go into details of these surrenders ; but a tale could 
 be told as bitter and as heartrending as any known. 
 It is just the bare facts of the dissolution and the 
 way it was brought about that we have wished to 
 set down here,^ and we will end this chapter by 
 words, written indeed of St. Peter's, Gloucester, 
 but which may be applied to any case : — 
 
 " Having existed for more than eight hundred 
 years under different forms, in poverty and in 
 wealth, in meanness and in magnificence, in misfor- 
 tune and in success, it finally succumbs to the royal 
 will; the day came, and that a drear winter day, 
 when its last mass was sung, its last censer waved, 
 its last congregation bent in rapt and lovely adora- 
 
 1 W. H. Hart's Introduction, vol. iii. pp. xlix., 1., Hist, et Cart. Mon. 
 S. Petri Glouces. (Roll Series).
 
 THE DOWNFALL 159 
 
 tion before the altar there, and doubtless as the last 
 tones of that day's evensong died away in the 
 vaulted roof, there were not wanting those who 
 lingered in the solemn stillness of the old massive 
 pile, and who, as the lights disappeared one by one, 
 felt that for them there was now a void which 
 could never be filled, because their old abbey with 
 its beautiful services, its frequent means of grace, 
 its hospitality to strangers and its loving care for 
 God's poor, had passed away like an early morning 
 dream, and was gone for ever."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 
 
 The monasteries were destroyed and the inhabi- 
 tants dispersed. Many of those who received 
 pensions^ were as soon as possible promoted to 
 livings ; for then their pensions ceased. Others 
 there were who sold their pensions for a few years' 
 purchase, so sore was their need ; and then, their 
 money exhausted, went finally to swell the ever- 
 growing crowd of beggars who after the suppression 
 were daily becoming a most serious and dangerous 
 element in society. Others, again, could not go to 
 London to receive their money ; for it was at first 
 in the capital only that such pensions were paid. 
 Some of these allowed their pensions to lapse ; 
 others had to employ agents who, at an enormous 
 percentage, collected the money due.^ The monas- 
 tic colleges at the universities, particularly those of 
 Gloucester, Durham, and Canterbury, were crowded 
 with monks who retired there to continue their 
 
 ^ Only the superiors of houses under ^200 income were granted 
 pensions. 
 
 2 The pensions were taxed sometimes to the extent of one foui'th as 
 "a loan" to the king. Cf. Gasquet, vol. ii. pp. 463-466.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT i6i 
 
 studies and find a retreat from the world/ Among 
 these was a young monk of Evesham, John (Baptist) 
 Fecknam, whose name became illustrious as the 
 last abbat of Westminster, and one of the con- 
 fessors of the faith in the days of queen Elizabeth. 
 As he was the restorer of the black monks, though 
 but for a short while, and through him comes the link 
 which binds the English benedictine of to-day to 
 St. Augustine and his companions, we will sketch 
 his life from the few details we have been able to 
 gather. He will serve as an example both of what 
 the dispossessed monks had to suffer and the manner 
 of men they were. 
 
 John (Baptist) Fecknam was born in the dis- 
 trict of Feckenham or Fecknam in Worcestershire, 
 whence the name by which he is known to history. 
 His family name was Howman, and his parents, 
 Humphrey and Florence Howman, seem to have 
 been of the yeoman class and fairly well off.^ He 
 was born about 1515, or perhaps earlier,^ a few 
 
 ^ "Wood's Oxford, p. xxiv., note. 
 
 - They left a bequest of xls. to the poor of Solihull during the 
 rectorship of their son. See an old vellum book " containing the chari- 
 table alms given by way of love to the parishoners of Solihull, with 
 the order of distribution thereof, begun by Master John Howman alias 
 Fecknam, priest and doctor of divinity, late parson of Solihull afore- 
 said, in the year of our Lord mdxlviii." This manuscript is pre- 
 served among the parish records of Solihull, and is (quoted by Miss 
 E. T. Bradley in her Memorials of Westminster Abbey, p. 163. 
 
 ^ It is said that Fecknam was about sixty at the time of his imprison- 
 ment with the bishop of Ely in 1579. If "about sixty" is to be taken 
 literally, his age at the chief events of his life would be as follows : 
 born about 15 19, he would be twenty-one at the date of the supjjres- 
 VOL. I. L
 
 1 62 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 years after Henry VIII. 's accession, and received the 
 first elements of his education from the parish priest. 
 As Evesham was the nearest abbey, it is most likely 
 that he was taken into the claustral school at 
 an early age, and in due course became a monk. 
 The first definite statement we find is, that in his 
 eighteenth year he was sent to the benedictine 
 establishment at Oxford, Gloucester Hall/ But 
 whether this was before he became a monk is not 
 certain. From the fact that a monk was not allowed 
 to be professed till he was twenty," it seems clearly 
 evident, if he entered the university at eighteen, that 
 he was not then in the habit ; for one can hardly 
 suppose that a mere novice would be sent to Oxford. 
 It is much more probable that he really went as 
 a benedictine student^ to Gloucester Hall to take 
 
 sion of Evesham ; thirty at his first imprisonment ; clean of St. Paul's at 
 thirty-five ; abhat of Westminster, thirty-seven ; second imprisonment, 
 forty-one ; at Ely, sixty ; and died at Wisbeach, sixty-six. But these do 
 not seem probable. He took his B.D. June 1 1, 1 539. He would already 
 have been at Oxford three years, and it is morally certain he could not 
 have gone there for his divinity degree (which presupposes that of Arts) 
 before his twentieth year at least. We are inclined to i^ut his birth 
 certainly not later than 1 5 1 5, making him, at least, seventy when he died. 
 
 1 A. Wood, Atlience Oxoniensis, ed. Bliss, vol. i. p. 507. " There is no 
 doubt," says the Rev. Henry Anstey, " that the boys, as a rule, resorted 
 to the university at a very early age, earlier, probably, than is usually 
 supposed ; and yet there appears to have been no statutable limit as to 
 age, so that it may be assumed as certain that, while the majority would 
 go from the age of ten to twelve years {i.e. supposing them to commence 
 their education at Oxford, of which more will be said shortly), there 
 would be found also a large number of more mature age" (Introduction 
 to Mimimenta Academica (Roll Series), Part I. p. Ivii.). 
 
 2 See page 89 ante. 
 
 3 " Every religious house had, it would ajapear, its own schools, in
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 163 
 
 his degree in arts, and that after the course, generally 
 three years, he returned to Evesham and took the 
 habit and was professed.^ That he probably returned 
 to Oxford after profession seems certain ; for, says 
 Anthony a, Wood, "I find him there in 1537, in 
 which year he subscribed, by the name of John 
 Feckenham, to a certain composition then made 
 between Rob. Joseph, prior of the said college, and 
 twenty-nine students thereof on one part (of which 
 number Feckenham was one of the senior), and three 
 of the senior beadles of the university on the other." ^ 
 It must have been shortly after June 1539 that he 
 returned to Evesham, where he was set to teach the 
 junior monks, and was perhaps engaged in this 
 work when the suppression came. For this much 
 we know, that in October 153S he supplicated for 
 
 which its members performed all their academical exercises previous to 
 inception. . . . Each such religious house had a school for every ^iH-j-^oic, 
 grammar as well as the higher faculties, to a great extent independent 
 of the university, and yet a part of it, and subject to its general regula- 
 tions and partaking of its privileges" (Munimenta Academica, p. Ixii.). 
 
 1 In the life of Eichard of Wallingford, abbat of St. Alljans, we 
 get a similar picture, which throws light on the subject. "When 
 hardly ten years old he lost his father, and soon after was, on account 
 of his docility and promise, adopted as a son by William of Kirkby, 
 prior of Wallingford, of good memory. Helped by his alms, he learnt 
 grammar and philosophy at Oxford for about six years, and taking 
 his degree in arts, according to the custom, in the twentieth year of 
 his age he bade adieu to the world, and devoutly received the monastic 
 habit in this monastery of St. Albans. After having been exercised 
 for three years in the religious life, he was then sent to Oxford for 
 the study of letters . . . where he spent nine whole years in philosojDhy 
 and theology ... so that he was promoted to read the sentences " 
 (Gesta Ahhatum (Roll Series), vol. ii. p. 182). 
 
 ^ AthencB Oxoniensis, ed. Bliss, vol. i. p. 507.
 
 i64 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 the degree of "Bachelor of Divinity, and took it 
 June II, 1539.' 
 
 Clement Lichfield, whose noble gateway is the 
 only vestige left of the great monastery of Evesham, 
 had been his first abbat. What sort of man he was 
 appears from the report of the royal commissioners, 
 who say he was " chaste in his living and to right 
 well overlook the reparations of his house " ; in other 
 words, a good monk and a good administrator. The 
 reformer, Latimer, who was bishop of the diocese, 
 calls him a "bloody abbat," the evident animus and 
 certain vagueness of which may be taken as praise. 
 There was no chance of getting such a man to sur- 
 render his abbey, so the only thing was to force 
 him to resign his charge and to place in his stead 
 a more pliable man. From a letter of March 17, 
 1538, written to Cromwell by William Petre, the 
 commissioner, we see how it was done. 
 
 " According to your commandment I have been 
 at Evesham, and there received the resignation of 
 the abbat, which he was contented to make imme- 
 diately upon the sight of your lordship's letters, 
 saving that he desired me very instantly that I would 
 not open the same during the time of my being 
 here, because, as he said, it would be noted that 
 he was compelled to resign for fear of deprivation." ^ 
 
 The abbat bowed to force majeure and left his 
 monastery. He was promptly succeeded by Philip 
 
 1 Boase, Register of the University of Oxford, vol. i. p. 192. 
 
 2 T. Wright, Three Chapters of Letters (Camden Soc), p. 177.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 165 
 
 Harford, " a true friend," ^ who surrendered ' the 
 abbey to the king on January 27, 1540, and was 
 rewarded with a pension of ;^240 a year,^ which he 
 lost when he was made dean of Worcester on the 
 suppression of that monastic chapter. On the 
 pension-list appears the name of John Fecknara, 
 with a pension of 15 marks (p/"io) per annum. As 
 the general pension for the younger monks was 10 
 marks, Fecknam was doubtlessly awarded the larger 
 sum on account of his university degree. He went 
 back to Gloucester Hall to continue his studies, 
 but not for long, for the bishop of Worcester, John 
 Bell, inviting him to become his chaplain, he 
 entered his service until the bishop resigned in 
 1543.^ He afterwards joined Edmund Bonner, the 
 bishop of London; and stayed with him till 1549, 
 when he was committed a prisoner to the Tower of 
 London. It must have been w^hile living in Loudon 
 that Fecknam received the living of Solihull, and 
 
 ^ Latimer to Cromwell. E. 0. Crum. Corr. XLIX., 42, quoted by 
 D. Gasquet, vol. ii. p. 310. 
 
 - Dom Gasquet points ovit that there is no deed of surrender and no 
 enrolment on the Close Roll (vol. ii. p. 310). 
 
 ^ Clement Lichfield had paid ^160 to the king for the restoration 
 of his temporalities, and besides had to make heavy loans both to the 
 king and to the cardinal. For a -whole year he had to put up twenty- 
 four of the royal household and provide for them and their horses. 
 But in spite of these drains on his purse he did not forget the house 
 of God. He added to the decoration of the choir and built chantries 
 in the parish churches of All Saints and St. Lawrence, in one of which 
 he lies buried. The memory of the " good abbat " remained for a long 
 time cherished by Evesham and its inhabitants. 
 
 * The Apostolatus, i. p. 233, which on the whole is first-rate authority, 
 is wrong here in giving the date of 1539 (Dugdale, vol. i. p. 578).
 
 i66 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 began to develop those oratorical powers for which 
 he became famous. His keen intellect made him 
 a formidable opponent in controversy with the re- 
 forming party ; and it was most likely some public 
 utterance of his that led to his first imprisonment. 
 This w^as the time when the new Liturgy of the 
 Book of Common Prayer was being forced upon 
 the country under heavy penalties. Home, later 
 on the protestant bishop of Winchester, used to 
 say that Fecknam was sent to the Tower because 
 he first promised and then refused to receive the 
 Sacrament after the new fashion. But Stapleton, 
 in the Counterhlast to M. Homes vayne blasts 
 agai7ist 31. Fekenham^ says, "The cause of his 
 imprisonment then, as I understand by such as 
 well knoweth the whole matter, was not about the 
 ministration of the Sacraments, but touching the 
 matter of Justification by only faith and the fast 
 of Lent ; like as it doth appear in the archbishop 
 of Canterbury's records, he being therefore, in a 
 solemn session holden at Lambeth Hall, convented 
 before M. Cranmer, then archbishop of Canter- 
 
 1 This book was really written by Nicholas Harpsfield, sometime 
 archdeacon of Canterbury, and a prisoner in the Tower from 1559 to 
 1575. Being himself a prisoner, it was not considered wise to bring 
 out the book under his own name. But the fact that he was a fellow- 
 prisoner with Fecknam at the A^ery time he wrote, makes the bio- 
 graphical part of an unimpeachable authority. It was written about 
 the year 1567-68, for the author says : " And God grant that Fecknam, 
 after seven years' imprisonment, may find so much humanity and 
 favour as he showed to others when he was in his prosperity." See 
 Steven's Addition to the Monasticon, vol. i. p. 89.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 167 
 
 buiy, and other commissioners appointed for that 
 matter. By the examination of the which records 
 you shall be convinced of your untruth and error 
 therein, as in all the rest, I doubt not, by God's 
 help."^ 
 
 While in prison, Sir Philip Hobbs, who had be- 
 come the owner by purchase of the abbey lands at 
 Evesham, remembered that the monk of Evesham, 
 for whom his estate was charged a pension, and 
 the famous disputant on the Catholic side were 
 identical. So, to use Fecknam's own words, he was 
 " borrowed out of prison " to hold disputations with 
 the new men. " But the very intent of the borrow- 
 ing of M. Fecknam for a time out of the Tower, 
 like as he said himself, was that he should dispute 
 reason, and have conference with certain learned 
 men touching matters of religion then in contro- 
 versie." " At seven of those exhibitions did he take 
 part. Such disputations were in much favour in 
 those days, and Fecknam was destined to have 
 frequent experience of them. The first was in the 
 house of the Earl of Bedford in the Savoy ; the next 
 at Westminster, in the house of Sir William Cecil, 
 afterwards the famous secretary of state ; ^ and the 
 third at White Friars, in the house of Sir John 
 Cheke, the Greek scholar, and the young king's 
 tutor. Fecknam was then taken down to the dio- 
 cese of Worcester, in which he was still a bene- 
 ficed clergyman, and had to appear with Hooper as 
 ^ p. 36. 2 iiij^ p_ 4 3 /5jy/. p. 36.
 
 1 68 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 his opponent in four disputations. For though he 
 had been imprisoned in the Tower he had not been 
 deprived of the living of Solihull, to which he had 
 been appointed in 1 544. The first of these disputa- 
 tions was at Pershore, where Hooper was on visita- 
 tion ; ^ the last in the cathedral church, when he had 
 as opponent, among others, John Jewel, afterwards 
 the bishop of Salisbury.^ 
 
 The disputations over, in which Fecknam, if he 
 failed to change the mind of his opponents, certainly 
 gave proof of his native charity and moderation, 
 he was again relegated to the Tower. There he 
 remained till Tuesday, September 5, 1553, when, 
 with the rest of the prisoners for conscience' sake 
 whom the new queen claimed as her own, he was 
 released. By Sunday the 24th of that same month 
 he was back in the pulpit again. According to 
 Machyn, " the xxiiii day of September did preach 
 master doctor Fecknam at Paul's Cross, the Sun- 
 day afore the queen's coronation." ^ He returned 
 to Bonner as chaplain, and was made a preben- 
 dary of St. Paul's 1554. Preferment came to him 
 rapidly. Nominated rector of Finchley on June 10, 
 on September 23 he was transferred to the better 
 living of Greenford Magna, and now resigned the 
 
 1 Stapleton says : " The said M. Hooper was so answered by M. 
 Fecknam that there was good cause why he should be satisfied, and 
 M. Fecknam dismissed from his trouble" (p. 2>7)- 
 
 2 Ihid. Stapleton's account is the source of the account given in the 
 Apostolatus, i. p. 234. 
 
 ^ Machyn's Diary, p. 44.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 169 
 
 living of Solihull. Meanwhile the queen made 
 him one of her chaplains and her confessor, and he 
 had received the appointment of dean of St. Paul's 
 on March 10 of that same year. The date of his 
 installation does not appear ; but he preached at 
 the Cross as dean in the following November 25.^ 
 But his talents as a disputant were also called into 
 requisition. In the April he was down at Oxford 
 disputing with much charity and mildness against 
 Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley. John Fecknam 
 had no sympathy with the ferocious measures that 
 were being enforced against the innovators, nor 
 in the application to them of the already existing 
 laws. He did not believe in making men Catholics 
 
 1 Ihid. Fecknam seems to have been the popular preacher of his day 
 and a great favourite witli Machyn, who mentions him as preaching 
 twice on November 5, 1553 — once at St. Stephen's, Walbrook, and 
 once at St. Mary's, Overy ; he was again at Walbrook on the 19th, 
 where he "made the goodliest sermon that was ever heard of the 
 blessed sacrament of the Body and Blood for to be after the consecra- 
 tion" (p. 48). One of his sermons, in November 1554, seems to have 
 given offence to the Council, for in the Acts of the Privy Council of 
 England, new series (vol. v. p. 35), we read: "At AYestminster, the 
 xxix of November 1554, Mr. Fekenham, dean of Paul's, being com- 
 manded by the Lords this day to inake his appearance before them, 
 did accordingly appear and exhibited the same day the sermon he 
 made at Paul's on Sunday last in writing, which he was also com- 
 manded to bring with him." This sermon, Machyn says (p. 76), was 
 " a godly sermon." It probably was one recommending mild measures 
 with those opposed to the Catholic Church. Later on, as abbat, we 
 find him on June 20, 1 557, preaching at Paul's Cross, where he occupied 
 the ]uilpit again on Novemljer 21, and on the following March 6 ; in 
 his own abbey church on April 5 and on August 4, at the requiem 
 mass held for one of the two widows Henry VIII. left behind him to 
 lament his loss.
 
 I70 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 by force ; and if he had to take part in the disputa- 
 tions then in fashion, it was from a sincere desire 
 to prove the truth to the unhappy prisoners and re- 
 concile them to the church they had deserted. Nor 
 did he neglect to use his influence on their behalf ; 
 for, as Fuller says, "He was very gracious with the 
 queen, and effectually laid out all his interest with 
 her (sometimes even to offend her, but never to 
 injure her) to procure pardon of the faults, or mitiga- 
 tion of the punishment for poor protestants/ The 
 earls of Bedford and Leicester received great kind- 
 ness from him ; and his old friend, Sir John Cheke, 
 owed his life to Fecknam's personal interest with 
 the queen. He took up the cause of the unfortu- 
 nate Lady Jane Dudley, and remonstrated with the 
 queen and Gardiner upon the policy of putting her 
 to death. He visited the poor young girl in prison ; 
 and though unsuccessful in removing the prejudices 
 of her early education, he was able to help her to 
 accept with resignation the fate that awaited her. 
 Neither did he forsake the hapless lady until she 
 paid by death the penalty of her father-in-law's 
 treason and her own share therein (1554). When 
 the princess Elizabeth was sent to the Tower (March 
 18, 1554) for her supposed part in Sir Thomas 
 Wyatt's rebellion (on account of the proposed 
 Spanish match), Fecknam, just then elected dean, 
 interceded so earnestly for her release that Mary, 
 who was convinced of her sister's guilt or at any 
 
 1 Worthies of England, ed. 1811, vol. ii. p. 477.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 171 
 
 rate of her insincerity, showed for some time her 
 displeasure with him. But Ehzabeth's life was 
 spared ; and she was released mainly by his impor- 
 tunity, after two months' imprisonment.^ 
 
 In her proposed restoration of the Catholic Church 
 to its former state, Mary found zealous helpers, not 
 only in Fecknam, but in other benedictines. Bishop 
 Thornton, once a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, 
 suffragan to the archbishop, was the first to restore 
 the mass in that cathedral. Six benedictine bishops 
 altogether took part in the revival.^ But the queen's 
 
 1 Fuller, T/ie Church Historij of Britain, vol. v. p. 95 (ed. Oxford). 
 Later on, when, abbat, Machyn tells us that in 1557, on " the xii dny of 
 Novemljer, there was a post set up in Smithfield for three that should 
 have been burnt, butt (0 both wood and coal ; and my lord abbat of 
 Westminster came to Newgate and talked with them and so they were 
 stayed for that day of burning" (p. 157). 
 
 '^ Of these benedictine bishops, Wharton, abbat of Bermondsey, was 
 made bishop of Hereford March 17, 1554; John Holyman, a monk 
 of Reading, was made bishop of Bristol November 1 8 in the same year. 
 Four others, Salcot of Salisbury, Chambers of Peterborough, the above- 
 mentioned Thornton of Dover, and Kitchin of Landaff, had fallen 
 into schism but were reconciled by Pole and reinstated in their sees. 
 Chambers died in 1556, Thornton and Salcot in 1557, Wharton and 
 Holyman in 1558. Anthony Kitchin, whose name in religion was 
 Dunstan, had been a monk of Westminster and became prior of 
 Gloucester Hall, and abbat of Eynsham in 1536. He acknowledged the 
 king's supremacy August 10, 1534, and surrendered his abbey to the 
 king December 4, 1538. He received a pension of ^133, 6s. 8d., and 
 became one of the king's chaplains ; was elected bishop of Llandaff 
 March 26, 1545, and consecrated the following May. He was unfor- 
 tunately the only one of the Catholic prelates who fell away under 
 Elizabeth, and so kept possession of his see, of which in after years he 
 was called "the Calamity." But there were certain lengths he would 
 not go to ; he absolutely refused to have anything to do with the 
 foundation of the Anglican Succession. He died, aged ninety, on 
 October 31, 1565.
 
 172 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 wish was to restore to the monks some at least of 
 then* houses. 
 
 And here we are able, from the Venetian State 
 Papers of the period, to trace the steps of the 
 restoration of Westminster abbey. On March 19, 
 1555, the Venetian ambassador, Giovanni Michiel, 
 writes to the doge and senate : — 
 
 " The queen is intent on its augmentation {the 
 Church) and diffusion here, having sent for many 
 English friars of the orders of St. Dominic and St. 
 Francis, who, to escape the past persecutions, with- 
 drew beyond the seas and lived in poverty in 
 Flanders, in order to give them monasteries and the 
 means of subsistence ; and they, showing themselves 
 in public everywhere, are tolerably well received and 
 kindly treated. Sixteen benedictine monks have 
 also resumed the habit and returned to the order 
 spontaneously, although they were able to live and 
 had lived out of it much at ease and liberty, there 
 being included among them the dean of St. Paul's 
 {Fecknam), who has a wealthy revenue of well-nigh 
 2000 (?) ; notwithstanding which they have re- 
 nounced all their temporal possessions and conveni- 
 ences, and press for readmission into one of their 
 monasteries. The entire sixteen last week appeared 
 in their habits before the queen, who from joy, 
 immediately on seeing them, could not refrain from 
 shedding tears ; and for [the adjustment of] this 
 matter she has appointed six of the leading mem- 
 bers of the council, including the chancellor, the
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABB AT 173 
 
 treasurer, the comptroller, and secretary Petre, so 
 that, together with the legate, they may according 
 to their judgment decide what is most fitting and 
 beneficial for the realm, both about these monas- 
 teries and all the Church property in possession of 
 the Crown. Her Majesty wishes it to be entirely 
 restored to those who were deprived of it, should 
 any of the original possessors be alive." ^ 
 
 Already we see that as early, then, as March 1555 
 some benedictines, with Fecknam, had resumed their 
 habit, although as yet they had no house. The queen 
 had some difficulty in getting her husband to consent 
 to her project of a bill passed to allow her to give 
 back such abbey lands as were vested in the Crown ; 
 for by this she was giving up an income of some 
 ^60,000 a year. Parliament, after considerable 
 opposition, did pass in the following Oct.ober a bill 
 legalising the renunciation. But there was the 
 secular chapter at Westminster to be removed, and 
 they were not willing to go. Promotion was given 
 to the dean, and the interests of the others were 
 duly looked after.^ Pole also had to make his 
 arrangements. Himself the protector of the Cas- 
 sinese benedictine congregation, he was determined 
 that the home at Westminster should be refounded 
 on the Italian model. Fearing commendam, he de- 
 
 1 Calendar of Venetian State Papers, vol. vi. No. 32. 
 
 ^ There is a Ijoud for ^^30 between the abbat and a Spanish canon, 
 by which the abbat, " as well as any other person to whom the said 
 monastery should come," is bound to pay. See Bradley's Illustrations 
 of Westminster Ahhey, p. 163.
 
 174 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 cided that the abbat was to be appointed only for 
 three years, no conge cVelire was to be required for 
 his election, neither w^as the royal confirmation to be 
 sought for. Pole sent for monks from Italy, whom 
 he intended to introduce the more rigid discipline 
 of the continental houses, and took advantage of 
 two " father visitors " the Cassinese had sent into 
 Spain, for purposes of their own, to ask that they 
 might come on to England. Pole writes to the 
 president of the Cassinese congregation under date 
 of February (1556?) that he was anxiously expect- 
 ing the arrival from Spain of the " father visitors," 
 as he hoped they would render good service for the 
 restoration of the monastery which is about to be 
 effected.^ 
 
 The royal consent to the restoration was given 
 in a deed signed by Philip and Mary at Croydon 
 on September 7, 1656, and Fecknam was appointed 
 abbat. Not only was he the most prominent man 
 of his order then in England, but his praise was in 
 every one's mouth. In another letter, written by 
 the Venetian ambassador on September 28, 1556, 
 he says : — 
 
 "The queen, thank God, continues in her good 
 plight, rejoicing to see the monks of St. Benet return 
 to their old abbey of Westminster, into which the 
 canons having been removed, they in God's name 
 will make their entry to-morrow — and this will be 
 the third monastery and order of regulars, besides 
 
 1 Cal V.S.P., vol. vi. No. 403.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABB AT 175 
 
 one of nuns, which has hitherto been re-established, 
 to whom will soon be added the fourth of the 
 Carthusians [at Sheen], who have already made their 
 appearance." ^ 
 
 Once more, then, in possession by the end of 
 September 1556, the house had to be got into 
 order and some restorations made before the monks 
 could enter. Dean Stanley says " the great refec- 
 tory was pulled down," and " the smaller dormitory 
 was cleared away," and other conventual buildings 
 either destroyed or adapted to other uses.^ To make 
 all straight would necessarily take time ; and it was 
 not till 2 1st November that they began their regular 
 life. Machyn in his quaint style relates the event. 
 
 "The same day (21st of November) was the new 
 abbat of Westminster put in, Doctor Fecknam, late 
 dean of Paul's, and xiv more monks sworn in. And 
 the morrow after, the lord abbat with his convent 
 went a procession after the old fashion, in their 
 monks' weeds, in cowls of black saye, with his 
 vergers carrying his silver-rod in their hands ; at 
 evensong time the vergers went through the cloisters 
 to the abbat, and so went into the church afore the 
 high altar, and there my lord kneeled down and his 
 convent ; and after his prayer was made was brought 
 into the choir with the vergers, and so into his 
 
 1 Gal. V.S.P., vol. vi. No. 634. The dominicans were refounded 
 at Smithfield, the franciscans at Greenwich, the bridgettines at Syon 
 House, the carthnsians at Sheen, the hospitallers at Clerkenwell, and a 
 hospital at the Savoy. 
 
 - Historical Memorials of Westminster Abhey, fifth edition, p. 398.
 
 176 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 place, and presently he began evensong xxii day of 
 the same month that was St. Clement's Even last." ^ 
 Michel in his account mentions *' as many as 
 sixteen " having taken the habit on that day, it was 
 a very beautiful sight most agreeable to those who 
 witnessed it." ^ 
 
 A few days after, the abbat was installed amidst 
 a large assemblage of the English Church. 
 
 " On the 29th day, at Westminster abbey, was the 
 lord abbat stalled and did wear a mitre. The lord 
 cardinal was there and many bishops, and the lord 
 treasurer and a great company. The lord chancellor 
 sang mass, and the abbat made the sermon." * 
 
 Fecknam had lost no time in setting his house 
 in order, in receiving others to the habit,^ and in 
 vindicating the privileges belonging to his venerable 
 church. On the feast of St. Nicholas (December 6) 
 our gossiping diarist tells us : — 
 
 "The abbat went on procession with his convent ; 
 
 1 Machyn's Diary (Camden Society), pp. ii8, 119. A date always 
 celebrated by English benedictines as the Dies memorabilis, on account 
 of the many important events which have taken place on this date. 
 
 2 There seems to be some mistake about the number. Writing a few 
 days after (December i), he says : "Yesterday . . . the twenty-six 
 monks and their abbat made a fine show and procession." The com- 
 munity seem to have numbered in reality some twenty-eight. 
 
 3 Cal. V.S.P., vol. vi. No. 723. 
 ^ Machyn, pp. 119, 120. 
 
 5 Owing to the present difficulty of obtaining access to the West- 
 minster abbey records, it is not possible to identify all the monks of 
 Westminster. But the principal interest centres round D. Sigebert 
 Buckley, who passed on the benedictine succession nearly fifty years 
 afterwards.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 177 
 
 before him went all the sanctuary men with cross 
 keys on their garments ; and after went three for 
 murder ; one was the Lord Dacre, son of the North, 
 who was whipt with a sheet about [him for] killing 
 of one Master West, squire, dwelling beside . . ." 
 Another finding shelter was one of the abbey boys 
 — " a boy [that] killed a big boy that sold papers 
 and printed books, [with] hurling of a stone, and 
 hit him under the ear in Westminster Hall ; the 
 boy was one of the children that was [at the] school 
 there in the abbey ; the boy is a hosier's son above 
 London stone." ' 
 
 The queen was not long in paying the monks 
 a visit. Giovanni Michiel writes, December 21, 
 
 1556:— 
 
 " Yesterday, St. Thomas' eve, the queen, before 
 her departure for Greenwich, which will take place 
 to-morrow, chose to see the benedictine monks in 
 their habits in the abbey of Westminster, whither 
 she went to vespers, being received in state by them 
 and their abbat, twenty-eight in number, all men of 
 mature age, the youngest being upwards of forty, 
 and all endowed with learning and piety, as proved 
 by their renunciation of the many conveniences of 
 life ; the poorest having a fixed annual rental of 
 500 crowns, besides ready money, and some 1500, 
 besides the abbat, who had upwards of [2000?], 
 and was dean of St. Paul's, which after that of 
 the bishops is the chief dignity of the English 
 
 * Ibid. p. 121. 
 VOL. I. M
 
 178 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 clergy. Words cannot express how much this re- 
 joiced the legate, who is already preparing another 
 monastery for the regular canons who are coming 
 shortly."' 
 
 Besides his duties as abbat and constantly preach- 
 ing, we find him giving time and money to beauti- 
 fying his church. On January 5, 1557, he began to 
 set up St. Edward's shrine again and the altar with 
 divers jewels that the queen sent hither.^ While on 
 the following 20th of March, says Machyn : — 
 
 " The XX of March was taken up at Westminster 
 again with a hundred lights, King Edward the Con- 
 fessor in the same place where his shrine was, and 
 it shall be set up again as fast as my lord abbat 
 can have it done, for it was a godly sight to have 
 seen it how reverently he was carried from the place 
 that he was taken up, where he was laid when that 
 abbey was spoiled and robbed, and so he was carried 
 and goodly singing and censing as has been seen, and 
 mass sung." ^ 
 
 Machyn dearly loved a function. 
 
 Fecknam was a lover of the old customs, and did 
 not forget the benedictine spirit of hospitality. One 
 more extract from Machyn must be allowed, for the 
 sake of the glimpse it gives of the geniality of his 
 
 1 Cal. V.S.P., vol. vi. p. 2, No. 771. Priuli writes to Beccatello, 
 December 15, 1556, in the same strain, and gives the same number. 
 According to him they were "tutte persone benissimo qualificate 
 di dottrina e di gran pieta." See the letter in Tierney, vol. ii. 
 p. ccxxiii. 
 
 2 Bradley, p. 166. ^ P. 130.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 179 
 
 rule. On March 21, 1558, the feast of St. Benedict, 
 was held the traditional festivity connected with 
 the making of the gigantic paschal candle for 
 the approaching Easter, "xxi day of March was 
 paschal for the abbey of A\^estminster, made there 
 the weight of 300 lbs. of wax : and there was the 
 master and the wardens of the wax-chandlers with 
 twenty more at the making, and after, a great 
 dinner." ^ Evidently the head of the trade-gild of 
 chandlers took a representative part in the day's 
 doings, and shared, too, in the great dinner. There 
 is a touch of fellowship between the abbey and the 
 gild which tells of the good feeling of earlier days, 
 and which the "great dinner" would, no doubt, 
 more anglico, help to knit up again, if not increase. 
 
 Fecknam, while thus fulfilling the duties of his 
 hish charge, had also to attend Parliament as a 
 mitred abbat of the realm. The rights of sanctuary 
 at his abbey were being questioned, and the Speaker 
 of the House of Commons called on the abbat to 
 produce the proofs of the privilege. *' Accordingly 
 on Saturday the nth of February [1557] came the 
 abbat, accompanied with no council learned, but 
 only with one monk attending on him, bearing 
 two old muniments — the one whereof was the charter 
 of sanctuary granted to the house of Westminster 
 by King Edward, the saint ; the other the confirma- 
 tion of the same charter ... by Pope John." *' He 
 begged the house, if he had no other instruments to 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 169.
 
 i8o THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 show/ they would not thereby take advantage, but 
 impute it to the iniquity of the times wherein they 
 were perished, declaring how, as by a miracle, these 
 were preserved, being found by a servant of my lord 
 cardinal's in a child's hand playing with them in 
 the street." '^ 
 
 Westminster being thus restored, the hope of the 
 monks ran high that other houses, too, would be 
 reopened. There seems to have been a project for 
 restoring one of the Canterbury houses. Cardinal 
 Pole writes from Croydon on the 28th May 1557, 
 to the abbat of St. Paul's, Rome, saying : " Your 
 paternity will perhaps have heard that the affairs of 
 St. Peter's monastery go on well, and thus by God's 
 grace they still continue proceeding from good to 
 better ; and I am not indeed without hope that one 
 of the two monasteries at my church of Canterbury 
 may soon be restored.^ 
 
 Abbat Fecknam was zealous for the restoration of 
 other houses of his order, and used his influence on 
 their behalf both with the cardinal and the queen, 
 as is clear from the following petition of four 
 Glastonbury monks, then at Westminster : — * 
 
 1 Bradley, p. 170. Miss Bradley gives no references to all these 
 statements, and it has been a cause of ceaseless trouble to identify them, 
 a task not always successful. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 171. 
 
 3 Gal. V.S.P., vol. vi. p. 904, note. 
 
 * This letter was probably written after Pole's letter to the abbat of 
 St. Paul's and before the end of the year which found Philip soon back 
 to the continent.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT i8i 
 
 " To the Rt. Uonble. Lord Chamberlain to the 
 Queen's Majesty. 
 
 "Right Honourable, in our most humble wise 
 your lordship's daily beadsmen, some time of the 
 house of Glastonbury, now here, monks in West- 
 minster, with all due submission we desire your 
 honour to extend your accustomed virtue, as it hath 
 been always heretofore prepense to the honour of 
 Almighty God, to the honourable service of the 
 king and queen's majesties, so it may please your 
 good lordship again, for the honour of them, both 
 of God and of their majesties, to put the queen's 
 highness in remembrance of her gracious promise 
 concerning the erection of the late monastery of 
 Glastonbury, which promise of her grace hath been 
 so by her majesty declared that upon the same, we 
 your lordship's daily beadsmen, understanding my 
 lord cardinal's grace's pleasure to the same by the 
 procurement here of our reverend father abbat, 
 have gotten out the particulars ; and through a 
 warrant from my lord treasurer, our friends that 
 have builded and bestowed much upon reparation : 
 notwithstanding all now stands at a stay. We 
 think the case to be want of remembrance, which 
 cannot be so well brought unto her majesty's under- 
 standing as by your honourable lordship's favour 
 and help. And considering your lordship's most 
 godly disposition, we have a confidence thereof to 
 solicit the same, assuring your lordship of our daily
 
 i82 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 prayer while we live, and of our successors' during 
 the world, if it may so please your lordship to take 
 it in hand. 
 
 " We ask nothing in gift to the foundation, but 
 only the house and site, the residue for the accus- 
 tomed rent, so that with our labour and husbandry 
 we may live there a few of us in our religious habits, 
 till the charity of good people may suffice a greater 
 number ; and the country there being so affected to 
 our religion, we believe we should find much help 
 among them towards the reparations and furniture 
 of the same, whereby we would haply prevent the 
 ruin of much, and repair no little part of the whole 
 to God's honour and for the better prosperity of the 
 king's and queen's majesties, with the whole realm. 
 For doubtless, if it shall please your good lordship 
 if there hath ever been any flagitious deed since the 
 creation of the world punished with the plague of 
 God, in our opinion the overthrow of Glastonbury 
 may be compared with the same, not surrendered as 
 other [abbeys] but extorted ; the abbat preposter- 
 ously put to death with two innocent virtuous 
 monks with him ; that if the thing were to be 
 scanned by any university or some learned council 
 in divinity, they would find it more dangerous than 
 is commonly taken ; which might move the queen's 
 majesty to the more speedy erection ; namely, it 
 being a home of such antiquity and fame through 
 all Christendom, first begun by St. Joseph of Arima- 
 thea, who took down the dead body of our saviour
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 183 
 
 Christ from the cross and lieth buried in Glaston- 
 bury. And him most heartily we beseech to pray 
 unto Christ for good success unto your honourable 
 lordship in all your lordship's affairs, and now 
 specially in this our most humble request that we 
 may shortly do the same in Glaston ^ for the king 
 and the queen's majesties as our founders and for 
 your lordship as a regular benefactor. 
 
 " Your lordship's daily beadsmen of Westminster. 
 
 "John Phagan. 
 John Neott. 
 William Adelwold. 
 William Kentwyn."^ 
 
 1 The restoration of Glastonbury to En.dish monks is, we hope, only 
 deferred. The prayers of the martyred abbat ^Vhiting, now beatified, 
 must plead strongly for the restoration of his house to his own brethren. 
 After the dissolution, several of the old monks remained in the neigh- 
 bourhood. One, D. Austin Tlingwode (died in the odour of sanctity in 
 1 587), had not the heart to tear himself away from the home round which 
 so many gracious memories clung. He dwelt in a little cottage hard 
 by, where in poverty and solitude he kept his rule as strictly as if he 
 had been in his cell. His days were passed in prayer, in fastings and 
 vigils for his unhappy country. The country folk said the old man 
 saw visions and had the gift of prophecy, and they tell that he said : 
 " The abbey will one day be repaired and rebuilt for the like worship 
 which has ceased, and then peace and plenty will for a long time 
 abound " (Lee's Church under Queen Elizabeth, vol. i. p. 216). D. Austin 
 Ring^vode's name does not appear on the pension list. Some of the 
 relics which had been venerated for centuries at Glastonbury were 
 secured by the monks at the time of the dissolution, and have been 
 handed down from generation to generation. One most valuable one, 
 " The Holy Thorn " — a thorn from the crown of thorns — is now vene- 
 rated at St. Mary's abbey, Stanbrook, in a chapel built for the purpose. 
 
 2 Dugdale, vol. i. p. 9. These names do not appear on the pension 
 list of Glastonbury, which bears their surnames. The signatures here 
 give their names in religion.
 
 i84 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 St. Albans was also to be restored. The former 
 abbat, Richard Boreman or Stevenage, had remained 
 in the neighbourhood and hoped one day to see his 
 house reopened. To his great joy, consent was given 
 to his prayer. This must have been late in 1558; 
 for Mary died before anything could be done. And 
 for very grief the abbat took to his bed and died 
 two weeks after of a broken heart. ^ 
 
 Mary died on the morning of Nov. 17, 1558, and 
 on the same day cardinal Pole breathed his last 
 at Lambeth.^ The prospects of the Church were 
 gloomy and uncertain ; for although Elizabeth had 
 not begun to disclose her hand, yet what was known 
 of her did not warrant any hopeful future. Mary's 
 funeral rites were duly solemnised, and Fecknam 
 preached one of the funeral sermons,^ and White, 
 bishop of Winchester, the other. 
 
 The new queen took umbrage at the bishop's 
 sermon, and ordered him to be confined to his own 
 house. She soon began to show the direction of 
 her policy. Perhaps it is wrong to say she was 
 herself personally in favour of the reformation as 
 a religious movement ; but policy forced her into a 
 position which could only be preserved, as things 
 
 1 Dugdale, vol. ii. p. 207. 
 
 2 There have been all sorts of statements about the date of Pole's 
 death, some placing it on the 19th. But all doubt is now set aside by 
 a letter from Priuli to his brother in Venice : "On the 17th instant, 
 seven hours after midnight, the queen passed from this life, and my 
 most reverend lord followed her at seven o'clock on the evening of 
 the same day" (Gal. V.S.P., vi. n. 1287-1292). 
 
 ' MS. Cott. Vesp. D. xviii. fol. 92.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 185 
 
 then seemed to stand, by cutting England off once 
 more from the centre of Unity, and by rejecting the 
 cardinal point of Catholic worship, the mass.^ But 
 still she had a liking rather than otherwise for 
 such of the outward forms of Catholicism, and 
 even of its discipline, as were compatible with her 
 own supremacy. She had no sympathy with the 
 iconoclastic rage of the Puritan party, who were 
 now struggling for the upper hand.^ Besides 
 
 1 Paul IV. it seems refused to recognise her, which of course he could 
 have done witliout any reference to the matter of her father's divorce ; 
 for there was no (question of legitimate birth, but of the fact, that by 
 law and the will of her father, as well as by the acceptance of the 
 nation, she succeeded. Then again Henry II. of France had lately 
 ordered the arras of England to be quartered with those of Scotland 
 upon the marriage of his son with Mary Stuart ; and Elizabeth's 
 advisers convinced the queen that this was a direct questioning of her 
 title, as Mary Stuart was by legitimate birth the heiress to the English 
 throne. All this made the queen determined at any cost to secure her 
 position. 
 
 '^ In her own private chapel Elizabeth kept many of the ornaments 
 of Catholic usages. "The altar was furnished witli rich plate, two 
 fair gilt candlesticks with tapers in them and a massy crucifix of 
 silver in the midst thereof " (Ileylin, p. 296). " She had lionourable 
 sentiments of the use of the cross, of the blessed virgin and other 
 saints, and never mentioned them without regard and reverence" 
 (Collier, vol. ii. p. 412). In fine, she was so fixed in this practice that all 
 Parker's " learning and zeal could not persuade her to part with the 
 crucifix and lighted tapers in her own closet. She thought, 'tis likely, 
 that the arguing against the use, from the abuse, was short of an exact 
 reasoning" {ibid. p. 435). Her Catholic instinct also revolted against 
 the idea of a married clergy, which she only tolerated as the surest 
 method of alienating them from tlie pope. Parker writes to Cecil, and 
 reports some speeches uttered to him by the queen against the marriage 
 of the clergy : " I was in a horror," says he, " to hear such words 
 to come from her mild nature and Christianly learned conscience, 
 as she spake concerning God's holy ordinance and institution of 
 matrimony. . . . Insomuch that the queen's highness expressed to me a
 
 i86 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 intending to preserve such a hierarchy as she 
 could (Providence arranging that matter), she also 
 wanted, as we shall see, to keep at least "West- 
 minster as a monastery, if such an institution could 
 find place in her scheme of religion. This, in view 
 of her strong and ineradicable notions as to the 
 marriage of the clergy, seems to be the most likely 
 explanation of her sending for the abbat of West- 
 minster at a very early period of her reign. But 
 Fecknam, whatever the nature of the private inter- 
 view may have been, could not enter into her 
 measures, for the proposal meant treason to his con- 
 science. It is said she even tried to bribe him to 
 come over to her side by the promise of the vacant 
 archbishopric of Canterbury. But all was in vain.^ 
 
 The new Parliament opened ominously for the 
 monks. The queen assisted at the usual mass of the 
 Holy Ghost in the abbey on the 25 th of January. 
 *' On arriving at Westminster abbey, the abbat, 
 
 repentance that we were thus appointed in office, wishing it had been 
 otherwise, which inclination being known at large to queen Marie's 
 clergy they laugh prettily, to see how the clergy of our time is handled, 
 and what equity of law is ministered to our sort. But by patience 
 and silence we pass over, &c., and leave all to God ; in the meantime we 
 have cause all to be utterly discomforted and discouraged " (Strype, 
 Life of Parker, Appendix, vol. iii. pp. 50, 51). 
 
 1 Fuller, Worthies of Englaml, vol. ii. p. 477. This interview was 
 most likely before her coronation, January 14th, or before the opening 
 of Parliament, January 25th ; for on that latter date the queen began 
 her course of reformation. According to the old custom, the abbat 
 of Westminster had some days previous to the coronation to wait on 
 the sovereign and ,^ive instructions upon the forthcoming ceremony. 
 See Missale IVestmon. (H.B.S.), p. 676.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 187 
 
 vested pontifically, with all his monks in procession, 
 each of them having a lighted torch in his hand, re- 
 ceived her as usual, giving her first of all incense and 
 holy water ; and when her majesty saw the monks 
 who accompanied her with the torches she said : 
 " Away with those torches, for we see very well ! " ^ 
 
 The various bills introduced for the recognition 
 of the queen's title (without any reference, however, 
 to the validity of the marriage of her mother, Anne 
 Boleyn) and the restoration of the first-fruits, the 
 all-important bills relating to the royal supremacy 
 and to the new liturgy, came before a house of 
 commons packed for the occasion, and a house of 
 lords which included only a few bishops, who, to- 
 gether with Fecknam, were left to defend the cause 
 of the Church.^ The abbat in a vigorous speech 
 opposed any changes in religion. He said — 
 
 " My good Lords, when in Queen Mary's days, 
 your honours do know right well how the people 
 of this realm did live in an order; and would not 
 run before laws nor openly disobey the queen's 
 
 1 Calendar of Venetian S.P., vol. vii. No. 15. 
 
 2 The state of the English hierarchy on Elizabeth's accession was 
 as follows : Six sees were vacant by death, viz. Canterlniry, Oxford, 
 Salisbury, Bangor, Gloucester, and Hereford ; although nominations 
 had been made to the five last, they were all set aside by the new 
 queen. Before the end of the year four more bishops died, Rochester, 
 Norwich, Chichester, and Bristol. When Parliament met on January 
 25, 1559, the bishops of Durham, Peterborough, Bath and Wells, and 
 St. Davids were absent, but hud appointed Heath of York their proxy. 
 Lincoln was ill ; Ely away on an embassy (but returned and took his 
 seat in April) ; St Asaphs was not summoned. So out of twt-nty-six 
 sees, only nine were present.
 
 i88 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 highness's proceeding and proclamation. There was 
 no spoiling of churches, pulling down of altars, and 
 most blasphemous treading down of sacraments 
 under their feet and hanging up the knave of clubs 
 in the place thereof. There was no skurching nor 
 cutting of the faces and legs of the crucifix and 
 image of Christ. There was no open flesh-eating, 
 nor shambles keeping in the Lent and days pro- 
 hibited. The subjects of this realm, and in especi- 
 ally the nobility and such as were of the honourable 
 council, did in queen Mary's days know the way 
 unto churches and chapels, there to begin their daily 
 work with calling for help and grace by humble 
 prayer and serving of God. And now since the 
 coming and reign of our most sovereign and dear 
 lady queen Elizabeth, by the only preachers and 
 scafi"old-players of this new religion all things are 
 turned upside down." ^ 
 
 Fecknam opposed in all their stages the bills ^ for 
 the supremacy and for the restoration to the crown 
 of the first-fruits, though he does not seem to 
 have been present in the house of lords during 
 the debates of April 26, 27, and 28, on the act of 
 Uniformity of Common Prayer and Service.^ 
 
 1 MS. Cott. Vesp. D. xviii. fol. 86. See also Strype's Annals, vol. i. 
 Part II. p. 436. 
 
 2 D'Ewes, Journals of all the Parliaments during the Reign of Queen 
 Elizabeth, p. 30. 
 
 3 Heath, archbishop of York, refers in his speech to the pope, Paul 
 IV., in terms which show that considerable irritation existed against 
 him personally, and only makes the pronouncement in regard to the
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABB AT 189 
 
 But before it was passed and the new liturgy 
 authorised, a public dispensation was appointed to 
 be held at the end of March, under the presi- 
 dency of Sir Francis Bacon. As the queen and 
 her ministers had arranged the meeting only as a 
 pretext for breaking down the opposition of the 
 bishops, and to secure their subsequent punishment, 
 Fecknam, although an acknowledged champion of 
 the Catholic Cause, when at the end he was called 
 upon by Bacon to take part, refused to do so. On 
 April 3rd the disputation broke up, and two of the 
 bishops, Lincoln and Winchester, were sent to the 
 Tower. Those of Lichfield, Chester, and Carlisle, 
 with three doctors who had taken part in it, were 
 otherwise punished. 
 
 In spite of the unanimous opposition of the 
 bishops, the act of the lloyal Supremacy was passed 
 and became law May 5, 1559. H Schifanoya writes 
 the next day to the castellan of Mantua : " Parlia- 
 
 pope as the centre of unity all tlie more remarkable. On this point 
 Heath is explicit. " If by this our relinquishing of the see of Rome, 
 there were none other matter therein than a withdrawing of our 
 obedience from the pope's person, Paul the fourth of that name, which 
 hath declared himself to be a very austere stern father unto us ever 
 since his first entrance into Peter's chair, then the cause were not 
 of such importance as it is ; as will inmiediately appear. For by 
 relinquishing and forsaking the church or see of Rome, we must 
 forsake and ily, first, from all general councils ; secondly, from all 
 canonical and ecclesiastical laws of the church of Christ ; thirdly, from 
 the judgment of all other christian princes ; fourthly and lastly, we 
 must forsake and ily from the holy unity of Christ's church, and so, 
 l)y leaping out of Peter's ship, we hazard ourselves to be overwhelmed 
 in the waves of schism, of sects and divisions" (Strype's Annals, I. 
 Appendix 8).
 
 I90 • THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 ment will rise this week, the two houses having 
 enacted that all the convents and monasteries of 
 friars, monks, nuns, and hospitallers of St. John 
 of Jerusalem, are to be suppressed as heretofore, 
 and all their religious to be expelled. Such of 
 them who will take the oath against the pon- 
 tifical authority, and approve of the new laws 
 abjuring their own professions, are to receive pen- 
 sions for their maintenance ; but the greater part 
 of them have left the kingdom in order not to 
 take such oaths. " ^ A week afterward he writes : 
 " Westminster abbey with the monks and the rest 
 of the monasteries and friaries will be appropri- 
 ated to the Crown, pensions being given to those 
 who will swear to and approve of the laws." ^ 
 
 Commissioners were appointed to administer the 
 oath ; refusal involved forfeiture of all benefice and 
 office, and disablement for any further promotion. 
 It is to be noted that the mere refusal of the oath 
 only incurred deprivation, not imprisonment, which 
 was illegal. It was an expedient for getting out of 
 office all opposers of the royal policy. But, after 
 thirty days of the passing of the act, script, or 
 word, or deed in defence of the newly abolished 
 papal supremacy, entailed for the first off'ence loss 
 of all property, for the second the penalties of 
 pre7nu7iire, and for the third death. Any active 
 opposition was thus punishable : but a simple 
 
 1 Gal. V.S P., vol. vii. No. 68. 
 
 2 Ibid. No. 71.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 191 
 
 passive refusal to accept the queen as supreme in 
 matters ecclesiastical was tolerated even after the 
 deprivation of the refuser. 
 
 The letters to the commissioners were signed 
 May 23, 1559. But they proceeded slowly, in the 
 hopes of winning over some/ By the end of the 
 year the oath had been offered to all the bishops, 
 who, with the exception of Kitchin, refused, and 
 were therefore deprived but were not as yet im- 
 prisoned. 
 
 During the time of the debates in Parliament on 
 the changes in religion, abbat Fecknam was quietly 
 going on at Westminster unmoved by the approach- 
 ing storm. He kept his soul in peace through it 
 all. He knew the consequences of his refusal of 
 the queen's offer, but let the evil of the day take 
 heed to itself. So he went on. The story goes 
 that he was engaged in planting elm trees in his 
 garden at Westminster when a message came to 
 tell him that a majority in the house of commons 
 had declared for the dissolution of all religious 
 houses,^ and remarked that he planted in vain, for 
 that he and his monks would soon have to go. 
 "Not in vain," replied the abbat. "Those that 
 
 1 How slowly they set to work is clear from the date of the depositions. 
 Bonner they disposed of that very month ; Lichfield, Chester, Carlisle, 
 Lincoln, Winchester, and Worcester in June ; York, St. Asaph, Ely, 
 in July ; Durham in September ; Bath and Peterborough in October ; 
 Exeter in November. When St. David's was voided is not known. 
 
 2 This was on April 29. The bill passed the Lords, May 5. See 
 Strype's Annals, I. (ed. Oxford), vol. i. Part I. p. 99.
 
 192 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 come after me may perhaps be scholars and lovers 
 of retirement, and whilst walking under the shades 
 of these trees they may sometimes think of the 
 olden religion of England, and the last abbat of 
 this place." And so he went on with his planting.^ 
 
 II Schifanoya, who was a Hantaan correspon- 
 dent, seemingly official, tells us hitherto unknown 
 details about the second dissolution of Westminster. 
 Writing on June 6, he says : — 
 
 "The poor bishop [Bonner] has taken sanctuary 
 at Westminster abbey to avoid molestation from 
 many persons who demand considerable sums of 
 money from him ; but the abbey cannot last long, 
 as the abbat made a similar reply [of refusal] when 
 it was offered him to remain securely in his abbey 
 with his habit and the monks, to live together as 
 they had done till now, provided that he would 
 celebrate in his church the divine offices and mass, 
 administering the sacraments in the same manner 
 as in the other churches of London, and that he 
 would take the oath like the other servants, officials, 
 pensioners, and dependents of the crown, and ac- 
 knowledge this establishment as from the hands of 
 her majesty. To these things the abbat would by 
 no means consent ; so after St. John's day, the term 
 fixed by Parliament for all persons to consent and 
 
 1 Fuller, Church History of Britain (ed. Oxford), vol. v. p. 96, says 
 tins took place soon after the accession. But Heyliu, Examen Histori- 
 cwm, p. 167, with much more probability, jjuts the story at the time 
 when the dissolution of the monastery was decreed.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 193 
 
 swear to all the statutes and laws or to lose what 
 they have, all of them will go about their business, 
 though no one can leave the kingdom." ^ 
 
 On the 27th of June he writes again: "Six or 
 eight bishops have been deprived not only of their 
 bishoprics but of all their other revenues, being 
 bound also not to depart from England, and not to 
 preach or exhort whatever in public or in private, 
 and still less to write anything against the orders 
 and statutes of this parliament ; nor [to give occa- 
 sion to] insurrection or any other scandalous act, 
 under pain of perpetual imprisonment ; [the queen's 
 ministers] demanding security and promise to be 
 given by one bishop for the other. . . . Yesterday 
 these good reverend fathers " underwent their depri- 
 vation, and received orders where they are to dwell, 
 before the council which assembled here in London 
 in the house of a sheriff for this purpose, they being 
 humble, abject, and habited like simple and poor 
 priests — a sight which would have grieved you. . . . 
 
 "The abbat of Westminster with all his monks did 
 the like, and are therefore deprived of the revenues of 
 the monastery and of all the rest of their property." ^ 
 
 Little time was now lost in putting into effect 
 the result of Fecknam's refusal. The end came 
 on July 12, 1559. The abbat and his monks were 
 
 1 Gal V.S.P., vol. vii. No. 78. 
 
 2 The six bishops were those of London, Worcester, Chester, Carlisle, 
 Lichfield, and Llandaff. Winchester and Lincoln were already in the 
 Tower. 
 
 3 Cal. V.S.P., vol. viii. No. 82. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 194 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 turned out, and Westminster knew the benedictines 
 no more. As they had refused to take the oath of 
 supremacy, they received no pensions, which were 
 only promised on that condition.^ 
 
 The day after, Fecknam and one John Moulton, 
 most likely one of the monks, raised the sum of 
 ^40, on what was evidently private plate, from Sir 
 Thomas Curtis, the same to be considered as a loan 
 if paid back before the feast of All Saints next.^ 
 
 A few days after the suppression, the com- 
 missioners appointed to survey, examine, and order 
 concerning the state of the late monastery, directed 
 the receivers to pay over to the abbat the sum of 
 ^374, 14s. 6d. for various considerations.^ 
 
 What became immediately of the abbat and his 
 monks we do not at present know ; but it is most 
 likely that, like the bishops, he received orders 
 where to dwell. 
 
 1 It is generally said by writers that the monks had pensions. There 
 is, we believe, no pension list extant, and the testimony of II Schifanoya, 
 quoted above, seems entirely to do away with any such idea. Perhaps 
 those who, like Fecknam, had been in receipt of pensions under Henry 
 YIII. now resumed those. This perhaps is likely the meaning of dean 
 Stanley's assertion, based on the chapter-book of 1569 (see Memorials, 
 p. 406, note), which book unfortunately, like the rest of the AVestminster 
 documents, is not accessible. 
 
 2 Historical MSS. Commission, Fourth Repoi-t, p. 178. 
 
 3 Ibid. This is the sum Miss Bradley (Dictionary of National Bio- 
 graphy, sub Feckenham) has evidently mistaken for a pension, and of 
 which she says Fecknam generously gave up a part to dean Bill. A 
 few years later he made over to the dean and chapter (with the hope 
 doubtlessly of a future return of England to the Church) certain ecclesi- 
 astical vestments and altar hangings specified in an inventory attached 
 to the deed of gift (April 4, fifth of Elizabeth).
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 195 
 
 But very soon it was considered to be injurious to 
 the new order of things that the bishops and abbat 
 should be at liberty. There had been, as yet, no com- 
 plaint of any overt act on their part against the new 
 statutes. But at the following Easter (1560) their 
 continued absence from the state worship was made 
 a cause for excommunicating and then imprisoning 
 them. This was the resolution taken by the queen 
 and her council: "The xx of May was sent to the 
 Tower master Fecknam, doctor Watson, late bishop 
 of Lincoln, and doctor Cole, late dean of Paul's, and 
 doctor Chadsay ; and at night about viii of the clock 
 was sent to the Fleet doctor Score, and master Feck- 
 nam, the last abbat of Westminster, to Tower." ^ 
 Parker,^ the new archbishop of Canterbury, it was 
 who sent the abbat to prison. 
 
 Of his life in the Tower we have gathered a few 
 particulars. He had to pay heavily for his food and 
 accommodation. The charges, for instance, in the 
 Fleet prison were then £1 a week for board and 
 the privilege of a single bed ; this sum, be it re- 
 
 ^ Machyn, p. 235. Jewel writes to Peter Martyr (May 22, 1560) : 
 *' Bonner, the monk Feckenham, [Dr.] Pate, [Dr.] Story the civilian, 
 and Watson [bishop of Lincoln] sent to prison for having obstinately 
 refused attendance on public worship, and everywhere declaiming and 
 railing against that religion which we now profess." And two years 
 {February 7, 1 562) after he again writes : " The ^Marian bishops are still 
 confined to the Tower, and are going on in their old way. If the laws 
 were but as rigorous now as in the time of Henry, they would submit 
 themselves without difficulty. They are an obstinate and i;ntamed 
 set of men, but are nevertheless subdued by terror and the sword." 
 Zurich Letters (Parker Society), First Series, pp. 79, loi. 
 
 ^ Stowe, An7ials nf the Reformation^ vol. i. Part I. p. 211.
 
 196 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 membered, is equal to ;^io a week ; the charges were 
 most likely the same at the Tower. Even at this 
 high cost, his cell was damp and unhealthy, the food 
 was bad, and he was subjected to close confinement. 
 The prisoners were kept separate, and of this they so 
 complained, that Sir Edward Warner, lieutenant of 
 the Tower, in writing to the council (June 14, 1560), 
 says : — 
 
 " First he put your lordships in remembrance 
 that the late bishops, with Mr. Fecknam and Mr. 
 Boxall, being all eight in number, be close and 
 severally kept, for which they continually call upon 
 him to make on their names humble suit to have 
 more liberty ; informing your lordships therewith 
 how troublesome it is to serve so many persons 
 severally so long together." ^ 
 
 The council wrote on 4th September to the 
 archbishop giving leave that the prisoners, un- 
 less he had any objection, might dine at two 
 tables, together with the order in which they had 
 to sit. The archbishop of York, the bishop of 
 Worcester, abbat Fecknam, and Boxall, dean of 
 Peterborough and secretary of state under queen 
 Mary, were to dine at one table ; and the bishops 
 of Ely, Bath and Wells, Exeter, and Lincoln at 
 the other. Parker consented, and (September 6th) 
 authorised the lieutenant to make the change.^ 
 
 1 P.R.O. Dom. Eliz., vol. xxiii. No. 40, quoted by Bridgett and Knox 
 in Queen Elizabeth and the Catholic Hierarchy, p. 165. 
 
 2 Parker Correspondence (Parker Society), pp. 121, 122.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 197 
 
 This new arrangement would be better at least, for 
 they would have the help of each other's society to 
 resist the insidious attacks made to bring them to 
 conformity. As each Easter came round, threats 
 of death were reported for those who would refuse 
 to partake of the new sacrament.^ In March 1563 
 Parliament had given authority to administer the 
 oath, with the penalty now of death for those who 
 refused it.^ But so far the oath had not been again 
 tendered to the prisoners. They were first to be 
 tried in another way. Occasion was taken of the 
 plague, then raging in the City, to remove them 
 from the Tower and commit them to the custody of 
 the new bishops. They had themselves petitioned 
 the council "to be removed to some other con- 
 venient place for their better safeguard from the 
 present infection of the plague."^ But this slight 
 grace shown to them did not please the preachers 
 of the new religion. Stowe in his Memoranda says: 
 "Anno 1563 in September the old bishops and 
 divers doctors were removed out of the tower into 
 the new bishops' houses, there to remain prisoners 
 under their custody (the plague being then in the 
 city was thought to be the cause) ; but their de- 
 liverance (or rather change of prison) did so much 
 offend the people that the preachers at Paul's Cross 
 and on other places, both of the city and the 
 
 1 Bridgett and Knox, p. 42. 
 
 2 Lingard (ed. Dolman, 1849), vol. vi. p. 83. 
 ^ Parker Correspondence, p. 192.
 
 198 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 country, preached (as it was thought of many wise 
 men) very seditiously, as Baldwin at Paul's Cross 
 wishing a gallows set up in Smithfield, and the old 
 bishops and other papists to be hanged thereon. 
 He himself died of the plague the next week after." ^ 
 
 Abbat Fecknam was sent, first of all, back to his 
 old home at Westminster, to the care of Goodman, 
 the new dean. There is a letter from Grindal, 
 bishop of London, to Cecil, of the date October 15, 
 1563, suggesting that Fecknam should be sent to 
 some bishop. 
 
 " The bishop of Winton, when he was with me, 
 said if he should have any, he could best deal with 
 Fecknam, for in king Edward's days he travailed 
 with Fecknam in the Tower and brought him to 
 subscribe to all things, saving the Presence and one 
 or two more articles. Ye might do very well (in my 
 opinion) to ease the poor dean of Westminster, and 
 send the other also to some other bishop, as Sarum 
 or Chichester." " 
 
 The suggestion was taken, and the dean was 
 relieved of the unwelcome presence of the abbat ; 
 and that same winter Fecknam was sent to Home, 
 bishop of Winchester, who was boasting he could pre- 
 vail over the abbat's constancy. With what results 
 will appear. In the bishop's house he was treated very 
 uncivilly and roughly. " We must not think of these 
 
 ^ Three Fifteenth-Gentury Chronicles, with Historical Memoranda, by 
 John Stowe (Cam. Soc), p. 126. 
 
 2 Grindal's Remains, p, 282 (Pai-ker Society),
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 199 
 
 first intruders into the Catholic sees of England as 
 if they were modern Anglican bishops, gentlemen of 
 refinement and of enlarged and liberal minds, who, 
 if we could imagine them in the position of unwilling 
 jailors to Catholic bishops, would seek by every 
 means to alleviate their lot." ^ 
 
 We shall see later on what the treatment was 
 the prisoners had to endure at the hands of their 
 episcopal jailors. 
 
 Home began to ply the abbat with questions on 
 the dangerous subject of the oath. Fecknam wrote 
 a clever paper in answer, giving the reasons which 
 would hinder him from taking the oath. We see 
 the old dialectical skill which made him so feared 
 as an opponent. Among other difficulties, he says : 
 "The fourth and last point is that I must swear 
 to the observation of this oath, not only to the 
 queen's highness, and our sovereign lady that now 
 is, but also unto her heirs and successors, kings and 
 queens of this realm ; and because every Christian 
 man ought to be careful to avoid perjury therein, 
 I would right gladly know that if any her highness 
 successors should by the refusal of the said title 
 of supremacy bind her subjects by the like statute 
 law unto the clean contrary [experience whereof 
 was of late made in this realm, that it is yet fresh in 
 the memories of all men] ; in this case I would right 
 gladly know what authority is able to dispense again 
 with the oath ? And if there be none at all, then 
 
 * Bridgett and Knox, p, 94.
 
 200 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 the subjects of this realm in this case are bound, and 
 that by book-oath, to live in a continual disobedience 
 to the laws of their sovereign lord or lady, king or 
 queen, the case whereof is very lamentable " ^ 
 
 The abbat was always ready to listen ; ^ and was 
 able at least to prove to his opponents that his 
 refusal to submit to the royal supremacy in ecclesi- 
 astical affairs was solely a matter of conscience. 
 Home complains that Fecknam used to point to 
 his heart and say: "The matter itself is founded 
 here, that shall never go out." ^ In spite of frequent 
 reports spread abroad of an approaching recantation, 
 day and hour being even fixed by the gossips. Home, 
 finding that all his endeavours were unavailing to 
 bring over the abbat to his own way of thinking, 
 kept him for six weeks a close prisoner in the 
 house, and after allowing him to be grossly insulted 
 at his table, made complaint to the council and 
 procured his return to the Tower.* 
 
 In April 1564 archbishop Parker had a conversa- 
 tion with Cecil, and urged the enforcement of the 
 oath according to the recent act. But Cecil gave him 
 to know that the queen was unwilling to have the 
 oath tendered for the second time, for that meant 
 death. The archbishop acted under the instructions 
 
 1 Home's An Answer to 31. Fekenham, p. loi. 
 
 ^ " I hear said Mr. Fecknam is not so precise {as Watson, who refused 
 all conference) but could be contented to confer" (Grindal to Cecil, 
 p. 282). 
 
 2 Home's An Answer to M. Fekenham, p. 3. 
 * Ibid. p. 129.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 201 
 
 he received, and sent round a circular, the draft of 
 which Cecil corrected, to the rest of his bishops 
 ordering them not to tender the oath to any one a 
 second time without previously referring the matter 
 to him. But this instruction had to be kept secret.^ 
 An exception, however, was made in the case of 
 Bonner, a fellow-prisoner with the abbat, who had 
 incurred the special hatred of all the reformers by 
 his severity under the last reign. How that wily 
 old lawyer Bonner checkmated Home and all 
 Ehzabeth's government on the plea that the in- 
 truded bishop of Winchester was no bishop in the 
 eyes of the law, is a well known story. 
 
 We have seen how Home, having failed to con- 
 vince the abbat, was glad to get rid of him ; and 
 Fecknam on his side preferred, it is said, to go back 
 to the Tower rather than stay with the bishop. We 
 find him there in custody in January 1565, and he 
 probably returned on the occasion of Home's fiasco 
 with Bonner. In the Tower he lingered on ; and 
 we know but little of his imprisonment." As Home 
 had complained to the council of the abbat's in- 
 tractabihty, Fecknam in a letter to Sir W. Cecil 
 
 J Parker Correspondence, -p'p. 173-17$- 
 
 2 A poem In Laudem Joannis Fecknam, by an unknown author, 
 printed in the Downside Review (vol. i. p. 43°)) tells us some particulars 
 of his life at this time. It was his own choice to return to the Tower ; 
 for he said, "A prison is better than a bishop's palace." And on 
 one occasion when Cecil expressed his wonder that the abbat lived so 
 long, "The reason is," said he, "because I live shut uj) in the prison 
 and not the prison in me. I willingly bear my chains."
 
 202 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 (March 14, 1565) puts the matter into its real 
 light. 
 
 *' According to your honour's pleasure, signified 
 to me by the lieutenant, I have sent to your honour 
 such writings as have passed between my lord 
 bishop of Winchester and me, touching the oath 
 of the queen's highness' supremacy, in perusing 
 whereof I do most humbly beseech your honour 
 to observe how slenderly his lordship hath satisfied 
 my expectations therein : who in requesting of his 
 lordship to be resolved by the authority of the 
 scriptures, doctors, general councils, and by the 
 example of the like government in some one part 
 and church of all Christendom : his lordship in 
 no one part of his resolutions hath alledged any 
 testimony out of any one of them : but only hath 
 used the authority of his own bare words, naked 
 talk and sentences ; which in so great and weighty 
 a matter of conscience I esteem and weigh as 
 nothing. And if his lordship shall at any time 
 hereafter (and especially at your honour's request) 
 be able to bring forth any better matter, I shall 
 be, at the sight thereof, at all times in readiness 
 to receive the said oath, and to perform my promise 
 before made in the writings. But if his lordship 
 shall be found (notwithstanding your honour's re- 
 quest) to have no better matter in store, I shall for 
 my duty's sake towards the queen's majesty, con- 
 sidering the degree and estate her highness hath 
 placed him in, abstain from the plain speech which
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 203 
 
 I might justly use (his lordship first beginning the 
 complaint), yet that notwithstanding your honour 
 must give me leave to think that his lordship hath 
 not all the Divine Scriptures, doctors, general 
 councils, and all other kinds of learning so much 
 at his commandment as I have oftentimes heard 
 him boast and speak of. And this much to write 
 of my own secret thought, either against him or yet 
 any other, it is very much contrary to the inclination 
 of my nature : for I being a poor man in trouble am 
 now, likewise at all other times, very loath to touch 
 him or any man else. But whensoever it shall 
 please your honour by your wisdom to weigh the 
 matter indifferently between us, your honour shall 
 be sure to have this short end and conclusion 
 thereof : that either upon his lordship's more 
 pytthyer (?pithier) and learned resolutions, your 
 honour shall be well assured that I will receive the 
 oath, or else, for lack of learned resolutions, your 
 honour shall have certain and sure knowledge that 
 the stay so long a time on my part, made in not 
 receiving of the same oath, is of conscience and not 
 of will stubbornly set; but only of dread and fear 
 to commit perjury, thereby to procure and purchase 
 to myself God his wrath and indignation : finally to 
 inherit perpetual death and torment of hell fire, and 
 that remedyless, by a separation making of myself 
 from God and the unity of his Catholic Church, 
 being always after unsure, how or by what means 
 I may be united and knit thereunto again. The
 
 ?o4 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 upright and due consideration of this my lamentable 
 state is all that I do seek at your honour's hands, 
 as knoweth our Lord God, who long preserve your 
 good honour with much increase thereof. 
 
 " From the Tower, this xiiii of this present March, 
 by your poor orator, John Fecknam, ^'^riste." ^ 
 
 Whilst in the Tower (1570), Fecknam wrote a 
 pamphlet which casts a light on the " gentle per- 
 suasiveness," used in his regard. It was written in 
 answer to Sir Francis Jobson, the lieutenant of the 
 Tower, on Mr. Pellam's request, " upon Sunday last 
 [January 15, 1570], as I came from the church, to 
 know my liking of M. Gough's sermon. Where- 
 unto I answered : that I was very loath to find 
 any fault with the sayings or doings of any man, 
 being already in trouble as you know. You replied 
 and said : that I was not able to find fault where no 
 fault was. I had not then no leisure to make any 
 further answer, you departing homewards and I to 
 my prison." He then discusses the various opinions 
 broached in the course of the sermon, and ends up 
 with these words : " I desire, I say, to make my 
 humble suit unto your worships for myself and my 
 prison-fellows both, that hereafter we may not be 
 haled by the arms to the church in such violent 
 manner against our wills, against all former examples, 
 against the doctrine of your own side (Luther, Bucer, 
 Zwinglius, Oecolampadius, Melancthon, and the rest, 
 
 1 Dom Eliz., xxxvi. 23.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 205 
 
 every one writing and earnestly persuading that all 
 violence be taken away in matters of religion), there 
 to hear such preachers as care not what they say 
 so they somewhat say against the professed faith of 
 Christ's Catholic Church ; and there to hear a sermon, 
 not of persuading us, but of railing upon us. This, 
 if your worships will incline unto for charity sake, 
 we shall have to render you most humble thanks, 
 and whatsoever else we may do in this our heavy 
 time of imprisonment." ^ 
 
 Some time after the abbat was removed to the 
 Marshalsea, but the exact date has not been yet 
 discovered.^ He was still in the Tower 1571, for in 
 the March of that year he was allowed to have his 
 meals at the table of the lieutenant of the Tower,^ 
 and is known in the June to have attended his 
 fellow-prisoner, Dr. John Story, at the scaffold 
 
 Stevens says : " Many protestants, being ashamed 
 to see a man who had deserved so well so in- 
 humanly treated, prevailed that he should be put 
 out of the Tower and removed to the Marshalsea, 
 where he had a little more liberty." ^ But on July 
 17, 1574, the council ordered the keeper of the 
 Marshalsea to take him before the archbishop of 
 Canterbury at his grace's leisure, and " upon bonds 
 taken of him by the said lord bishop, to set him at 
 
 1 L. T., An Answer to Certain Assertions of M. Fecknam, &c., j). 17. 
 
 2 Bradley's Westminster, p. 179. 
 
 3 Acts of the Privy Council (New Series), vol. viii. p. 21. 
 ^ Additions to the Monasticon, vol. i. p. 289.
 
 2o6 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 liberty." And they also wrote the same day to the 
 archbishop empowering him to accept bail for Mr. 
 Dr. Feckenham on the same conditions as those 
 lately made (July 5th) in the case of bishop 
 Watson. These were that he " shall not by speech, 
 writing, or any other means induce or intice any 
 person to any opinion or act to be done contrary 
 to the laws established in the realm for causes of 
 religion," and that he should dwell in a specified 
 place, "and not to depart from thence at any time 
 without the license of the lords of the council," and 
 that he was not to be allowed to receive visitors. ^ 
 
 After fourteen years' confinement, Fecknam was 
 now released on parole and went to live in Hol- 
 born, where, no sooner had he partly regained his 
 liberty, than he was engaged in works of charity 
 and usefulness. Benevolence was so marked a 
 feature in his character that, as Fuller says, "he 
 relieved the poor wheresoever he came, so that flies 
 flock not thicker about spilt honey than the beggars 
 constantly crowded about him." ^ Large sums of 
 money seem to have been at his disposal, for the 
 charitable were assured, from their knowledge of his 
 character, that their alms entrusted to his care would 
 Teach the most needy and the most deserving of 
 the poor. In Holborn he built an aqueduct for the 
 use of the inhabitants.^ He distributed every day the 
 
 1 Acts of the Privy Council (New Series), 1574, vol. viii. pp. 269, 264. 
 
 2 Worthies of England, vol. ii. p. 477. 
 ^ Stevens, vol. i. p. 28a.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 207 
 
 milk of twelve cows amoDg the sick and poor of 
 the district, and took under his special charge the 
 orphans. He encouraged the youth of the place in 
 manly sports by giving prizes, and thought it better 
 they should on Sundays have games, such as all 
 English lads love, rather than attend the new fashion 
 of worship.^ Thus spending himself for others, and 
 already broken down by the rigours of his long 
 imprisonment, he fell ill. On July 18, 1575, the 
 council ordered '* the Master of the Rolls, or in his 
 absence the Recorder of London, to take bondes of 
 Doctor Feckenham for his good behaviour, and that 
 at Michaelmas next he shall return to the place 
 where he presently is, and in the meantime he may 
 repair to the Baths." ^ Whilst in this town he built, 
 in 1576, a hospice for the poor "by the White 
 Bath," that they too might come and get the benefit 
 of the waters.^ 
 
 Whilst thus a prisoner on parole, reports had 
 reached the ears of the Council (June 24, 1577) 
 that Fecknam and the others " have very much 
 abused themselves by suffering certain of her 
 majesty's evii-disposed subjects to resort unto them, 
 whom they have perverted in religion." * For Aylmer, 
 the bishop of London, had lately written to Burghley 
 signifying *' that he liked not that Fecknam, late 
 
 * Hymnus in Laudcm J. Fecknamis, Harl. MS. 3258, fol. 45. 
 
 2 Acts P.O., vol. ix. p. 8. On June 19, 1576, lie got a similar 
 license. 
 ^ See Downside Review, vol. xiv. p. 323. 
 
 * Acts, vol. ix. p. 371.
 
 2o8 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 abbat of Westminster, Watson, late bishop of 
 Lincoln, and Young, another active popish dignitary 
 under queen Mary, should continue where they 
 were, in London, in the Fleet or Marshalsea, where 
 by their converse and advice they might instigate 
 and do mischief ; advising that they might be placed 
 again, as they had been before, with some three 
 bishops, at Winchester, Lincoln, Chichester, or 
 Ely, and that for his part, he, if he were out of 
 his first-fruits, could be content to have one of 
 them." ' 
 
 So in the following month Walsingham wrote to 
 the bishops who had formerly been charged with 
 these prisoners, saying that as inconvenience and 
 mischief is daily found to increase, not only to the 
 danger of her majesty's person but to the disturbance 
 of the common quiet of the realm on account of the 
 lenity shown to such as obstinately refused to come to 
 church for sermons and common prayer, he appoints 
 a consultation to be held which should be attended 
 by the bishops and their chancellors and others they 
 think fit. The secretary then goes on to say : — 
 
 " And fore-as-much as the special point of the 
 said consultation will stand upon the order that 
 may be taken generally with all them that refuse 
 to come to the church, and in particular what is 
 meetest to be done with Watson, Fecknam, Harps- 
 field, and others of that ring that are thought to be 
 the leaders and pillars of the consciences of great 
 
 ^ Strype, Life of Bishop Aylmer, p. 25.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 209 
 
 numbers of such as he carried with the errors, 
 whether it be not fit they be disputed with, all in 
 some private sort and after disputation had with 
 them, and they thereby not reduced to conformity ; 
 then whether it shall be better to banish them the 
 realm or to keep them here together in some 
 straight sort as that they may be kept from all 
 conference." ^ 
 
 The result of these consultations was soon made 
 known, for by the end of July (1577) the council 
 ordered Cox, the bishop of Ely, to receive abbat 
 Fecknam, and divided the rest of the prisoners 
 among other anglican bishops. The real cause of 
 this second incarceration was that Elizabeth, at last 
 driven to desperation, began to apply the penalty 
 of death attached to the act of 1571, which was 
 her answer to the deposing bull of Pius V. The act 
 had not hitherto been enforced, although its pro- 
 visions were such as made illegal any communica- 
 tion, under any shape or form, with Rome. But 
 just then the seminary at Douai, about which more 
 in the next chapters, was beginning to pour priests 
 into England in defiance of her laws, and the first 
 blood for conscience' sake was shed in this year by 
 the heroic Cuthbert Mayne. The queen, rightly or 
 
 ^ P.R.O. Bom Eliz., cxiv. 69. Walsingham also suggests that, if 
 Fecknam and the others are to be kept in durance, the cost of their 
 keep was to be found in taxing such of the bishops and clergy as are 
 non-residents and have pluralities some yearly contribution for the 
 finding of them, and a convenient stipend to be given to their keeper. 
 See Bridgett and Knox, p. 178. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 2IO THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 wrongly, was in terror of plots against her life ; 
 and the government had determined upon taking 
 stringent measures, and keeping in custody the most 
 prominent of those who were known to be dis- 
 affected to her religious policy. Together with the 
 order of the council, the notorious Cox, bishop of 
 Ely, received a stringent code of regulations for 
 the treatment of the aged abbat — they were to 
 this effect : — 
 
 " I. That his lodgings be in some convenient part 
 of your house, that he may be both there in safe 
 custody and also have no easy access of your house- 
 hold people unto him, other than such as you shall 
 appoint and know to be settled in religion and 
 honesty, as that they may not be perverted in religion 
 or any otherwise corrupted by him. 
 
 " 2. That he be not admitted unto your table 
 except upon some good occasion, to have ministered 
 to him there in the presence of some that shall 
 happen to resort unto you, such talk whereby the 
 hearers may be confirmed in the truth ; but to have 
 his diet by himself alone in his chamber ; and that 
 in no superfluity, but after the spare manner of 
 scholars' commoners. 
 
 " 3. That you suffer none (unless some one to 
 attend upon him) to have access unto him, but 
 such as you shall know to be persons well conformed 
 in true religion, and not likely to be weakened in 
 the profession of the said religion by any con- 
 ference they shall have with him.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABB AT 211 
 
 " 4. That you permit him not at any time and 
 place whilst he is with you to enter into any dis- 
 putations of matters of religion, or to reason thereof, 
 otherwise than upon such occasion as shall be by 
 you or in your presence with your good liking by 
 some others ministered unto him. 
 
 " 5. That he have ministered unto him such books 
 of learned men and sound writers in divinity as you 
 are able to lend him, and none other. 
 
 " 6. That he have no liberty to walk abroad to 
 take the air, but when yourself is best at leisure 
 to go with him, or accompanied with such as you 
 shall appoint. 
 
 "7. That you do your endeavour by all good 
 persuasion to bring him to the hearing of sermons 
 and other exercises of religion in your house, and 
 the chapel or church which you most commonly 
 frequent." ^ 
 
 This disposes of the pleasing fiction some wTiters 
 maintain, that the abbat and others of the deposed 
 clergy were kept as guests under gentle restraint 
 in the houses of protestant bishops. To be de- 
 prived of liberty, company, the solaces of their 
 religion and all they held dear, was bad enough 
 treatment ; but to be harassed on religious topics 
 on every conceivable occasion, to have to take 
 the air, on the rare occasion permitted, tied to 
 the strings of a protestant bishop's apron, and 
 to have only such books of sound divinity as 
 
 * Lansdowne MS., No. 155, fol. 201.
 
 212 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 the reformers delighted in, were unnecessary aggra- 
 vations. 
 
 The bishop did his best to convert the abbat, 
 for Elizabeth, it is said, ordered him to bring the 
 abbat, " being a man of learning and temper, to 
 acknowledge her supremacy and come to church." 
 But Cox wrote to Burghley, August 1578, and gives 
 this report of the abbat : " That he was a gentle per- 
 son ; but in popish religion too, too obdurate." And 
 that he had often conference with him : and other 
 learned men at his request had conferred with him 
 also touching going to church, and touching the 
 oath to the queen's majesty. The bishop added 
 that he had examined him whether the pope was 
 not a heretic . . . that when there was some hope 
 of his conformity he (the abbat) said unto him, 
 " All those things that he said against me with 
 leisure I could answer them." And further said, 
 "That he was fully persuaded in his religion, which 
 he will stand to." " When I heard this," said the 
 bishop, " I gave him over and received him no 
 more to my table ; " and in some zeal subjoining, 
 "Whether it be meet that the enemies of God 
 and the queen should be fostered in our homes 
 and not used according to the laws of the realm, 
 I leave to the judgement of others. What my 
 poor judgement is I will express, being commanded. 
 I think my house the worse being pestered with 
 such a guest." . . . This letter the bishop dates 
 from Ely, styling it "that unsavoury isle with
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 213 
 
 turves and dried-up loads," the 29th of August 
 
 1578.^ 
 
 The council on October 23, 1579, understanding 
 that Fecknam had " lately broken out into an open 
 discommending of her majesty's godly proceedings 
 in matters of religion," required Cox " to cause him 
 to be kept close prisoner in some fit room within his 
 house, not suffering him to have any man of his own 
 choice to attend upon him, and that such person as 
 his lordship shall appoint of his own servants to 
 resort unto him, to deliver him his necessary food 
 (which their lordships wish to be no larger than 
 may serve for his convenient sustenance)." ^ 
 
 A so-called "confession"^ exists in the Lans- 
 
 1 Strype's Annals (ed. 1824), vol. ii. Perne, the dean of Ely, had been 
 set on to Fecknam some months before Cox wrote to Burghley, and in 
 his turn writes on May 11, 1578, to the effect that the abbat had said 
 of the Book of Common Prayer : " That as he liked well of prayers 
 therein that were made to Almighty God in the name of His Son, Jesus 
 Christ ; so he would also have added the invocation of our blessed Lady 
 and other saints and prayers for the dead" {ibid. pp. 176, 177, 186). 
 
 2 Acts of the Privy Council, vol. xi. p. 291. 
 
 3 Endorsed in Burghley's writing, " Feckehamis Confessio before the 
 bishop of Ely and his Chaplaines. Papists 1580." Two years earlier 
 Perne had writen to Burghley that it was impossible to get Fecknam to 
 sign this or a similar document. Burghley evidently wrote to Fecknam 
 about this confession, for Strype reports the abbat as writing in answer 
 words to the effect : " That he was persuaded of a singular good will 
 (he said) both that her majesty and his honour bore unto him, if he 
 should show himself anything conformable. That he thought verily 
 that were it not for her majesty and his honour, it would have been 
 worse for him and others of his sect than it was at that day ; for 
 the which he said, that he did daily pray for the long preservation of 
 her majesty, and also for his lordship's honourable state. But yet to 
 subscribe he did refuse ; saying that if he should subscribe and fail in 
 one thing, he had as good failed in all" (ibid. p. 180).
 
 214 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 downe MSS.,^ which shows the pertinacity of his 
 jailors and his own constancy : — 
 
 "A True Note of Certain Articles confessed and 
 
 allowed by Mr. Dr. Fecknam, as well in 
 
 Christmas holidays last past as also at divers 
 
 other times before, by conference in learning 
 
 before the reverend father in God the L. 
 
 Bishop of Ely, and before Dr. Perne, Dean 
 
 of Ely, Master Nickolas, Master Stanton, 
 
 Master Crowe, Mr. Bowler, Chaplains to my 
 
 L. of Ely ; and divers others whose names 
 
 be here subscribed. 
 
 " First, he doth believe in his conscience and 
 
 before God that the xiiii chapter of the first to the 
 
 Corinthians is as truly to be understanded of the 
 
 common service to be had in the mother tongue, 
 
 to be understanded of the vulgar people as of the 
 
 preaching and prophesying in the mother tongue. 
 
 " Secondly, that he doth find no fault with anything 
 that is set forth in the Book of Common Service 
 now used in the Church of England, but his desire 
 is to have all the rest of the old service that was 
 taken out to be restored again, as the prayer to the 
 saints and for the dead, and the seven sacraments 
 and external sacrifice, and then he would most will- 
 ingly come thereto. He liketh well to have the sacra- 
 ment ministered under both kinds unto the lay people, 
 so it were done by the authority of the Church. 
 
 1 No. 30, fol. 199.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABBAT 215 
 
 " Thirdly, he doth very well allow of the inter- 
 pretation of the oath for the queen's majestie her 
 supremacy as it is interpreted in her highness in- 
 junctions, that is that the queen's majestie under 
 God have soveranty and rule over all manner of 
 persons born within her realms, dominions, and 
 countries, of what estate either ecclesiastical or 
 temporal soever they be ; the which oath he offereth 
 himself to be at all times ready most willingly to 
 receive whensoever it shall be demanded of him by 
 authority. 
 
 " Fourthly, he being demanded why he will not 
 come to the service in the Church of England as it 
 is set forth this day, seeing he doth find no fault 
 with it, and doth think it in his conscience that it 
 may be lawful to have the common prayer in the 
 mother tongue. He answereth, because he is not of 
 our Church for lack of unity ; some being therein 
 protestants, some puritans, and some of the family of 
 Love, and for that it is not set forth by the authority 
 of general council to avoid schisme. 
 
 " Lastly, Mr. D. Fecknam will not conform himself 
 to our religion, for that he can see nothing to be 
 sought but the spoil of the Church and of bishops' 
 houses and of college lands, which he saith maketh 
 many to pretend to be puritans, seeking for the 
 fruits of the church, and always requesting Almighty 
 God to put in her majesty's mind and her honour- 
 able council to make some good stay therein, other- 
 wise he saith it will bring in ignorance in her high-
 
 2i6 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 ness' clergy, with a subversion of Christian reHgion, 
 and finally all wickedness and paganism. 
 
 (Signed) "John Fecknaisi, Priest} 
 "EichardEly. 
 Andreas Perne. 
 Gulihelmus Stanton." 
 
 How well the abbat knew the temper of the times. 
 He would be willing to accept the Prayer-Book if it 
 ceased to be protestant. As regards disciplinary 
 laws he was free to hold his own opinion as to their 
 utility, but he denied the Church of England was an 
 authority with power to make such changes as had 
 been made. He saw plainly the state of schism the 
 established church was in, and that alone was proof 
 to him that it was outside the unity of his church. 
 He would not object to an oath expressed in the 
 terms explained in the queen's injunction ; but the 
 oath that had actually to be tendered to him under 
 the act of Parliament, he would not take at all on 
 any understanding whatsoever as to its implied 
 meaning. There is in this confession always a 
 saving " but " to every approach to an agreement 
 with the reformers, and it was just these exceptions 
 that made the " Confession" useless to them. 
 
 In June 1580 Cox writes a piteous letter to 
 Burghley." He is ill and has paralysis, and cannot 
 
 1 It is signed in a very feeble and shaky handwriting. 
 
 2 " To take one view more of the ancient, pious, learned confessor 
 and bishop Cox, which take from his own pen to his old friend, the 
 lord Burley ; complaining of two evils that now oppress him in his very
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABB AT 217 
 
 put up with the abbat any longer, and begs that he 
 may be taken away. The truth is that the angli- 
 can bishops were worn out with the quiet but 
 unconquerable constancy of men who entrenched 
 themselves absolutely behind the invisible but all- 
 powerful barriers of conscience. It was an open 
 rebuke to them in the face of the whole kingdom ; 
 for not one of these had they succeeded in bring- 
 ing over to the new religion. Parker, as we have 
 seen, was only following the current when he was 
 anxious to cut the difficulty by enforcing the 
 oath, the refusal of which meant death. Jewel, 
 too, had been hinting at the use of the sword in 
 confidential intercourse with his friends, regretting 
 that this means w^as not used upon these irrecon- 
 cilables. And Aylmer had written in 1577 to the 
 lord treasurer : "I speak to your lordship as 
 one chiefly careful for the state, and to use more 
 severity than hitherto hath been used ; or else we 
 shall smart for it." ^ The unholy blood-thirst, we 
 cannot call it anything else, displayed by the new 
 bishops excited the anger of Elizabeth. Bernadino 
 
 old age : one might have a redress by favour of that lord ; the other 
 only from God. Thus writing l)uo mala me premiint, the one, hospes 
 malus et inutilis ; i.e. a bad guest and good for nothing. He meant 
 Fecknam, sometime abbat of Westminster, that had been committed to 
 his house and had remained there so long till he was weary of him. 
 . . . The other inconvenience . . . corpus nimirum dimidia parte 
 langiddum, his poor paralytic body " (Strype, Aiinals of the Befarmation, 
 ed. 1824, vol. ii. Part II. p. 381). 
 
 1 Strype, Life of Bishop Aylmer, p. 24. Cox, writing in 1578, says : 
 "I trust hereafter her highness and her magistrates will prosecute 
 severely the same trade" {Annals, p. 196).
 
 2i8 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 de Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, writing to his 
 king, March 23, 1580, says: "This (the armament) 
 has caused her recently to revoke the commission 
 given to her bishops to ascertain who were catho- 
 lics. She told them with her own mouth that they 
 were a set of scamps, for they were oppressing 
 the catholics more than she desired." ^ 
 
 As a consequence of Cox's appeal, at the end of 
 the month (June 24) the council gave leave that 
 Fecknam should be transferred from the bishop's 
 immediate neighbourhood. So sometime in July 
 the abbat was once more moved ; this time to Wis- 
 beach Castle, a disused and partly ruinous house 
 belonging to the bishop of Ely. Here he met 
 several of his old fellow-prisoners, bishop Watson 
 among the others. 
 
 Wisbeach Castle was a dreary place. " During 
 the winter the sea mists drifting landwards almost 
 always hung over and hid the castle walls. Broad 
 pools and patches of stagnant waters, green with 
 rank weeds, and wide marshes and sterile flats lay 
 outspread all round for miles. The muddy river 
 was constantly overflowing its broken-down banks, 
 so that the moat of the castle constantly flooded 
 the adjacent garden and orchard. Of foliage, save 
 a few stunted willow-trees, there was little or none 
 in sight ; for when summer came round, the sun's 
 heat soon parched up the rank grass in the court- 
 yard, and without, the dandelion and snapdragon 
 
 ^ Calendar Spanish State Papers (Simancas), vol. i. p. 22.
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABB AT 219 
 
 which grew upon its massive but dilapidated 
 walls." ' 
 
 Such was Wisbeach, a place which in a few years 
 more was to gain so sad a notoriety as the theatre 
 of dissensions which, it is no exaggeration to say, 
 inflicted a blow upon Catholicity in England the 
 effects of which are felt even to-day. But while the 
 benedictine abbat was there, his gentle spirit sorted 
 well with the fraternal charity which possessed the 
 hearts of his fellow-confessors. There was no emula- 
 tion, no prelature. Even Watson would not accept 
 of any superiority on account of his episcopal dignity. 
 They were all fellow-prisoners, he said, all equal.' 
 
 The life passed a few years later in this prison is 
 described by Fr. Weston, the Jesuit, in his account 
 of his imprisonment.^ The prisoners were kept in 
 separate rooms under bolts and locks. Dinner and 
 supper they had in common ; and for half-an-hour 
 before and after the meals they could take exercise 
 in the open air. Wisbeach was then a public prison, 
 common to all thieves and criminals. After the 
 time of Fecknam the prisoners seem to have had 
 more liberty, as we shall see in the next chapter. 
 But when the abbat first came there the system was 
 in all its rigour. There is a letter from the keepers of 
 
 1 F. G. Lee, The Church under Queen Elizabeth, ed. 1892, p. 198. 
 Among the state papers is a document of July 1579, as to the evil 
 state of the river at the time. P.R.O. Dom EHz., vol. cxxxi.. No. 48. 
 
 2 Bridgett and Knox, p. 204. 
 
 3 Morris' The Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, second series, pp. 
 239, 240.
 
 220 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 Wisbeach, George Carleton and Humphrey Michell, 
 to the Privy Council (Oct i6, 1580),^ in which they 
 report the recusants as being eight in number. 
 " The bishop of Ely has appointed a preacher, Dr. 
 William Fulke, a puritan ; but the prisoners refuse 
 to attend his sermons or prayers, saying that they 
 are not of our church, and they will neither hear, 
 pray, nor yet confer with us of any matter concerning 
 religion." The keepers mention that, according to 
 instructions they had received, all books " saving the 
 canonical scriptures and the allowed writers " have 
 been taken away from the prisoners, to the great 
 grief of their hearts. They end up by asking 
 whether the permission of taking meals in com- 
 mon may be withdrawn. 
 
 This durance did not extinguish Fecknam's bene- 
 volence nor his desire of doing good all round. 
 Here, at Wisbeach, he paid for the repairing of the 
 road, and also erected a public market-cross in the 
 town.^ But the life of this venerable confessor was 
 drawing to a close. Worn out with the rigours of 
 an imprisonment of twenty-three years, ^ he died a 
 
 1 Bridgett and Knox, p. 197, 
 
 ^ Stevens, p. 289. "And there was also a cross, probably dedicated 
 to St. Peter, wliicb was afterwards converted into an obelisk . . . [but 
 was] taken do'WTi in the year 1810" (History of Wisbeach [1883], p. 258). 
 
 ■^ In the poem before mentioned, the unknown author says : — 
 
 " Fama refert igitur quod dira venena dabantur ; 
 Fecknamo ; neque res suspicione caret." 
 
 He also mentions that the abbat was consoled before death with the
 
 JOHN FECKNAM, ABB AT 221 
 
 martyr for his faith in 1584, and on October 16 was 
 buried in an unknown grave in the parish church of 
 Wisbeach. 
 
 Abbat Fecknam, says Stevens, was of ''a mean 
 stature, somewhat fat, round-faced, beautiful and of 
 a pleasant aspect, affable and lively in conversa- 
 tion." ^ Camden calls him a man learned and good, 
 who lived a long time and gained the affection 
 of his adversaries by publicly deserving well of the 
 poor." Bishop Kennet mentions as a trait in the 
 abbat's character that he " left what he had to the 
 church at Westminster, and gave the dean good 
 directions about such lands leased out, which could 
 not otherwise have been easily discovered, in letters 
 which are still preserved among the records." ^ 
 
 To the last he never forgot Westminster, and, 
 as was characteristic with him, the poor of West- 
 minster. From the overseer's accounts of the parish 
 of St. Margaret's is recorded, 1590: "Over and 
 besides the sum of forty pounds given by John 
 Fecknam, sometime abbat of Westminster, for a 
 stock to buy wood for the poor of Westminster, and 
 to sell two faggots for a penny, and seven billets 
 for a penny, which sum of forty pounds doth remain 
 
 Holy Viaticum, and said when tlie Blessed Sacrament was brought 
 
 to him : — 
 
 " Tu bona cuncta mihi tecum sapienter portas 
 Tu letitia es, tu mihi vita, sahis." 
 1 Ibid. 
 
 ^ Aimales Rerum Anglicarum, ed. Hearne, vol. i. p. 48. 
 3 Lansdowne MS., No. 982, fol. 62.
 
 222 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 in the hands of the church-wardens." ^ He also left 
 a bequest to the poor of his first monastic home of 
 Evesham." 
 
 According to Anthony II Wood, Fecknam, with 
 the benedictine instinctive love for the Office, wrote 
 a commentary on the Psalms of David, and also 
 one on the Canticles. Among the Sloane MSS. is 
 an autograph work of about 400 pages bearing the 
 following heading : — 
 
 " This booke of sovereigne medicines against the 
 most common and knowne diseases both of men and 
 women was by good proofe and long experiences 
 collected by Mr. Dr. Fecknam, late abbat of West- 
 minster, and that chiefly for the poor, which hath 
 not att all tymes the learned phisitions att hande." ^ 
 
 Thus in the odour of sanctity lived and died John 
 Fecknam, the last abbat of the monastery of St. 
 Peter's at Westminster. A true monk and a staunch 
 witness for the faith of Christ.* 
 
 1 These accounts have been privately printed. Westminster, 1877. 
 See also Malcolm's Londiniuni Redivivum, vol. iv. pp. 139, 140. 
 
 2 May's History of Evesham, p. 398. 
 
 3 Add. MSS., No. 3919. 
 
 * Among bishop Rennet's collection in the Lansdowne MSS. (No. 
 982) are some notes in addition to Anthony a Wood's notice of 
 I'ecknam. From them we gather that in 1556 Fecknam resigned the 
 deanery of St. Paul's in the January ; the living of Kentish Town was 
 voided November 22, and that of Greenford Magna December 7, "per 
 religionis ingressum magistri Johis Feckenham cleric. i7i mon. S. Petri 
 Westmon. noviter erecti " (from Bonner's Register). Among the pensions 
 recorded in the year 1555 Com. Wigorn. Evesham. Pensio Johs Fecken- 
 ham, Decani D. Pauli, x lihr.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS, 1559-1601 
 
 The immediate effect of tendering the oath of 
 supremacy was the deprivation of all the bishops, 
 15 in number, with the exception of Kitchin of 
 Llandaff. They were followed by 7 deans, 10 arch- 
 deacons, 7 chancellors, 25 heads of colleges, -^^^ 
 fellows, 35 prebendaries, 44 doctors and professors, 
 17 heads of schools or religious houses, 197 digni- 
 taries and men of weight.^ This by no means com- 
 pletes the list of deprivations. The number of 
 parochial clergy that were either gradually deprived 
 or gave up of their own accord is numbered by 
 competent judges as something like 2000." It is 
 only by some great exodus like this that the great 
 dearth of clergy, of which the new Elizabethan 
 
 1 See a list (avowedly incomplete) printed in Tierney, vol. ii., 
 Appendix. 
 
 2 "In the visitation of the province of York in August and 
 September 1559, out of 90 clergymen summoned, 21 came and took 
 the oath, 36 came and refused to swear, 17 were absent without 
 proctors, 16 were absent with proctors. ... In the province of Canter- 
 bury . . . out of the 891 1 parishes and 9400 beneficed clergymen, we 
 find only 806 subscribers, while all the bishops and 85 others expressly 
 refused to subscribe, and the rest were absentees.' See K. Simpson's 
 €ampion, ed. 1896, p. 197.
 
 224 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 bishops were constantly complaining, can be ac- 
 counted for. Of those who remained in outward 
 union with the Anglican Church there were great 
 numbers we know who kept to their livings in the 
 hopes of another change, looking forward "to a 
 time," as it was said. They had already seen so 
 many variations within the last twenty years, why 
 not keep quiet and wait for better days ? So many 
 argued, and would, at least in country parts, say 
 mass privately for those of their parishioners who 
 were of their mind, and then would perform the 
 new rite publicly in the parish church to fulfil the 
 law. Most of these, by thus tampering with their 
 consciences, at last fell away entirely. But of that 
 large body of clergy known as the " Old Priests," or 
 the " Marian Priests," some few retired for a while to 
 the universities and thence went abroad to Rome, 
 Louvain, Douai, Paris, &c. Others were received 
 into private families, where they acted as chaplains 
 and attended in secret the catholics who would not 
 admit the ministrations of the new clergy. They 
 were not molested as a rule, for many of those who 
 kept to their livings were friends and secretly 
 admired their constancy. 
 
 This, then, was the state of the Church in England 
 in a few years after Elizabeth's accession. The 
 bishops were in prison, and a large body of clergy 
 was scattered here and there and left without head 
 or organisation. The sacrament of confirmation 
 ceased ; and it became difficult even to get the
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 225 
 
 holy oils for extreme unction. These had to be 
 smuggled over from Ireland or the continent. Some- 
 times, at rare intervals, an Irish bishop would come 
 over in secret and try to supply the more pressing 
 wants of the district he visited. But practically Eliza- 
 beth had achieved her end. She wanted to crush all 
 opposition and deprive of place, power, and influence 
 those who would not allow of her religious policy. 
 
 The desperate state of the church was brought 
 under the notice of the Roman authorities, and 
 steps were proposed (which, alas ! came to nought) 
 to apply a remedy. Among the letters of cardinal 
 Morone de rebus angliw (written between July 1560 
 and September 1563) is a proposal for a new arrange- 
 ment of the English sees.^ Heath was to be trans- 
 lated from York to Canterbury, Watson from Lincoln 
 to York, and Scott from Chester to Durham. The 
 others were to retain their sees ; and names were 
 proposed for filling up the vacant ones. There was 
 no idea of submitting quietly to the intruders, and 
 thus tacitly admitting their claim. Had this policy 
 prevailed in England as it did in Ireland, we to-day 
 should have been in possession of our old historical 
 hierarchy. 
 
 What hindered the project has not yet fully ap- 
 peared. But it can be sufficiently accounted for. 
 Twice did the pope (Pius IV.) send ambassadors to 
 
 1 Episcopal Successions (M. Brady), vol. ii. p. 322. This must have 
 been written before it was known that Heath and the others were im- 
 prisoned. 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 226 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 the queen assuring her he would give every satisfac- 
 tion. But the envoys were refused admittance into 
 the kingdom/ When this conciUatory pontiff died, 
 he was succeeded (1566) by a pope of very different 
 policy. Pius V., a dominican friar, of stern and in- 
 flexible ideas, was determined to crush the queen by 
 the censure of the church, and to impose by force of 
 arms the recognition of a temporal headship, which 
 an united Christendom had, of free will, given to his 
 predecessors. Had the Curia recognised that the 
 political world was indeed moving, the history of the 
 church in England would have been very different. 
 But easy enough as it is for us to see the errors of a 
 past time, it was not so easy for those then at the 
 helm to divine the trend of affairs. A pope is neces- 
 sarily influenced by his entourage ; and the temporal 
 policy of one pope will not necessarily be that of 
 his predecessors. The government of the church is 
 vested in human hands, which are moved by human 
 hearts swayed by every manner of human motives.^ 
 
 ^ May 5, 1560, the pope wrote to Elizabeth, asking her to receive 
 Vincent Parpaglia, abbat of St. Saviour's, as persona grata to the queen. 
 But he was stopped at Calais. The pope renewed his attempt the next 
 year, and sent abbat Martinengo, who got as far as Brussels, and there 
 received notice that he too was refused admittance into the kingdom. 
 As neither was allowed to fulfil his embassy, it is not possible to say, 
 with the means at present at our disposal, what were the terms of the 
 papal message. Any reports as to the pope's willingness to accept the 
 changes introduced by the queen, are mere valueless conjectures. 
 
 2 In a letter of Bernardo Navagero, Venetian ambassador at Rome, 
 to the doge and senate (March 14, 1556), he says : "Yesterday I had 
 audience of the pope, who said to me . . . ' It is a miracle, lord ambas- 
 sador, how this holy see has maintained itself, preceding pontifls having,
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 227 
 
 But Providence, while leaving men to work out their 
 own measures and to take the consequences of their 
 own acts, overrules all for its own predestined end. 
 
 We shall be better able to understand the action 
 of Pius V. in regard to Elizabeth, if we remember 
 that he was brought up and was surrounded by men 
 imbued with a tradition of universal sovereignty 
 even in temporal matters. It was one of long stand- 
 ing. What was more natural, when Christendom 
 was united by the bonds of one faith, than to look 
 up to the pope as to the common father and head 
 of all kingdoms ; as the arbitrator in all disputes, 
 between king and king and also between king and 
 subjects] But that which was the free concession 
 of a loving flock, in course of time became to be 
 regarded by some as a divine right. It was held 
 and publicly taught by many that the pope had, by 
 a right inherent in his pastoral office, the power of 
 deposing monarchs and of releasing subjects from 
 their allegiance — even more, of transferring their 
 allegiance to whomsoever he pleased to give the 
 forfeited crown. The church of course was not com- 
 mitted to this doctrine ; but it formed in those days 
 a very important element in practical teaching and 
 in the run of men's thoughts ; just as in the 
 thoughts of other people who abhorred the pope it 
 was held that there was a divine or a natural right 
 
 one may say, done everything to destroy it ; but it is founded on such 
 stones that there is nothing to fear " {Calendar of State Papers (Venetian), 
 vol. vi. No. 425).
 
 2 28 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 in temporal princes to dictate the religion of their 
 subjects according to the formula cujus regio ejus 
 religio. The Curia saw England slipping away ; 
 that England which, if of late the cause of much 
 trouble, was yet " a very garden of delights." Fears 
 were entertained that other nations, too, would 
 follow in her wake. So an example must be made 
 of the English queen. A judicial inquiry into 
 her case was begun in Rome and resulted in a 
 declaration that she had incurred all the canonical 
 penalties of heresy. A bull Regnans in Excelsis 
 was issued on February 25, 1570, which denounced 
 her as excommunicated. But when it goes on to 
 declare her deprived of her "pretended" right to 
 the crown, and to absolve all her subjects from their 
 allegiance, and moreover to proclaim excommuni- 
 cated all who henceforth presumed to obey her laws 
 or acknowledge her as queen, there was an assertion 
 here of a temporal right which could only result in 
 deadly resistance. 
 
 The effects were disastrous. The queen was 
 driven to desperation. Against the determination 
 of the man was pitted the obstinacy of an infuriated 
 and unscrupulous woman. Though she affected to 
 treat the sentence of deprivation with contempt, yet 
 she knew not what complications might ensue. The 
 excommunication, of which she knew the spiritual 
 force, wounded her also to the quick, and she 
 endeavoured to get the stigma removed. The pope 
 was inflexible. The bull was received with dismay
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 229 
 
 by the English catholics, who could only fear from 
 it a fresh excuse for ill treatment. While they were 
 proving their loyalty as no other nation has ever 
 done to the pope's divine right, the verities of the 
 catholic religion, they felt it hard indeed to be 
 called upon to be implicated in temporal matters, 
 based as they were upon grounds which, even in 
 catholic kingdoms, were held at least to be ques- 
 tionable. The English catholics were thus ground 
 down between the upper and the nether millstones. 
 
 The queen's answer to the bull was an act of 
 Parliament cutting off all communication between 
 her subjects and Rome, and declaring traitors all who 
 denied her title. Another made it treason to use or 
 procure any bull from Rome, or to reconcile or be 
 reconciled, to have in possession any objects blessed 
 by the pope, or even to maintain or harbour any 
 offenders against the act. The pope, on his side, 
 was determined to enforce his bull, and called upon 
 Christian kings to invade England. To this period 
 belong the many plots, real or feigned, with which 
 the queen was threatened.^ In after years the 
 
 1 That there were real plots on the part of some catholics against the 
 queen cannot to-day be denied ; nor that churchmen were unfortu- 
 nately mixed up in them. On May 2, 1583, the papal nuncio writes 
 from Paris to the cardinal of Como : " The duke of Guise and duke 
 of Mayenne have told me that they have a plan for killing the queen 
 of England by the hand of a catholic, though not one outwardly, who 
 is near her person, and is ill affected towards her for having put to 
 death some of his catholic relations. This man, it seems, sent word to 
 the queen of Scotland, but she refused to attend to it. . . . The duke 
 asks for no assistance from our lord [the pope] in the affair. ... As 
 to putting to death that wicked woman, I said to him, that I will not
 
 230 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 Armada appeared (doubtlessly rather than was) the 
 result of the pope's appeal. The immediate effect 
 of the bull was to widen the breach between 
 England and the holy see. It was the devoted 
 English catholics who felt all the weight of the 
 papal bull, and saw with dismay a still trembling 
 scale sent down with a violent impetus in a direc- 
 tion contrary to catholicity. During this time of 
 open rupture the one thought that was uppermost 
 at Rome seems to have been to crush the queen. 
 
 There was now no more talk of sending over 
 bishops, and the flock was left to itself. Meanwhile 
 " the old priests " were either leaving the country 
 or were dying out. It was an Englishman who 
 first came to the rescue of the unhappy catholics in 
 England by starting the seminary at Douai in Flan- 
 ders to provide priests for the English mission. 
 William Allen, an exile himself, in 1568 invited 
 some of the Oxford and Cambridge men scattered 
 over France and Flanders to unite with him in 
 forming a small establishment at Douai. Several 
 came at his call, and a house was bought. The 
 benedictine abbats of the neighbouring monasteries 
 of An-as (St. Vedast), Marchienne, and Anchin, 
 contributed generously to the undertaking, and 
 
 write about it to our lord pope (nor do I), nor tell your most illus- 
 trious lordship to inform him of it ; because, though I believe our lord 
 the pope would be glad that God should punish in any way whatsoever 
 that enemy of His, still it would be unfitting that His vicar should 
 procure it by these means" (Knox^s Historical Introduction to Letters 
 and Memorials of William, Cardinal Allen, pp. 46, 47).
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 231 
 
 helped to support the great number who flocked 
 in as soon as the doors were opened. Soon there 
 were 150 persons gathered at Douai under the 
 presidency of Allen. But he had no fixed means of 
 support for his new college. Pius V. had indeed 
 applauded his work and encouraged him to go on : 
 but it was not until 1575, in the third year of 
 Gregory XIII., that any substantial help came from 
 the holy see. In that year Allen determined to go 
 to Rome to beg for assistance ; and the good abbats 
 gave him strong letters of recommendation, in which 
 the university of Douai joined. His journey was 
 successful : and the pope, it is said at the special 
 entreaty of Mercurianus, the general of the Jesuits, 
 gave the college a moderate yearly allowance. The 
 king of Spain, to whose dominion Douai then be- 
 longed, also gave them an annual pension. 
 
 A few years after, at the instigation of Owen 
 Lewis, afterwards bishop of Cassano, the pope about 
 1578 opened, near St. Peter's, a similar college 
 in Home, and placed it under the charge of Dr. 
 Maurice Clenock, then warden of the old English 
 hospital. In 1579 the two institutions were united. 
 Two Italian Jesuit fathers were employed ; one as 
 procurator, the other as prefect, to help on the new 
 establishment. But after a year a rebellion broke 
 out among the students. A strong party began to 
 clamour for the expulsion of the president, and the 
 introduction of Jesuits as superiors. Without going 
 into the reasons which led up to this emeute, it will
 
 232 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 be sufficient to state that Dr. Maurice Clenock was 
 removed ; and the direction of the college success- 
 fully passed into the hands of the society under the 
 headship of Fr. Alphonso Agazzari. 
 
 We now come to consider a painful page in our 
 history, a page which is however fraught with deep 
 lessons. It was a bitter experience. We should 
 have been tempted to pass it by ; but, as Fr. John 
 Morris, S.J., says — 
 
 "At this distance of time, and after this happy 
 lull in the controversy, we can afford to look at the 
 whole dispute with greater impartiality, and not feel 
 it necessary to say that all that was done on one 
 side was right, and all that was done on the other 
 was wrong." ^ 
 
 Moreover, we think more harm than good is done 
 by catholic writers who entirely pass over the matter, 
 for the story is known outside the church. Surely 
 it is wisdom to see that mistakes, and grave mistakes, 
 too, have been made by good, zealous people. We 
 profit by their failings. We also get a wider and 
 truer view of life and history by looking these ques- 
 tions full in the face ; and by ever remembering 
 that men are men, and that human nature has to 
 be taken into account in all things and at all times. 
 Moreover, unless the real case in point be stated, 
 history becomes unintelligible. And the lessons, 
 which Providence has allowed, must be for our 
 benefit, if we know how to use them : for Truth is 
 
 1 See Dublin Review, April 1890, p. 255.
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 233 
 
 always edifying in the true sense of the word. It 
 is therefore necessary to sketch the events which 
 lead up to the troubles and their subsequent 
 history. We have no case to plead, but only a 
 plain story to tell. And in the telling we shall 
 follow the method Lingard professes in the preamble 
 to his history — 
 
 " To admit no statement on trust ; to weigh with 
 care the value of the authorities on which I rely ; 
 and to watch with jealousy the secret workings of 
 my own personal feelings and prepossessions." ^ 
 
 At the very time Henry VIII. was engaged in his 
 nefarious work of suppressing the monasteries, St. 
 Ignatius Loyola, a Spaniard, was engaged in laying 
 the foundation of his society. In 1537 he went, 
 with five companions, before Paul III. for his bless- 
 ing. The pope, three years after, gave his solemn 
 approval of the new institute. Its members were 
 at first restricted to sixty in number ; but such was 
 their startling success, that, by 1608 the new men 
 were already possessed of 293 colleges, 123 houses, 
 and formed an army of 10,58 1 devoted men.^ Started 
 at a desperate emergency, they flung themselves into 
 the breach, and changed a threatened disaster into 
 victory. They took possession, so to say, of the 
 catholic world. Universities, colleges, pulpits, and 
 confessionals were peopled with the new religious. 
 
 ^ Preliminary notice to the History of England, ed. 1849, p. xxi. 
 2 See also Ribadeneira's The Life of B. Father Ignatius, ed. 1616, 
 pp. 327, 328.
 
 234 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 The fame of the great St. Francis Xavier, one of 
 Ignatius' first companions, cast a glory upon them as 
 missioners. In every department of learning, their 
 men were acknowledged masters ; and the number of 
 their admirers was enormous. They were, of set pur- 
 pose, the apostles of the rich and influential. And 
 this, besides giving them the disposal of boundless 
 wealth, also initiated them into the secrets of courts, 
 and made of them, whether they sought for it or not, 
 a power to be reckoned with in the state. Their 
 device, " All to the greater glory of God,'' if it was 
 the secret of their brilliant success, was also un- 
 doubtedly the cause of many difficulties. Some, who 
 had not gained by their religious training that width 
 of mind which makes the perfect religious, came to 
 accept their own society as the one hope for the 
 regeneration of a fallen world ; and their sole and 
 solitary aim, the object of their lives, the end of 
 each day's occupation, being the promotion of what 
 they conceived to be the greater glory of God, this, 
 they concluded, could not but be promoted by the 
 advancement of their society. Taking a broad view 
 of their action, this really seems to have been with 
 them a practical, though perhaps not a reasoned con- 
 viction. Unfortunately it was so in some of the more 
 prominent of those who had secured the direction 
 of English affairs. This, it seems, is a position war- 
 ranted by facts, and is the only key to the situation. 
 But looking at the matter calmly, is it any wonder 
 if it were so 1 Success so complete, so sudden, so
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 235 
 
 well-deserved and so brilliant, as that which befell 
 the Jesuits, is rarely given to any body of men. Was 
 it, then, we say, any wonder that some might have 
 become intoxicated therewith, and carried away to 
 the point of making a means an end? They cer- 
 tainly had no warrant in their rule for their con- 
 duct ; and one cannot help feeling that their 
 superiors, in not checking the dabblers in politics, 
 secular and spiritual, brought on in later years a 
 heavy retribution. 
 
 It was at this time, when the fame of the society 
 was at its height, that, in reply to Allen's repeated 
 request, the general of the Jesuits promised] to send 
 some of his English subjects to help in the mission 
 field which had already become one of death/ In 
 the spring of 1580 the first two Jesuit missioners 
 set out for England, and arrived in the June follow- 
 ing. The two were Robert Parsons^ and Edmund 
 Campion. As these two were typical of the currents 
 
 1 When Pole was restoring the church in England, the Jesuits 
 suggested to him " that whereas the queen was restoring the goods of 
 the church that were in her hands, there was but little purpose to raise 
 up the old foundations ; for the benedictine order was become rather 
 a clog than a help to the church : they therefore desired that those 
 houses should be assigned to them for maintaining schools and semi- 
 naries which they should set on quickly," &c. (Burnett, History of the 
 Reformation, ed. Oxford, 1865, vol. ii. p. 526. Taken fi'om a Venetian 
 manuscript.) St. Ignatius wrote a beautiful letter to Pole, January 24, 
 1555, speaking of the desire he had of saving souls in this realm. See 
 Efist. Card. Poli., vol. v. p. 117; and More's Historia Provincice AnglicancB 
 S.J., p. II. 
 
 2 Robert Persons or Parsons was born at Nether Stowey, near Bridge- 
 water, in Somerset, in the year 1546. He received his education from 
 the vicar of the parish, who sent him to Oxford in 1564. Two years
 
 236 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 which then began to flow from the society we must 
 sketch their characters, and do not believe we can 
 do better than by quoting the masterly analysis given 
 by the late Mr. R. Simpson in his Life of Campion. 
 He says the protestants describe Parsons as the 
 "lurking wolf," and Campion as "the wandering 
 vagrant." And goes on — 
 
 " There was more truth in this colouring than in 
 the subsequent notion which Camden promulgated, 
 that Parsons was a violent and fierce-natured man, 
 while Campion was of a sweet disposition and 
 good breeding ; the first seditious, turbulent, and 
 confident ; the other modest in all things except his 
 challenge/ 
 
 "Campion, it seems to me, was the quick-tem- 
 pered man, open, free, generous, hot, enthusiastic 
 yet withal modest, gentle, and fair. Parsons more 
 slow, subtle, cool, calculating, and capable of ex- 
 later he entered Balliol College. He took his degree of M.A. in 1572, 
 and became fellow of his college and then bursar and dean. He was 
 also a noted tutor. He went abroad intending to become a physician ; 
 but falling in with a Jesuit he became a catholic, and joined their order 
 July 4, 1575. He was made rector of the English college in Eome 
 1587, and again after his return from Spain. He died April 15, 1610. 
 He was of middle size, swarthy complexion, strong featured, and of 
 somewhat forbidding appearance. But he was agreeable in manners 
 and had powers of conversation. His friends claim that his mind was 
 penetrating, his judgment solid and well regulated, and that he was 
 calm in consultation and patient under disappointments. He was a 
 great reader, and a master of an emphatic style of controversy. 
 
 1 This refers to a challenge Campion wrote offering to dispute with 
 any one a certain number of priests. The paper was committed to the 
 care of a friend, to be produced only under certain circumstances. 
 But it was prematurely published.
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 237 
 
 hibiting either violence or modesty as the occasion 
 seemed to demand. If Campion had the wisdom, 
 Parsons had the prudence. The first knew how to 
 move, the other to guide ; one, if I may use offen- 
 sive terms without offence, had the gifts which 
 make an agitator ; and the other those that make 
 a conspirator. The rules of the Jesuits, as I have 
 shown above, linked together characters thus dis- 
 similar in order that united they might act with 
 more force and more completeness. And this would 
 have been the case if their function had been all in 
 common ; but though the men were linked together 
 they had separate work to perform. As their in- 
 structions directed them to use the lay members of 
 the confraternity to prepare the preliminaries of 
 conversion and then themselves to finish the work, 
 so in this work of finishing there were different 
 grades ; for it is one thing to be a thorough catholic, 
 and it is something beyond to take part in the 
 pope's intentions and desires, and to devote oneself 
 to their furtherance and fulfilment.^ The instruc- 
 tions sufficient to make a man a catholic are not 
 sufficient to make him an ultramontane. Campion 
 thought that all was done when he had reconciled 
 his convert to the catholic church, and taught him 
 the faith and made him partaker of the sacraments. 
 Parsons looked further ; he desired and laboured for 
 the conversion of England, and he thought nothing 
 
 * Mr. Simpson is to be understood, of course, as referring to the papal 
 secular policy.
 
 238 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 could effect this but the overthrow of Elizabeth ; 
 therefore his aim was the organisation of a party on 
 which he could rely when the pope gave the signal 
 for the attack. But there was no reason for him to 
 blab of this design. The seed sown would, he 
 thought, grow all the stronger for not being pre- 
 maturely forced. It thus happened that there was 
 not always perfect community between the Jesuit 
 missionaries ; a polarity began to declare itself, as 
 it afterwards did in the society at large, sending off 
 those like Campion to fight under the banner of 
 St. Francis Xavier against heathenism, whilst it 
 retained those like Parsons in Europe to direct the 
 consciences of princes, and to influence the councils 
 of state." ^ 
 
 When they arrived in England,^ there were already 
 here some four-score seminary priests who had been 
 trained either in Eome or Douai, besides a number 
 of the old Marian clergy. These latter knew but 
 too well the position of the country ; they had ac- 
 quired that knowledge in a bitter school. The 
 enthusiasm of youth was passed ; and they were 
 contented for the most part, perhaps, at this time 
 of day, too well contented, to regard things as they 
 were, not as they would have wished them to be. 
 Hence they looked rather askance at the new ways 
 
 1 E. Simpson, Edmund Campion (1896), pp. 275, 276. 
 
 2 Parsons landed at Dover on June ir, 1580, disguised "in a 
 captain's uniform of buff trimmed with gold lace, with hat and feathers 
 to match." Campion followed on the 25 th, and passed himself off 
 as a merchant of jewels. The disguises were characteristic of the men.
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 239 
 
 and new ideas of these men who were flocking into 
 England from the seminaries ; and above all upon 
 the Jesuits, who from their very founder were de- 
 voted to the Spanish policy. It was feared, more- 
 over, that these two men would introduce a politi- 
 cal influence under the guise of religion. How 
 well in this the "old priests" forecasted the event, 
 history tells. 
 
 When Parsons and Campion arrived in London, 
 July 1580, they were met by certain representatives 
 of the secular clergy who told them plainly their 
 fears. Parsons assured them they had no political 
 object in view; that they came only "to treat of 
 religion in truth and simplicity, and to attend to the 
 gaining of souls without any pretence or knowledge 
 of matters of state." ^ The general had given them 
 special instructions, and directly forbidden them 
 even to discuss such matters. Parsons told them 
 this, and said — 
 
 " Not that we would have meddled in these matters 
 if it had not been forbidden us ; but we wish that by 
 making public the general's charge we may prevent 
 all who are informed of it from starting such dis- 
 courses in future." ^ 
 
 ^ Edmund Campion, p. 183. 
 
 2 " Those instructions, says Fr. Morris, S. J., were intended to be 
 strictly secret, and they were not kept secret. They were meant to be 
 obeyed, and Father Parsons at first, and blessed Edmund Campion to 
 the end of his short career, obeyed them. It would have been good for 
 religion if Fr. Parsons had continued to obey them, and his superiors 
 to enforce them. But for a time he was busily engaged in Sjiain acting 
 in the very teeth of them " {Dublin Review, April 1890, p. 251).
 
 240 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 The fears of the secular clergy were allayed and the 
 Jesuits made very welcome as helpers in the mission 
 field. But soon Parsons threw obedience to the 
 winds and began political intrigues. He could not 
 resist it. His mind was filled with the vision of the 
 regaining of England by force of arms, and he felt 
 he must prepare the way for that. The Armada was 
 talked about abroad as a certainty ; ^ the ground 
 must be prepared here. With all the energy of his 
 impetuous nature he adopted, solely, we think, from 
 the conviction that he was thereby advancing God's 
 greater glory, the dangerous r61e of a conspirator in 
 the hope of helping on the restoration of England 
 to the holy see or of dying a martyr in the cause. 
 But he had misjudged his means. Within a year 
 Campion, the brave and chivalrous missioner, was 
 the martyr. And Parsons fled away, in prudence 
 
 1 It is instructive to find Parsons, while engaged in the tangles of 
 politics, being himself duped by those he served. Philip II. wrote thus 
 on February ii, 1587, to Count Olivares : "You will maintain Allen 
 and Robert (Parsons) in faith and hopefulness that the recovery of 
 their country will really be attempted in order that they may the more 
 zealously and earnestly employ the good offices which may be expedient 
 with the pope ; but let it be in such a way that they do not think the 
 affair is so near at hand as that it will make them expansive in com- 
 municating it to others of their nation for their comfort and consola- 
 tion, and so cause it to become public, for this is the way in which 
 during these past years many things which were well begun for the 
 benefit of that kingdom have come to nought. Go on, then, counter- 
 balancing and drawing profit from them ; and in everything do as you 
 are accustomed with just prudence and dexterity according to what 
 the afi'air requires ; and I confide it to you, and you will inform me of 
 what is done." See Knox's Introduction to Letters and Memorials of 
 William., Cardinal Allen, p. Ixxxvi.
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 241 
 
 it has been called, to the continent, never again to 
 put his neck in jeopardy on English soil. 
 
 Father Parsons could never more resist the attrac- 
 tion of poUtics. His life henceforth was devoted 
 to intrigue. Kestless and untiring, he wandered 
 up and down the continent exerting directly or 
 indirectly, for the one end in view, all his vast 
 powers of organisation and leadership. He obtained 
 the foundation of seminaries for secular priests, 
 which he placed under the direction of the fathers 
 of the society, at Valladolid (1589), Lisbon, and 
 Seville (1592); and also founded a college for lay 
 youths at St. Omers (1594). With his influence at 
 the Spanish court, whose interests he was always 
 labouring to advance, he got pensions for these 
 houses. He collected alms from the nobility for 
 the same purpose, and also for helping the English 
 exiles. This command over money gave him great 
 power and influence with his countrymen abroad ; 
 and his words came to be looked upon as so many 
 oracles. He wrote treatises, political and spiritual ; 
 he was the adviser upon English affairs at Rome, 
 especially after the death of cardinal Allen (1594); 
 and in fact his opinion seemed to be at one time all 
 powerful. Everything was done through him and 
 according to his views. It is extraordinary to think 
 of the wonderful influence one man could exert 
 over superiors, and that he, a religious, not a states- 
 man, should as irresponsible be allowed to hold 
 the threads of a hundred afi'airs in his own hands. 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 242 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 What were the results as we see them? His in- 
 trigues were failures ; the monopoly he laboured at 
 such cost to create was destroyed ; and he did more 
 than any other man to create an ill feeling among 
 Englishmen towards his order. Blackwell, who 
 afterwards became the first arch-priest, lamented 
 his coming into England, saying : — 
 
 " The President of Rheims ^ played a very indis- 
 creet part to send him hither, as being an unfit man 
 to be employed in the cause of religions." ^ His 
 political ventures, and the way in which he proposed 
 first one and then another as successor to the Eng- 
 lish throne, could not but excite the amusement of 
 the Romans. Pasquino tells Marforio, " If there will 
 be any man that will buy the kingdom of England 
 let him repair to a merchant in a black square cap 
 in the city, and he shall have a very good penny- 
 worth thereof." It was well enough for the Romans 
 to laugh at Parsons' schemes and projections. But 
 in England our forefathers had to sufi'er for them. 
 
 His plan, which seems to have developed into 
 a fixed and orderly purpose, was that his society 
 should have the glory of regaining England to the 
 faith. He, without doubt, honestly believed that 
 
 1 Allen had been obliged to remove his college from Douai in 1578 
 to Rheims, on account of reports adverse to his loyalty to Spain, which 
 were found afterwards to have been spread by the emissaries of queen 
 Elizabeth. The college remained at Rheims till 1599, when it returned 
 to Douai. 
 
 2 A Sparing Discover ie, by "W. W., 1601, p. 45. Dr. Ely, in his 
 Certaine Briefe Notes, mentions the same opinion of Blackwell.
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 243 
 
 the Jesuits could do so, and also that they alone 
 could do so. For that end, accordingly, he was 
 convinced that they must have full control over all 
 ecclesiastical affairs in this country. He impressed 
 this upon his men, and there were some who openly 
 avowed it. More does not hesitate to write : — 
 
 " Perhaps even these missions might with greater 
 propriety and greater convenience (let not the ex- 
 pression offend) be entrusted to members of our 
 society than to other men." ^ 
 
 Parsons, in the plan he drew up for the reorgani- 
 sation of the English Church which was hoped for 
 upon the success of the Armada, takes measures to 
 exclude from England all who would interfere with 
 the monopoly he was so carefully planning for the 
 greater glory of God as he understood it. The 
 benedictines, it was true, were the old apostles of 
 England ; the Jesuits, under his guidance, should 
 now have the glory of recovering the land to the 
 Faith.^ When in 1596-7 the students of the Eng- 
 lish secular college at Rome were petitioning the 
 pope to remove the Jesuits from the control over 
 the house, he hurried to the Eternal City and 
 *' undertook to oppose the prayer and to assign the 
 reasons for its rejection. The society, he assured 
 the pontiff, was essential to the existence of religion 
 
 ^ Eistoria Provincice Aiiglicance Societatis Jesu collector e Henrico Mora 
 (1660), p. 152. 
 
 2 See Memorial for the Reformation of England, by R. P., 1596, Part I. 
 chaps, vi., viii.
 
 244 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 in the country. To the laity its members were 
 necessary, to counsel, to strengthen, and to protect 
 them ; to the clergy to support, to correct, and to 
 restrain them. Already the latter, by their vices 
 and their apostacy, had become objects of aversion^ 
 or of distrust to the catholics. Were the fathers 
 to be removed, the people would be left without 
 advisers, the clergy without guides ; the salt would 
 be taken from the earth, and the sun would be 
 blotted from the hearers of the English Church." - 
 
 With such assumptions it was not likely that 
 peace could long be kept in England, where 
 we must now return to the coming of the Jesuit 
 missionaries in 1580. The great question which 
 was agitating the consciences of catholics, was 
 how far the excommunication of Pius V. bound 
 them. Left to themselves, a certain sense of most 
 told them not at all ; but some were scrupulous 
 about it. Parsons and Campion brought with them 
 some instructions from the pope (Gregory XIII.) 
 on the subject. Catholics were to be told "that 
 
 1 Father J. Morris, S.J., thus writes about Parsons' abusive language : 
 " It is to be profoundly regretted that Father Parsons should have 
 allowed himself to make such terrible accusations against the personal 
 character of his opponents. . . . Still, considering all that can be alleged 
 in excuse, the language used by him is, if I may be allowed to judge 
 60 great a man, absolutely indefensible. It seems to have been im- 
 politic likewise. . . . But on this point of hard, uncharitable language 
 I for one cannot be the defender of Father Parsons, and indeed I look 
 upon it with the deepest regret and concern " (Dublin Revieio, April 
 1890, p. 253). 
 
 2 Tierney's edition of Dodds' History of the Church in England, vol. iii- 
 p. 45, note.
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 245 
 
 the bull of Pius Quintus should always oblige the 
 queen and heretics, and should by no means bind 
 catholics as matters stood; but thereafter bind 
 them when some public execution might be had 
 on the matter." In other words, according to this 
 theory, catholics were to be loyal as long as they 
 could not help it. The knowledge of this instruc- 
 tion goes far to discount the professions of loyalty 
 so many of them made then and afterwards.^ 
 
 When Campion was taken and Parsons fled, there 
 were in England but two more Jesuits, Frs. Holt 
 and Haywood, who came over in the summer of 
 1 58 1. Fr. Haywood was taken prisoner, and Fr. 
 Holt went to Scotland on a political mission. Soon 
 two others came ; but a long time the Jesuits were 
 only a handful. Fr. Gerard says : — 
 
 " On my arrival in London (1588), by the help of 
 certain catholics I discovered Fr. Henry Garnet, who 
 was then superior. Besides him, the only ones of 
 our society then in England were Fr. Edmund 
 Weston, confined in Wisbeach, Fr. Robert South- 
 well, and we two new comers " - (Frs. Oldcorne and 
 
 1 Father Gerard in his autohiography speaks of his examination at 
 the Guildhall, and says : " They asked me then whether I acknow- 
 ledged the queen as the true governor and queen of England. I 
 answered : ' I do acknowledge her as such.' ' What,' said TopclifFe, 
 ' in spite of Pius V.'s excommunication ? ' I answered : ' I acknow- 
 ledge her as our queen notwithstanding I know there is such 
 excommunication.' The fact was, I knew that the operation of that 
 excommunication had been suspended for all England l)y a declara- 
 tion of the Pontiff till such time as its execution became possible" 
 (Quarterly Series, p. 118). ^ If^^d. p. 21.
 
 246 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 Gerard). Three years after the Jesuits only numbered 
 nine or ten. But they were a united, determined 
 body with a superior of their own, and thus were 
 able to work in unison. The secular clergy, on the 
 other hand, were still left without bishops or superior. 
 Before the arrival of Fr. Gerard, however, the 
 troubles had begun. And they came about in this 
 way. At Wisbeach Castle in the year 1587 were 
 confined thirty-three prisoners for conscience' sake, 
 many of whom were old priests of tried virtue and 
 learning, and among whom was an old monk of 
 Westminster, D. Sigebert Buckley. The others were 
 seminarists either from Eome or Douai, many of 
 whom, be it remembered, were educated, directly or 
 indirectly, under the influence of the society.^ Fr. 
 Weston, the Jesuit, was one of the prisoners. He was 
 not content with letting things be as he found them. 
 It seemed to him that it would be highly advantageous 
 if the prisoners were reduced to the regularity of the 
 life to which he had been accustomed. 
 
 1 To understand the situation we will quote from Tierney's remarks : 
 " Originally introduced as the assistants, the Jesuits, with the advantage 
 of a resident superior, had gradually become the most influential 
 members of the English mission. They possessed more extensive 
 faculties than the clergy. They were attached to the principal families, 
 were consulted by the catholics in their principal difiiculties, and were 
 the medium through which the funds for the maintenance of the clergy 
 and the poor were chiefly administered. The younger missioners, 
 educated in the colleges of the fathers, and still looking to them for 
 support, naturally placed themselves under their guidance. The elder 
 clergy, on the other hand, superseded in their authority and deprived 
 in great measure of their influence, regarded the members of the society 
 in the light of rivals, . . . Human nature on both sides yielded to 
 the impulse (vol. iii. p. 43, note).
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 247 
 
 His first step was to get his confessor, a secular 
 priest, elected as superior of the prisoners. This 
 plan was negatived. Other proposals of a like 
 nature were made ; but were invariably rejected. 
 This went on for seven years ; until at last Weston, 
 having arranged the plan with his adherents, 
 suddenly withdrew from the common table. His 
 absence being remarked, he was questioned as to the 
 reason, and promptly declared that unless his com- 
 panions submitted to a regular mode of life, his 
 conscience would not allow him any more to join 
 their society. He had a following of nineteen, one 
 of whom was a Jesuit lay-brother. It is not necessary 
 here to follow the details of a story on which at 
 present we can only look back with shame and 
 humiliation. The scandal went on for months, and 
 its effects were felt far beyond the prison walls. 
 Eemote as was the stage on which this unhappy 
 drama was enacted, and petty as were the actors, 
 the stir such schisms created in fact, was natural. 
 For it was inevitably felt that here first came into 
 evidence the forces which had been long, though 
 secretly, in conflict ; and, nay, in this quarrel, obscure 
 and sordid in some aspects, principles were, in the 
 last resort, involved which were of the widest range 
 and of the deepest import to both church and state. 
 The suff'ering English catholics were now divided 
 into two factions : those who through thick and thin 
 favoured the Jesuits, or in other words Parsons' 
 schemes ; and those who opposed them just as vehe-
 
 248 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 mently. Many attempts were made during nine 
 months by some of the most reverend of the " old 
 clergy " to heal the breach at Wisbeach. After many 
 efforts difficulties were overcome, a new code of rules 
 was drawn up, and on November 6, 1597, the two 
 parties met again at the common table. 
 
 It was a fallacious peace, however; for already 
 steps were being taken by Fr. Parsons in Rome 
 to complete the subjugation of the secular clergy. 
 These latter, feeling the want of some head, were 
 beginning to take steps towards forming themselves 
 into an association for mutual help.^ This alarmed 
 the Jesuits. The necessity of some form of govern- 
 ment was apparent, but Parsons now knew that 
 the revival of government by bishops would be fatal 
 to his schemes in regard to the clergy, and would 
 interfere with his political views. And, upon Allen's 
 death (1594), Parsons, having got into his place, 
 was practically the sole director of English ecclesi- 
 astical affairs. 
 
 Attempts after the Armada had been made to 
 get the succession of bishops kept up ; but hitherto 
 without avail. Several petitions went up for at 
 least an episcopal superior to rule and confirm the 
 stricken flock. Parsons at one time (1580), when 
 
 1 See Colleton's J^lst Defence, pp. 123-5. In the preface to the rules, 
 they declared, " for our parts, we wish and intend no other thing hereby, 
 but God's honour, the furtherance of His church's cause, with perfect 
 unity and concord amongst ourselves by the mutual offices of love, 
 comfort, and succour, one towards another " (Quoted by Tierney, vol. 
 iii. p. 45, note).
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 249 
 
 he first came to England, and before politics wholly 
 carried him away, was an advocate for sending over 
 a bishop. In 1591 he still held to the idea, and 
 had fashioned a kind of hierarchy of his own/ He 
 had secured the promises of a competent support for 
 two or three bishops. But when the news of the 
 proposed association reached him, at once he saw 
 the danger, and determined on a bold stroke. To 
 give the clergy a superior, yes ; and one not merely 
 friendly to the society, but in dependence on it. 
 The scheme took some little time to mature, and 
 at last burst upon the astonished clergy, filling them 
 with dismay. Cardinal Cajetan, who only saw as 
 Parsons wished him to see, was then protector of 
 the English mission. After some kind of approval 
 (so it turned out afterwards) on the part of the pope, 
 Clement VIII., who had been kept by Parsons in 
 ignorance of the real state of afiairs, the cardinal, 
 in his own name and by his own authority, issued 
 letters appointing one George Blackwell to be arch- 
 priest, with full jurisdiction over all the secular 
 clergy. He assigns him six persons as assistants, 
 and tells him to select six more. This document, 
 constituting an office unheard of before in England, 
 ends by exhorting him to cherish a feeling of 
 brotherly love towards the Jesuits, "who neither 
 have nor pretend to have any portion of jurisdic- 
 
 ^ His idea was an archbishop to live in the Spanish domains and 
 one bishop to live in England. The latter was to have certain assist- 
 ants, half of whom Parsons practically was to nominate.
 
 250 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 tion or authority over the secular clergy." And 
 effectually to contradict this last official statement, 
 a secret instruction was sent with the letter ordering 
 the arch-priest in all matters of importance to follow 
 the advice of the superior of the Jesuits.^ 
 
 To make a painful stoiy short. The heads of the 
 secular clergy demurred to the legality of the docu- 
 ment ; and, while giving obedience to Blackwell, 
 appealed to the holy see. They had not been con- 
 sulted, although the cardinal hinted the appoint- 
 ment ^ had been made at the prayer of the secular 
 clergy. Two priests, Mr. Bishop (who afterwards 
 became a bishop) and Mr. Charnock, were deputed 
 to go to Rome, and set out. But care had been 
 taken to traduce their characters and to represent 
 them as turbulent and seditious men. Soon after 
 their arrival, at Parsons' advice, they were both seized 
 (December 28, 1598), by the cardinal's orders, and 
 put into prison apart at the English college. Their 
 gaoler was none other than Parsons himself.^ Here 
 
 1 The arch-priest and his assistants were bound to write to the 
 cardinal every six months, but every week to Parsons. 
 
 2 The persons consulted were Parsons and Baldwin, Jesuits, with 
 Haddock, Array, and Standish, who soon after joined the society, and 
 some other secular priests at Rome, avowed partisans of the society, 
 whose opinions were supported by letters from their friends not only 
 in England but also Spain and Flanders. 
 
 3 How this arbitrary act was viewed in England Dr. Ely, author of 
 the Certaine Brief e Notes, shall tell us, and his words are of weight, for 
 he may justly lay claim to the title he gives himself, " an unpassionate 
 secular priest, friend to both parties but more friend to the truth " : 
 " Cloak and disguise it so well as you can now, the posterity here- 
 after will wonder to hear or read that two catholic priests, coming
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 251 
 
 they were kept in prison for four months, and then, 
 after a so-called trial, under Parsons' management, 
 they were expelled from Rome without having even 
 seen the pope, and were forbidden to return to 
 England. 
 
 "It is evident," says Tierney, "that these proceed- 
 ings were adopted principally, first entirely, as a 
 matter of precaution. A great political object was 
 in view. Had Bishop and his companion been 
 permitted to approach the pontiff or to converse 
 freely with his officers, a new impression might 
 have been created as to the wants and wishes of 
 the English catholics ; and, in that case, the in- 
 stitutions of the arch-priest, which in the minds of 
 its projectors was to determine the future destinies 
 of the throne, might have been overturned. By 
 first sequestering and afterwards dismissing the 
 deputes this danger was avoided. The pontiff 
 heard nothing but what might be prudent to lay 
 before him, his impressions were left undisturbed ; 
 and he willingly subscribed the breve by which 
 Blackwell's authority was confirmed." ^ 
 
 as appellants to Rome out of an heretical country in which they main- 
 tained constantly with danger of their lives the honour and preserva- 
 tion of that see, and one of them had suffered some years' imprisonment 
 with banishment afterwards for the articles of St. Peter his successor's 
 supremacy over all other princes and prelates, that these priests (I say) 
 should before they were heard what they had to say be cast into prison, 
 yea, and imprisoned in the house and under the custody of their 
 adversaries, never was there heard of such injustice since good St. Peter 
 sat in the Chair" (p. 107). 
 ^ Vol. iii. p. 53.
 
 252 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 The arch-priest denounced all opposers to his 
 authority as rebels and abettors of schism, and 
 branded the supporters of the two priests with 
 opprobrious epithets. When two of the clergy, 
 Mush and Colleton, complained of his injurious 
 language, they were answered only by suspension. 
 His Jesuit friends were not behind-hand ; Fr. Lister 
 wrote a Treatise of Schism in which he declared 
 the appellants to be "fallen from the church and 
 spouse of Christ," &c. How bitter the feelings ex- 
 cited on both sides it would be hard to tell. 
 
 When the breve arrived, the appellants promptly 
 bowed to the decision. But this was not enough 
 for the arch-priest, who now made his great mistake. 
 He insisted upon a declaration that they had been 
 guilty of schism in disputing his right. The result 
 of this was another appeal to the holy see. But this 
 time the secular clergy were determined to bear the 
 winning side. The Government knew everything 
 about these dissensions. The face of affairs had 
 changed from that of twenty years before ; and at that 
 time of day nothing could better suit Elizabeth than 
 the ruinous tactics pursued by Parsons. Elizabeth 
 had watched the progress of the quarrel; "she was 
 aware of its political origin, and while on one hand, 
 perhaps, she sought to weaken the body by division, 
 on the other, she not unnaturally inclined towards 
 that party whose loyalty was less open to suspicion."^ 
 Some of the appellants were allowed to be prisoners 
 
 1 Ibid.
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 253 
 
 at large, in order to correspond with one another. 
 Facilities were given them to print the numberless 
 tracts and pamphlets to which the controversy gave 
 rise. About the end of June 1601 Bluet, one of the 
 Wisbeach prisoners, had an interview with the queen 
 herself. She consented to allow four of them to be 
 released and go about the country getting money for 
 their journey to Rome. They were then pro forma 
 expelled the country, with passports however ; and 
 went off to Rome with nearly ^1000 for their ex- 
 penses. Just as they were starting a breve came 
 from Rome, which Blackwell suppressed as unfavour- 
 able to himself. 
 
 The deputies reached Rome February 16, 1601, 
 and were kindly received by the pope. They were, 
 however, shy of Parsons' offer of hospitality at the 
 English college, and of his desire to be on friendly 
 terms. They wisely kept their distance. The 
 petition for bishops was indeed foiled by their ad- 
 versaries, but all the rest was granted. On the 
 5th of October another breve was issued, condemn- 
 ing the conduct of the arch-priest, and doing justice 
 to the appellants. Blackwell was declared to have 
 exceeded his powers, and the appellants not to have 
 lost their faculties. The arch-priest was to have 
 jurisdiction only over the seminarists, and in future 
 he was forbidden to communicate either with the 
 superior of the Jesuits or their general in Rome. He 
 was finally ordered to take three of the appellants to 
 fill the first vacancies in the number of his assistants.
 
 254 THE ENGLISH BLACK MONKS 
 
 Tierney so well sums up the history that we 
 willingly make his words our own : — 
 
 " Thus terminated this unhappy contest, leaving 
 behind it, however, a rankling feeling of jealousy 
 and dislike which cannot be too deeply or too last- 
 ingly deplored. Yet in closing this imperfect sketch, 
 let me not forget to remind the reader of the real 
 nature of the dispute ; let me point once more to 
 its political origin ; and, above all, let me remark 
 that however reprehensible may have been the 
 conduct of any of the parties immediately engaged 
 in it, that conduct of itself will neither detract 
 from their real merit upon other occasions, nor 
 diminish our legitimate respect for the bodies to 
 which they belonged. To the services of Parsons, 
 to his comprehensive mind and indefatigable energy 
 in the foundation and management of many of 
 the foreign seminaries, the world will continue to 
 bear witness in spite of all his failings. Yet his 
 existence was not necessary to the greatness of 
 his order. Its glory needs him not, and without 
 detracting either from his merits or his powers, 
 the disciples of Ignatius may still assure them- 
 selves that their body 'hath many a worthier son 
 than he.' " ' 
 
 We have in this chapter led our readers up to 
 the point when the benedictines come upon the 
 mission field. It was necessary to touch upon un- 
 pleasant details, otherwise much of what follows 
 
 ^ Ibid. p. 55.
 
 THE STATE OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 255 
 
 would be unintelligible. The position in English 
 affairs at the moment we have now arrived at, the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century, was this. The 
 Jesuits had full control over the education of the 
 clergy in all the seminaries, even in Douai ; for the 
 new president of that college, Dr. Worthington, had 
 made a vow of obedience to Fr. Parsons and was 
 wholly devoted to him. No student from the semi- 
 naries could enter England without their leave ; for 
 he got his faculties for the mission from them or from 
 Dr. Worthington. And in England itself the arch- 
 priest, though checked, was still working in their 
 interest.^ 
 
 In all this there was no other motive but the 
 honest and fixed conviction that they, and they alone, 
 were the best persons to undertake the conversion 
 of England, a work so much to the glory of God. 
 Granting this premise, the conclusion — therefore 
 no one else was to be permitted to interfere — was 
 legitimate. 
 
 So matters stood at the moment we once more 
 take up the thread of the history of English bene- 
 dictines. 
 
 ^ Before the appointment of the arch-priest, Garnet, who had very 
 extensive faculties, a source of considerable influence, had also the 
 power of subdelegating them to secular priests. But now all faculties 
 for secular priests were ordered to be given only by the arch-priest. 
 In a letter to Parsons Garnet laments this, for says he : " By this also 
 have I lost the chiefest means I had to win the favour of good honest 
 priests." 
 
 #^-'\\^
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 R
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 THE CONSUETUDINARY OF ST. AUGUSTINE'S, 
 CANTERBURY 
 
 [The following HsuiiU of the old consuetudinary of the 
 great exempt house of St. Augustine's, contained in the 
 Cotton MS. Faustina C. xii., is of peculiar interest as being 
 mutatis mutandis identical with that of Westminster, the 
 largest part of which was lost in the fire of 173 1. The 
 present manuscript is of the early part of the fourteenth 
 century, and now consists of 202 folios with 35 lines on each 
 page. Unfortunately both the beginning and the end are 
 wanting, and it now commences with folio 51. Several 
 leaves in the body of the volume are also missing. From 
 certain marginal memoranda it would seem that in its 
 original state the volume comprised about 300 leaves. The 
 consuetudinary proper extends only to folio 257 of the 
 original. The remainder of the MS. not being a part of the 
 Augustinian consuetudinary, is not treated of in this notice. 
 The contents of the book are not orderly in its arrangement, 
 as will be seen from the list of contents, which it must be 
 understood is that given on the basis of the original in the 
 volumes of manuscript collection used by me (see preface) 
 and which does not always render in full the headings of 
 the sections as given in the rubrics of the orginal manu- 
 script itself. Hence in the abstract ^ here given it has been 
 
 1 The primeur of the text of the manuscript is thus reserved to the 
 
 edition of abbat Ware's Westminster consuetudinary to be published by 
 
 the Henry Bradshaw Society. 
 
 259
 
 26o APPENDIX 
 
 thought well to regroup them under certain distinctive 
 heads. The picture obtained of the life at Canterbury in 
 St. Augustine's is that of a fervent, well ordered, and ex- 
 emplary convent. E. L, T.] 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 § De hospite petente concessionem capituU ; 
 
 % Petitio ; 
 
 § Concessio capituli ; 
 
 § De professione novitiorum ; 
 
 § Forma professionis ; 
 
 § Super Jube dompne benedicere et Tu autem Domine notitia ; 
 
 § Informatio novitiorum secundum usum istius ecdesise,. 
 
 § De vacatione dbhatise. per mortem abhatis Thomee, de Fyndon 
 
 et de eledione fratris RadidpM de Bourne in ahhatem ; 
 § Litera obligatoria Gfuydonis Donati de prsestanda pecunia p'o- 
 
 curatorihus monasterii in Curia Romana existentihus. 
 § Mensura diversorum xdificioruvi monasterii. 
 § De ponderibus notula. 
 § Reformatiuncula abbatis Nicholai de Spina amio ejusdem 
 
 2° facta. 
 § De eledione abbatis. 
 § De observantiis abbatis. 
 § De capellanis abbatis. 
 § De officio camerarii abbatis. 
 § De officio senescalli aulx. 
 § De officiis marscalli aulae. 
 § De officio servitoris cultelli abbatis. 
 § De officio servitoris manutergii abbatis. 
 § De officio panetarii abbatis. 
 % De officio marscalli equorum. 
 § De officio cod abbatis. 
 § De officio valecti camerse abbatis. 
 § De officio subpincernse abbatis. 
 § De officio subhostiarii aulae. abbatis. 
 § De officio cod aulx et valecti ejus.
 
 APPENDIX 261 
 
 § De nuntio abbatis. 
 
 § De palefridario abbatis. 
 
 § De officio servientis elemosinarix niensse abbatis deputati. 
 
 § De honestate atdae. 
 
 § Oblationes per obedientiaries familix abbatis tribuendx. 
 
 § Modus dandi munerafamilise, abbatis quando vadit per maneria. 
 
 % Ordinatio familix abbatis anno 2 abbatis Nicholai de Spina. 
 
 § De lis quae ad abbatis praesentiam et officium spedant ; atque 
 
 defratre in abbatem electo qualiter se geret electionis tempore. 
 § Qualiter se geret usque dum conjirmetur. 
 § De confirmatione clecti alibi quam in monasterio propria. 
 § Ad installationem abbatis processus. 
 % De benedictione abbatis non admittenda in conventu eo die quo 
 
 confirmatur. 
 § De prior e. 
 § Item de abbate. 
 § De officio prioris seu propositi. 
 § De subpriore sive de priore claustri. 
 § Qtias licentias subprior dare poterit priore domi existente. 
 § A quo petenda est licentia si custos ordinis in claustro non 
 
 fuerit. 
 § Explicatio brevis de fratrihus segritudinis causa extra chorum 
 
 ezistentibus atque de minutis. 
 § De tertio et quarto priore sive de exploratoribus claustri. 
 § De officio cantoris et succentoris. 
 § Quodjuvenes qui noviter servitium reddiderunt nullum defectum 
 
 in choro patiantur. 
 § De officio 2^recentoris in capitulo. 
 § De cappis in choro portandis. 
 
 § Quod nullus in cappa a choro recedat sine licentia precentoris. 
 § Ti'ia de quibus onmihus professis licitum est loqui in capitulo. 
 § Prsscentori in multis parcendum est. 
 § De gestu prxcentoris in festis solemnibus. 
 § De succentoris officio. 
 § De officiis sacristse sociorumque ejus. 
 § De candelis hospitibus liberandis. 
 § Distributio cerae. per sacristam facta contra purificationem.
 
 262 APPENDIX 
 
 § De luminarihus, claustro, capitulo, dormitorio, et locutorio 
 
 accendendis. 
 § De officio celerarii et suhcelerario et granatoris. 
 § Qualis debet esse celerarius. 
 § De Us quse. ad hostiliarii spectant officium. 
 § De magistro cryptarum. 
 § Recapitulatio de officiariis. 
 § Casus tangentes excomniunicationem. 
 § Dejinitio proprietarii. 
 § Prsecepta capituU et constitutionum. 
 § De Refedorario socioque ejus et de ohservantiis refedorii. 
 § De gesta fratrum in dormitorio atque in camera ; de earner ario 
 
 et socio ejus ; de more fratrum antiquo halneandi et sangui- 
 
 nem sihi minuendi. 
 § De gestu fratrum in claustro ; de mandato ; de elemosinario et 
 
 suhelemosinario. 
 § De capitulo fratrum quotidiano. 
 § De excommunicatione et satisfadione culpse levis. 
 § Modus acrior aliquantulum de excommimicatione et satisfac- 
 
 tione culparum. 
 § De generali confessione a fratre qui ad laternam ponitur 
 
 agenda. 
 § Alius modus excommunicationis pro rehellione. 
 § De sententia gravis cidpse. 
 § De sententia et satisfactione fugitivorum. 
 § Quse, sunt culpee graviores. 
 § Qum leviores. 
 § De sacerdote sive clerico seeculari postulante ut in hoc monasterio 
 
 reeipiatur. 
 § Quod novitius nonprofessus de infirmaria etc nihil est hahiturus. 
 § Quo ordine est agenda prof essio monachorum. 
 § Quo ordine suscipiuntur laid conversi juxta consuetudinem 
 
 istius monasterii. 
 § De disciplina fratrum laicorum. 
 
 § De negligentiis fortuitu ad missee consecrationem contingentibus. 
 § De concessione beneficii hujus monasterii alterius congregationis 
 
 monacho.
 
 APPENDIX 263 
 
 § De concessione fraternitatis personis sxcularibus et quid speci- 
 
 aliter fiat audito ohitu eorum vel ohitu parentum eorum. 
 § De fratrihus segritudinis caicsa exira chorum ; et de minutione. 
 § Quod die tertia redire debent minuti vel ulterius morari licen- 
 
 tiam postulare. 
 § Nulli raucedinis causa extra chorum morandi licentiam con- 
 
 cedatur. 
 § De fratre qui medicinatur. 
 § De fratre qui inungitur. 
 § Regula de claustralihus infirmis. 
 § De ordinato fratrum ingressu i7i chorum. 
 § De gestu fratrum qui extra chorum fuerint in vigiliis festi 
 
 principalis. 
 § Quod fratres ad chorum reversi ad omnes horas eo die esse 
 
 tenentur. 
 § De gestu fratrum eodem die. 
 § De minutione fratrum claustralium. 
 § Tempora quihus fratres minui non debent. 
 § De petenda licentia minuendi. 
 § Quod tres collaterales simul minuere non debent. 
 § De minutione fratrum in infirmario jacentium. 
 § De minutione fratrum in quadragesima. 
 § De minutione laicorum conversorum. 
 § De minutione novitiorum minime professorum. 
 § De gestu fratrum prima die minutionis. 
 § De minutione unius fratris necessitate cogente. 
 § Quod minuti et qui xgritudinis catisa extra chorum existunt 
 
 processionibus solemnibus interesse debent. 
 § De gestu fratrum ad mandatum in capitulo si fiat prima die 
 
 minutionis. 
 § Quod stando dicetur completorium de Dei Genitrice. 
 § Quod unusquisque fratrum quotidie primatn et completorium de 
 
 B. V. dicere debet. 
 § De crasseto quod in locutorio intrinseco ardere debet. 
 § A quihus dicendee. privatse matidinee. 
 § De minutione domni abhatis. 
 § De minutione juvenum sive novitiorum.
 
 264 APPENDIX 
 
 § Quodfratres minuti chorum intrare debent ad exorcismum salts et 
 
 aquae, si secunda dies suae minutionis dies dominica fuerit. 
 § Quod fratres minuti extra cfiorum existentes ad missam matu- 
 
 tinalem sen ad magnam missam indui non debent nisi ante 
 
 missam agatur processio. 
 § Quod fratres minuti aut qui aegritudinis causa extra chorum 
 
 existunt missam cantare non debeant. 
 § Quod nullus minuetur die quo alicujus fratris defuncti corpus 
 
 in ecclesia jacet. 
 § Quod nullum locutorium causa loquendi, ingredi debet die quo 
 
 alicujus fratris defuncti corpus in ecclesia jacet. 
 § Quod fratres minuti et de itinere reversi ad vigiliam et ad 
 
 missam de principali anniversario esse teneantur. 
 § Quod cantor aut alii fratres, cum sanguinati fuerint, mdlum 
 
 offkium in conventu facient. 
 § De refectorario et subrefectorario sive aliis duobus qui in 
 
 una administratione conjunguntur, quod simul minuere non 
 
 debeant. 
 § Quod nullus causa raucedinis extra chorum permittatur. 
 § De priore. 
 § De cantore. 
 
 § De gestu minutorum tertia die suae, minutionis. 
 § De fratre cui domus injirmorum cura committitur et de iis 
 
 quae illius incumbunt officio. 
 § Quod infirmarius quotidie dicet completorium infirmorum. 
 § Quod saeculares personee inter infirmos prandere nee bibere 
 
 debent. 
 § Quod praedicti famuli {sc. infirmariae) aut unus eorum apud Can- 
 tuariampro apotecharia quotiens opus fuerit incedere debent. 
 § Quod omnes infirmi si fieri potest ad unam mensam prandere 
 
 debeant. 
 § Quod magnum altare infirmariae nullo die per annum sine 
 
 missa et matutinis esse debet. 
 § De mode et ordine visitandi fratrem infirmum quando debet 
 
 inungi. 
 § Quod si infirmus loqui non valet ille qui officium facit in 
 
 persona illius dicet confessionem.
 
 APPENDIX 265 
 
 § Quo ordine sacerdos quaeret Eukaristiam post fratris inunc- 
 
 tionem. 
 § Quo ordine fiet ohsequiuni pro fratre inuncto in conventu usque 
 
 in octavum diem. 
 § Quod aliquis sacerdos dejuvenibus vel ad minus diaconus, custo- 
 dies fratris inuncti per priorem assignahitur quemcunque 
 
 infirmus rogaverif. 
 § De commendatione animae. exeuntis de corpore atque de ceeteris 
 
 omnibus seriatim quse ad decedentium fratrum spedant 
 
 officium. 
 § Quod corpus defuncii nulla Jiora sine fratribvs psallentibus 
 
 remanebit. 
 § De honestate et cura quas camerarius et subcamerarius circa 
 
 corpus defuncti habebunt. 
 § Quid sit faciendum si aliquis de fratribus obierit dum modo 
 
 conventus fuerit ad missas vel ad horas vel in prandio vel in 
 
 cena vel in completorio vel ad matutinas vel ad mandatum 
 
 in sabbato vel alioquovis modo impeditus. 
 § Qualiter fiet si aliquis obierit dum fratres ad missam vel ad 
 
 horam fuerint regidarem. 
 § Quod si obierit dum fratres fuerint ad matutinas. 
 § Quod si liora prandii aliquis moriatur. 
 § Quod si obierit post quam sonatur cymbalum ad pramlium 
 
 aut ad csenam conventus vel dum fit mandatum in sabbato 
 
 aut in V. feria. 
 § Quod si obierit dum conventus sit in dormitorio in meridiana. 
 § Quod si accederit incsepto completorio. 
 § Qualiter fiet si in principali festo decesserit. 
 § De vigiliis faciendis in decessu fratrum. 
 § De vigiliis in obitu fratrum secundum diversa anni tempora 
 
 rite distinguendis. 
 § Si aliquis frater obierit post sonitum mane factum quod missam 
 
 habebit matutinalem. 
 § Consu£tudo antiquitus de fratrum sepultura. 
 § Quo ordine purtabitur corpus in ecclesiam et ad sepulturam. 
 § Qualiter fiet si aliquis obierit in node Paschx vel Pentecostes. 
 § De beneficiis fratrum quee. fiunt post obitum alicujus fratris.
 
 266 APPENDIX 
 
 § Quod sit faciendum postquam corpus fuerit in ecclesiam de- 
 
 latum post commendationem. 
 § Quod corpus defuncti nuJlo tempore sine psalmodia erit. 
 § Quod nullus a monasterio egredietur donee fratris defuncti 
 
 corpus sepeliatur. 
 § Breviculum fratris qualiter scribi deheat. 
 § Quod pro novitio non professo ad missam non fiet panis et vini 
 
 ohlatio. 
 § De officio sacerdotis circa corpus post missam. 
 § Qualiter revertetur processio in cliorum post fratris sepulturam. 
 § De balneo fratrum qui corpus defuncti tetigerunt. 
 § De distribuendis fratris defuncti indumentis, aliisque rebus si 
 
 quas habuerit. 
 § Qualiter fiet obsequium pro eo cui conceditur habitus monachalis 
 
 si ante professionem obierit. 
 § De modo agendi obsequium in decessu fratris laid conversi. 
 § Qtio ordini fient exsequise, fratris defuncti si feria quinta in 
 
 Cs&na Domini aut in die Parasceves vel in Sahbato Sancto 
 
 aut in node vel in die Pasclise obierit. 
 § Qualiter est agendum pro fratre de ecclesise gremio si extra 
 
 monasterium qualicumque modo diem clauserit extremam. 
 § Quo ordine fient tricennalia et cxtera qtiae agenda sunt pro 
 
 fratribus istius monasterii professis de medio sublatis. 
 § Quod mdlus infra triginta dies post obitum fratris aliunde 
 
 quam pro defundis cantabit nisi fuerit in tabida de aliqua 
 
 missa consueta. 
 § De absolutione fratris defuncti trigesimo die post ejus obitum. 
 § Quid fiet pro fratre defundo in die anniversario obitus ipsius. 
 § De consuetudine ecclesias qux ad sacristam pertinet et de 
 
 expensis cerse per annum. 
 § Quando servientes ecclesias habebunt cerevisiam in refedorio. 
 § De stipendiis servientium ecclesise. 
 § De diversitate sonitus in diversis festivitatibus. 
 § De lucerna infestis Sandi Augustini, S. Adriani et S. Mildrethx. 
 § De lucerna in generali et in speciali. 
 § De lucerna feria quarta ante Cxnam Domini. 
 § De lucerna in Cxna Domini.
 
 APPENDIX 267 
 
 § De lucerna in Parasceve Domini. 
 
 § De lucerna in Sabbato Sancto. 
 
 § De lucerna in die Paschse. 
 
 § De processionibus. 
 
 § De tabula argentea ante magnum altare. 
 
 § Defestis qux habent matutinas de die. 
 
 § De vigiliis princijpfdium festorum. 
 
 § De Dirige et Placebo per totum annum. 
 
 § De Cse.na. 
 
 § De observantiis novitiorum in tempore professionis. 
 
 § De festis habentibus octavas cum regimine chori. 
 
 § De distrihutione bonorum fratris defuncti. 
 
 § De modo minuendi et ejus observatione. 
 
 § De infortunio ignis. 
 
 I. ON THE ABBAT 
 
 The election of so important a prelate as that of the lord 
 abbat of the exempt abbey of St. Augustine's and, as all 
 documents have it, " belonging immediately to the Roman 
 church," was a matter of great weight. The archbishop had 
 nothing to do with it. But as the abbat was one of the 
 great barons spiritual, the Crown had a great interest and 
 made its power felt. In the case mentioned in the con- 
 suetudinary, that of Ralph Bourne in 1 309 may be taken as 
 a fairly typical example. 
 
 Even before abbat Thomas Fyndon ^ expired, the prior 
 
 ^ Abbat Thomas Fyndon (i 283-1 309) had been prior and succeeded upon 
 the resignation of abbat Nicholas de Spina or Thome, who became a 
 Carthusian near Paris. Fyndon was the great builder of the abbey, and his 
 vast expenditure for a time impoTerished the house. He was appointed 
 by the pope without the royal licence. The king therefore seized the 
 abbey, and only granted his favour after a fine of 400 marks had been 
 paid. " In consequence of archbishop Winchesley's continual encroach- 
 ments upon the privileges of this monastery, and the monks appealing to 
 the see of Rome, pope Boniface VIII. granted a bull confirming all their 
 privileges" {Monasticon, vol. i. p. 122). Among other things this abbat in 
 1293 gave a great banquet on the feast of St. Augustine to 4500 persons 
 {Chronologia Aurjustinicnsis),
 
 268 APPENDIX 
 
 and monks sent messengers with letters to influential men 
 at court, such as the chancellor, the bishop of Chichester, 
 and the treasurer ; to ask them, in view of the injury done 
 by a long vacancy, to obtain the royal licence for an imme- 
 diate election on the demise of the abbat. As soon as 
 Thomas Fyndon died, the royal subescheator took possession 
 of the abbey and its revenues, according to the custom, in 
 the king's name. The licence to elect was duly and speedUy 
 granted. The day appointed, the community assembled in 
 the chapter-house, after the mass of the Holy Ghost had 
 been sung ; and their first business was to read the decrees of 
 the general council concerning election. Then to safeguard 
 the proceedings against irregularity, as some of the elec- 
 tors might be labouring under a hidden defect which would 
 vitiate their right to an active voice, a public protest was 
 made that any such illegitimate voting was wholly against 
 the will and knowledge of the chapter. The manner of 
 election had then to be discussed ; and all agreed to proceed 
 by way of compromise. Seven monks as electors were 
 nominated out of the whole body ; and were solemnly 
 charged to choose one, either of the convent or from another 
 house of the congregation, whom they should judge to be 
 "good and benevolent, and useful to the welfare of this 
 church and necessary for the observance of religion." They 
 were warned not to choose any one or to pass over any one 
 for human and personal motives; but to elect "him who 
 knows how, who is able and desires to love his brethren in 
 the fear of God and to observe to the utmost the estate and 
 godly customs of this church." The commission to elect 
 was signed by the common seal of the monastery, and the 
 convent bound themselves to abide by the decision of the 
 seven electors. The result was soon made known. Ralph 
 de Bourne, one of the seven, was declared to be duly elected ; 
 and upon his assenting, he was led by the monks into the 
 church with the singing of the Te Deum. There, prostrated
 
 APPENDIX 269 
 
 before high altar, prayers appropriate to the occasion were 
 chanted over him by the prior, and he was then led to pay 
 his homage of devotion before the shrines of the saints which 
 encircled the apse of the church. ]\Ieanwhile, the bells of 
 the abbey in their joyous peals proclaimed the election to the 
 town, and some " discrete person " from the pulpit made an- 
 nouncement to the people of the name of the newly elected 
 abbat. A careful account of the whole day's proceeding was 
 then drawn up by a public notary and duly witnessed. 
 
 The elect, after dinner, took up his abode in the buildings 
 set aside for the use of the prior. There he was to remain 
 humbly and not interfere more than any other of the convent 
 in the affairs of the monastery. He was to be content with 
 the attentions the monks paid him of their own free will, 
 and was not to exact more. In the church chapter and 
 refectory he took the first place on the right-hand choir ; 
 and had certain monks appointed to him as attendants and 
 companions. But until the election was confirmed he could 
 not enter upon his rights and dignities. After two days the 
 elect with some of his monks began their journey to London 
 to obtain the royal assent. They took with them all docu- 
 ments necessary to prove the validity of the election, together 
 with the following letter from the prior and convent : — 
 
 " To the most excellent prince and revered lord, Edward, 
 by the grace of God, the illustrious king of England 
 lord of Ireland and duke of Aquitaine, his humble 
 and devoted prior and convent of the monastery of 
 St. Augustine's at Canterbury, which belongs im- 
 mediately to the Roman church, [give] all possible 
 homage and honour in Him by whom kings reign 
 and princes have their rule. 
 " The aforesaid our monastery being vacant by the death of 
 Thomas of good memory, late our abbat, and licence having 
 been called and obtained for us to elect another as abbat
 
 2 70 APPENDIX 
 
 and pastor, we have observed the day of election and, after 
 invoking the aid of the Holy Ghost, have elected unani- 
 mously our beloved fellow-monk, Ralph de Bourne, as our 
 abbat and pastor. Him therefore, the brother Ralph our 
 elect, we present to your royal majesty by our beloved 
 fellow-monks William of Byhalt, Richard of Canterbury, 
 and Solomon of Ripple, humbly and devoutly beseeching 
 that you would deign to admit him, our aforesaid, as elect, 
 and for ourselves to give your royal assent and favour to 
 the election made by us. And further, asking, for the elect, 
 whatever may be pleasing your royal will. In testimony 
 whereof our common seal is appended to these presents. 
 May the Most High keep you all. 
 
 "Given in our chapter at Canterbury, the viii of the ides 
 of March in the year of the Lord 1309." 
 
 The affair at court was speedily settled ; and by the 
 seventeenth of the month the monks had returned to Canter- 
 bury with letters from the king and queen to the pope, to 
 whom the elect had now to go in jDerson for confirmation. 
 They also had letters to recommend them to the king of 
 France, through whose dominions they had to pass on their 
 road to Avignon, where the pope (Clement V.) then was. 
 
 The king's letter to the pope is as follows : — 
 
 " To the most holy father in Christ, the lord CI., by divine 
 
 Providence, the high priest of the most holy Roman 
 
 and Universal Church, Edward, by the same grace, 
 
 king of England, &c., devoutly kissing the sacred 
 
 feet. 
 
 " It becometh us, amidst the other cares which press upon 
 
 us, with watchful care to take heed of the welfare of those 
 
 monasteries of our kingdom which are in our patronage ; 
 
 that when widowed, they may be comforted by the solace of 
 
 a pastor, and to frequently stir up your clemency for the
 
 APPENDIX 271 
 
 relief of burthens. Since therefore the religious man, our 
 right-well beloved in Christ, brother Ralph de Bourne, elect 
 of the monastery of St. Augustine's at Canterbury in our 
 patronage (to whose election we have given our royal assent 
 and favour with the hope of obtaining confirmation of the 
 same from your holiness), now approaches your presence : 
 bearing in mind that the aforesaid monastery is greatly in 
 debt,^ and that the state of the house may, by the industry 
 and circumspection of the elect, be in the future retained, 
 we do specially commend to your holiness the elect as one 
 who is provident, and circumspect in spiritual as well as in 
 temporal affairs, and endowed with other kinds of virtue, 
 asking with affectionate prayer that you would deign to 
 admit the aforesaid elect, in those matters which he has 
 to do with your holiness, to the favour of a hearing and to 
 send him back to the aforesaid monastery with his business 
 happily finished. 
 
 " Given at Westminster the xiii day of March in the third 
 year of our reign." 
 
 The queen wrote in similar style commending the elect 
 to the pope's favour. Together with their letters was a 
 licence to Robert of Kendal, the constable of Dover Castle 
 and warden of the Cinque Ports, to allow the elect to pass 
 over to France. 
 
 At the kalends of April the elect set out for Avignon ; 
 but, before he started, money for the journey had to be 
 obtained. The monastery paid over to one Guy Donatus, a 
 Florentine merchant and member of the society of " Bards " 
 of Florence, a sum of fifty pounds sterling and received back 
 from him bills of exchange. Letters of procuration at the 
 papal court were then made out, and a document from the 
 monastery to the pope begging for his confirmation of their 
 election was drawn up. In this latter, after recounting 
 1 On account of Fyndon's building.
 
 272 APPENDIX 
 
 the royal licence and the result of the election, the prior and 
 convent say : " We must humbly entreat your holiness to 
 deign to conjfirm the above-mentioned election and to bestow 
 on our elect the gift of the Blessing that having God as his 
 authority he may rightly and profitably rule both us and 
 others in those things which pertain to his abbacy." 
 
 The papers which had to be taken to Rome consisted of : 
 (i) the royal licence to elect; (2) the formal appointment 
 of the day of election ; (3) all documents concerned with the 
 preliminaries; (4) the letter to the pope asking for confir- 
 mation, signed by all the community and sealed with the 
 common seal ; (5) the decree of election signed and sealed 
 in a similar way ; (6) the royal letters of assent ; (7) the 
 notarial accounts of the election ; (8) the protest against 
 unlawful voting (this was only to be produced if any ob- 
 jection was made that some of the electors were suspended 
 or excommunicated) ; (9) and finally a public testifica- 
 tion of the date of the setting out from Canterbury to 
 Avignon. 
 
 We learn nothing more from the consuetudinary about 
 this election. But this formidable array of documents 
 secured the confirmation after the dues had been paid. The 
 abbat was blessed by the pope ; and on his return to St. 
 Augustine's, which he approached barefooted in all humility, 
 he was received with great solemnity by the community and 
 with chant and prayer, was duly installed. And while the 
 Te Deum was being sung the monks, one by one, went up 
 to pay their homage to their new pastor by kissing his 
 hand, and then as to their father by kissing him on the 
 mouth. The ceremony concluded by the solemn abbatical 
 blessing.^ 
 
 ^ Nor was a great feast forgotten on that festive occasion. The new 
 abbat showed his hospitality by an enormous banquet which Thorne in 
 his chronicle {Decern Scriptores, p. 2010) mentions " not that we may follow 
 his example, but admire it." Among the articles consumed were 1 1 tons
 
 APPENDIX 273 
 
 Once installed, on high church festivals the abbat had to 
 assist at matins 1 and lauds and terce, in alb and cope and 
 mitre, gloves and ring ; and with pastoral staff in hand 
 stand at his seat amid his assistants, who were also clad in 
 copes. After terce a solemn procession round the church 
 took place. The community, vested in albs and copes, 
 with the abbat would tarry before some statue or shrine, 
 and make what is called a station; and there sing some 
 special anthem with its proper versicles and prayers before 
 continuing the procession. Afterwards, the abbat would pre- 
 pare himself for pontifical mass, and would put on the tunic, 
 the dalmatic, and sandals and buskins, besides the chasuble ; 
 and he would take his seat in a special cathedra which was 
 placed near to the altar. Then he would sing mass according 
 to the " use " of his own church, and employ a missal claim- 
 ing to be identical with that brought by St. Augustine from 
 Rome itself.2 One striking feature was the solemn benedic- 
 tion given immediately after the Pax Domini, when turning 
 to the people and using both mitre and staff, he chanted 
 the formula of blessing contained in the Benedictionale, 
 and which varied with the feast. At vespers, two of his 
 assistant priests came in at the Magnificat with the thurifers, 
 and when the abbat had put in the incense, they accom- 
 panied him for the thurification of the high altar, and the 
 altar behind, and the shrine and altar of St. Augustine. 
 One gave his thurible to the abbat, and held back the cope 
 
 of wine (at a value of £24) ; 30 oxen (;^27) ; 34 swans {£7) ; 500 capons 
 {£6) ; 1000 geese (;i{^i6) ; 200 sucking pigs (100 shillings) ; 9600 eggs (£4 
 los.) ; 17 rolls of brawn (65 shillings) ; coals (48 shillings) ; wages of cooks 
 and servants (^6)— total ;£'287, 5s. Six thousand guests sat down to a 
 banquet of three thousand dishes. 
 
 1 At the great feasts the abbat, while the Te Deum was being sung, 
 came in vested as for mass, and, having incensed the high altar, sang the 
 gospel of the day. 
 
 "^ See Rule's most valuable and learned Introduction to the Missal of St. 
 Augustine's, Canterbury. 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 2 74 APPENDIX 
 
 while the prelate incensed the altars, the second assistant 
 meanwhile incensing the altars together with the abbat. After 
 the altar and shrine of St. Augustine had been honoured, the 
 abbat and his chaplain remained before the shrine, while the 
 two priests went with their smoking thuribles to incense all 
 the other altars and shrines. They then all returned in pro- 
 cession to the choir, when the usual incensing took place, 
 and the stately function ended with the abbatial blessing. 
 On feast days, when he himself did not celebrate, he assisted 
 at the function in cope, mitre, and gloves, with the staff, and 
 took his place between the cantors ; and at the end of the 
 service proceeded to his throne, whence he gave the final 
 benediction. Whenever he was present, even if only in his 
 ordinary choral dress, the deacon always came to him for the 
 blessing before the Gospel, and the holy text was carried to 
 him to be kissed, and the incense to be blessed, and the pax 
 brought from the altar. To him also fell the duty of blessing 
 and distributing the ashes at the beginning of Lent, the 
 candles on the feast of the Purification, and the palms on 
 Palm-sunday. 
 
 If at home, he was bound to be present at all vespers of 
 twelve-lesson feasts, and on all vigils ; but he was not re- 
 quired to be at lauds, unless he officiated solemnly, save on 
 the Wednesday before Christmas and on the eve of that 
 feast. The other days in the year he was not bound to be 
 at either vespers or lauds except the three days before Easter 
 and the whole of the following week, and also Whitsuntide. 
 At the office for the dead he was only present on [special 
 anniversaries ?] or for the funeral of a monk ; and then only 
 for matins. 
 
 The Household. — As befitted so high a prelate and so im- 
 portant a spiritual baron, in accordance with the requirements 
 of the times, he was obliged to keep up a large household 
 in the building set apart for his use, known as the abbat's 
 lodging. He had to receive many visitors and keep up a
 
 APPENDIX 275 
 
 state which would only bring disorder and discomfort into 
 the monastery if the monks had to be subjected to these 
 annoyances. But his intercourse with his monks was close 
 and intimate^ as his duty as pastor and father required. 
 
 The Chaplains. — Foremost in his household were the 
 chaplains, two in number. The consuetudinary says : " The 
 chaplains of the abbat ought to be courteous and discreet, 
 and affable to all, and especially to strangers." They are 
 bound to foster, as far as they can, the mutual love of abbat 
 and convent. Both should say mass every day, and in 
 turns take the office of assisting the abbat at his mass and 
 attending upon him in the church and elsewhere. When- 
 ever he went abroad they bore him company, and one of 
 them carried a diurnale, in case the abbat wished to say 
 office. They were in charge of his household, and ordered 
 everything and corrected what was amiss. The elder had 
 the charge of the abbatial cellars, the keys of which were 
 taken to him every night. The prelatial jewels and money 
 were in their care, and they had to have ten pounds in ready 
 cash always in the house. To them belonged the duty of 
 giving out the alms the abbat dispensed when he went abroad 
 from the monastery. An account every year of all expendi- 
 ture had to be given. They were also charged with the 
 special care of the abbat's guests ; and when he was at home, 
 had to invite certain of the monks to eat at the abbatial 
 board. The younger had also the duty of reading at the 
 abbat's meal, unless for some reasonable cause another had 
 the office. 
 
 The Chamberlain. — The chamberlain acted as a kind of 
 secretary for documents which came under the seal. He 
 took charge of the abbat's cup and napkin at meal times 
 and saw that the guests were likewise provided, and that 
 the wine was served in due course. " And it is to be borne 
 in mind that from all who come to do homage to the abbat 
 he has either half a mark or an outer garment, the which he
 
 276 APPENDIX 
 
 should civilly and meekly ask for before they take their 
 departure." 
 
 The Seneschal. — The seneschal, when the abbat was going 
 to dine in the hall, had overnight (between vespers and 
 compline), together with the cellarer and cook, to wait on 
 the abbat and receive his orders for the morrow, and to 
 inquire of the number of guests to be provided for. He had 
 to see that the " commons " (liheratio) of the hall were duly 
 provided. After grace, he set before the abbat the dishes 
 which the servant brought up. 
 
 The Marshal of the Hall. — The marshal of the hall minis- 
 tered the water for washing the abbat's hands before and 
 after meals, and performed the same office for the chief 
 guests. He arranged these latter in their proper places, 
 " He is not to allow the servants to approach the tables too 
 hastily. . . he is also not to allow a tumult of loose behaviour 
 in the hall, especially among the waiters (garciones), and if 
 he finds any one obstinate or rebellious, he shall presently 
 cause him to be put without the hall, until humble satisfac- 
 tion is made. If any one comes in after the first course, he 
 is to take care that that course is served to the late comer. 
 He shall punish those who throw their bones or beer-mugs 
 on the ground." 
 
 The Carver. — The carver, who has always to have a clean 
 napkin over his shoulder and at least two shining knives, is 
 not to begin carving before the reading has begun. 
 
 The Waiter. — There was also a waiter who carried a 
 napkin and handed the dishes to the seneschal. Everything 
 he carried had to be covered with this napkin. 
 
 The Fantler. — The pantler had charge of the bread and 
 the napery, and all other necessaries for the abbat's table. 
 
 The Master of the Horse. — The master of the horse had to 
 see to the feeding of the horses, and have a special care of 
 my lord abbat's palfrey. He had to buy the oats and com. 
 and to see to the shoeing.
 
 APPENDIX 277 
 
 The Cook. — The cook had no small office. After he had re- 
 ceived his instructions he had to provide all that was neces- 
 sary ; " and when the abbat was at home ought to go with 
 the cellarer's buyers into the town to purchase better articles 
 for the abbat and his guests." He had to prepare with his 
 own hands whatever was for the abbat's own consumption, 
 and was not to allow any one to help him. Every day 
 he had to see that the kitchen utensils were scrupulously 
 cleaned. He is never to be without some good seasonings 
 (salsamentis), which he is himself to prepare, and is to take 
 care that in the seasoning for the abbat he is not to use too 
 much ginger. Immediately after every meal the cook has to 
 collect the silver cooking utensils and return them to the 
 chamberlain. He is always to keep the door of the kitchen 
 shut. 
 
 The Valet. — The valet gave out the linen and plate neces- 
 sary for the abbat's table to the pantler, and the wine and 
 silver goblets when the chamberlain gave the order. He was 
 the personal attendant of the abbat, and waited upon him in 
 his private rooms. 
 
 The Cuphoard-man. — The cupboard-man had to keep the 
 cups dry and replace them after each meal. 
 
 The Porter. — The porter kept the door, and only allowed 
 those to enter the hall who had a right. "He is not to 
 allow ribald fellows to stand about the door of the house, 
 nor upon the steps ; he is to answer every one civilly and 
 kindly, and is to take care that dogs do not remain in 
 the hall." 
 
 The Hall Cook and Servant.~The hall had its own cook 
 and servant. They should "so well and honestly prepare 
 and see to the good of those who eat in the hall, that no 
 complaint about them should reach the abbat's ear, if they 
 desire to keep their position." 
 
 The Ahhat's Messenger.— The abbat's messenger should be 
 a prudent man, smooth-spoken, bold, and ever diligent
 
 278 APPENDIX 
 
 (impigcr) and trusty ; always prompt and ready. He was not 
 allowed to receive anything from outside without the abbat's 
 leave. He had to know the gossip of the place about such 
 travellers as were passing by or tarrying in the neighbour- 
 hood, so as to let the abbat or his chaplains know who to 
 invite. He helped in the kitchen. 
 
 The Palfrey-man. — The attendant on the palfrey held the 
 bridle when the abbat was mounted. He distributed also 
 the alms given on a journey. He also helped the valet in 
 the personal service. 
 
 The Almoner. — The almoner saw to the distribution among 
 the poor of the daily leavings of the abbat's table. He too 
 helped in the personal service, and in his instructions he 
 is particularly warned to take heed, " under pain of dis- 
 missal, that he does not in any way reveal the secrets of 
 the closet." 
 
 Tlu Hall. — The cellarer was charged with the cleanliness 
 of the hall and the respect due to the guests. A fire was 
 provided during the meals from All Saints till the Purifica- 
 tion ; and during supper eleven candles were provided ; but 
 on fasting days only three, unless strangers were present. 
 In this common hall all guests, monks or others, dined and 
 supped unless they were specially bidden to the abbat's 
 private apartments or arrived at hours too late for the 
 common meal. 
 
 The Servants of the Household. — Such were the officers of 
 the abbat's household. Each of them had, besides their 
 duties, their own perquisites and salaries, and servants to 
 attend upon them. In a list of the household of abbat 
 Nicholas de Spina we read that the chamberlain had a com- 
 panion, a squire, together with boys and horses at his dis- 
 posal ; the physician ^ was allowed a squire, two boys, and two 
 horses ; the seneschal had his squire and three boys, and as 
 
 ^ It is interesting to note that the physician was not one of the monks, 
 but evidently a layman cunning in leechery.
 
 APPENDIX 279 
 
 many horses. And so with the others in less degree. The 
 marshal of the hall had "one honest boy" and one horse, 
 likewise the pantler ; but his boy is described as not only 
 " honest " but " trusty and discreet." The master of the horse 
 had his boy, too, " one who knows how to shoe " ; and the 
 abbat's cook was only allowed " an honest and knowing 
 boy," but no horse. 
 
 From the same list we learn that my lord abbat was 
 served always with four courses, the household with three, 
 and the servants with two. 
 
 The abbat's intercourse to his community was marked 
 with the greatest deference on their part. Whenever he 
 passed through the cloister or by any other place where the 
 brethren were sitting, they rose and bowed whilst he passed. 
 If they were standing they uncovered their heads and bowed. 
 Should he in any place have occasion to rebuke a brother, 
 at once the monk knelt before him and remained in that 
 humble posture until bidden to rise. " But the abbat should 
 wisely take care that he should not do this before seculars ; 
 neither should he allow this to be done for anything ; for it 
 is not becoming that he should by word of mouth sharply 
 chide any brother before seculars." 
 
 Whenever he sat no one presumed, uninvited, to sit 
 besides him ; but according to the old custom, if so bidden, 
 the brother should kneel and kiss the abbat's knees, if he 
 allows, and then humbly take his seat. Whenever any- 
 thing was handed to the abbat, or received from him, the 
 prelate's hand was kissed, and if he were sitting the monk 
 knelt before him. On the occasions that he dined in the 
 refectory with the monks, the prior and two of the brethren 
 served at the washing of his hands. 
 
 The ordering of the whole monastery depends upon his 
 will ; but nevertheless nothing is, as the Rule says, to be 
 taught, commanded, or ordered (qnod absit) beyond the 
 precepts of the Lord. But also neither should anything be
 
 28o APPENDIX 
 
 attempted against the approved customs of the monastery 
 without consulting the seniors. If while he is absent some- 
 thing new has, by necessity or reason, to be arranged, on 
 his return it is for him to decide, with the advice of the 
 seniors, what has to be done. If he has been absent for 
 some time (fifteen days), on his return he has to visit the 
 sick, and with pity and paternal affection console them. 
 If according to the old custom he sleeps in the dormitory, 
 and remains in bed in the morning, no sound is to be 
 made ; but the master of novices, if he sees the hour is 
 passed at which the prior is used to call them, is to rise 
 as quickly as he can and call up the novices by touching 
 them gently with a rod. When they are awakened, they 
 go out of the dormitory, wash and comb their hair, and 
 having said the usual prayer, go to their school, where in 
 silence they wait until the abbat gets up, and then they go 
 to prime. 
 
 When the abbat dies, all he has goes back to the monas- 
 tery and he is buried like one of the other monks ; except 
 that, vested as a priest and clad in pontificals, with his 
 staff on the right arm, he is laid out for the tomb. The 
 schedule of absolution, a plate of lead bearing his inscrip- 
 tion and date, a chalice and a paten, together with bread 
 and wine, are buried with him, and the nearest abbat or 
 bishop is invited to celebrate the funeral oflSces. 
 
 II. THE OFFICERS OF THE CONVENT 
 
 The Prior. — The prior was the chief of all the oflficers in 
 the monastery, and was treated with a deference only less 
 than that shown to the abbat himself. Like him he had a 
 lodging apart, although he slept in the common dormitory. 
 He was selected by the abbat out of three names elected by 
 the convent. The precentor had the right of nominating
 
 APPENDIX 281 
 
 one, the right side of the choir another, and the third by 
 the left side. He is to be obeyed by all, and has to set 
 an example of exactness in observing all rules. He is 
 bidden to make himself be more loved than feared. When- 
 ever he enters the chapter-house or the choir, all rise to 
 salute him ; but the monks don't rise when he passes by, 
 only if he goes to sit in the cloister, those near his seat 
 rise. It is his office, w^hen the Rule is read in chapter, to 
 comment on it in French for the sake of the more simple 
 brethren; or to assign the duty to some one else. In the 
 absence of the abbat he rules the monastery, and with 
 the advice of the seniors can make what regulations are 
 necessary. He holds chapter, and can inflict penances for 
 breaches of the rule. " But according to modern usage, 
 each obedientiary punishes his own servants, and removes 
 those he considers ought to be removed and appoints otliers 
 in their place, those only excepted who have received their 
 appointments directly from the abbat and convent. The 
 obedientiaries, if there chance to be anything negligent or 
 slothful in their servants, shall sharply chide them if the 
 prior so determines." The prior can withdraw from such 
 of the household who are rebellious and incorrigible, their 
 allowances until they make satisfaction, saving always the 
 abbat's rights when he is at home. It pertains to the prior 
 to give leave to the monks to be bled ; and he also appoints 
 the hours and days for baths. He can give dispensations 
 from choir, even in the abbat's presence ; and can also 
 give leave to the weak, and those requiring it, to eat meat 
 out of the refectory. He is always on duty ; but when he 
 is obliged to be absent, the sub-prior is appointed to take 
 his place. In olden days, after the first prayer before 
 matins, he used to take a lantern and go through the 
 dormitory and other places to see lest any one, overcome 
 by sloth, had remained behind. But in modern time this 
 duty has been assigned to the scrutatores ordinis. At
 
 282 APPENDIX 
 
 compline, having taken holy water from the hebdomadary, 
 he used to remain until the monks had passed by, to see 
 whether all had been present and whether they had observed 
 due reverence and order, and whether, according to the 
 custom, they had put up their hood on leaving the choir. 
 But this office also is now done by the scrutatorcs. The 
 prior sees that all go to the dormitory. Before the daily 
 chapter he takes counsel with the other priors about the 
 defects which call for correction ; and the priors have to be 
 unanimous in all things concerning reformation. 
 
 The Sub-prior or Claustral Prior. — The sub-prior or claus- 
 tral prior was the officer who had the most direct relation 
 with the monks. He was always with them and was re- 
 sponsible for the order and discipline of the house. In the 
 absence of the prior he took his place, and had the same 
 powers of dispensation. From time to time he had to go the 
 rounds of the house, and had to know what every one was 
 doing. It was an important part of his duty to visit the sick 
 every day. Among his general powers of dispensation was 
 that of leaving the cloister, but not of going into the town. 
 He is not to give any one leave to stay outside the monastery 
 for two days, unless the prior from ill health is away from 
 the dormitory. All who with leave are going outside the 
 monastery, and will not be back for the next meal, have 
 to tell him. The claustral prior on certain days presided 
 at the chapter, and on these days he could grant many 
 other dispensations. When the prior was away or could 
 not be found, the claustral prior could then give leave for 
 the monks to go into the town or elsewhere, but not to take 
 refreshments unless it was his day for holding chapter, or 
 there was any reasonable cause. He also had to see that all 
 were present at the office. 
 
 Tlw third and fourth Priors. — The prior and the sub-prior 
 appointed two guardians or Exploratores ordinis, who were 
 a kind of domestic police. " As the choir, or the cloister, or
 
 APPENDIX 283 
 
 the refectory, according to the right and ancient custom, 
 should never be without two watchers of the order if it can 
 be done ; if one has to go out, the other remains." They 
 are warned not to indulge in private malice in reporting a 
 monk, nor from private friendship shut their eyes to any 
 negligences. They cannot rebuke, but can only publicly "pro- 
 claim " or report the negligence at the next day's chapter. 
 " If they find any one outside the cloister talking, the speaker 
 has to rise and tell them that he is speaking with the 
 leave of the prior or sub-prior. The guardians neither by 
 sign nor word answer them, but modestly pass on, listening, 
 however, with intent ears whether the conversation be useful. 
 They go their rounds, one by one, not together. They are 
 not allowed to go into the offices of the house, but can open the 
 doors and look whether the brethren are properly engaged. 
 They had certain fixed times for going round, but were free 
 to do so whenever they thought fit. If a monk met them on 
 their rounds, he had to stand still and uncover his head and 
 wait till the guardian had seen him and passed by. But they 
 are never allowed to go where the prior and sub-prior are, 
 nor ever into the abbat's or prior's lodgings ; nor into the 
 infirmary nor the guest-house, unless there be some grave 
 reason. " The guardians should be unanimous in all things 
 and agree together, presuming upon nothing out of the spirit 
 of contention, or a vain glory in their position." If the 
 priors were all absent from the cloister, the monks had to 
 get permission from the senior priest, but he could, as a 
 rule, only give leave to go into the gardens; but even 
 he, if there was any necessity, could give leave to go into 
 the town, so wide and sensible was the rule in practice. 
 
 The Cantor. — The cantor or precentor not only had to 
 take care that the offices in choir went smoothly and had 
 to arrange for the distribution of the various parts, to set 
 the pitch and correct mistakes, but he was also the librarian 
 (Armarius) and had charge of the books, and had to keep
 
 284 APPENDIX 
 
 a stock of parchment and other requisites for the use of the 
 monks. In chapter he had publicly to accuse such as had 
 been guilty of faults in psalmody. In his charge was one 
 of the three keys of the chest which contained the common 
 seal of the house. He was not to be treated too strictly in 
 respect to absences from choir on account of his various 
 duties, but he must not without manifest reason omit two 
 successive hours, nor on the same day be absent from matins 
 or vespers or compline. He has to arrange the tabula or 
 list of masses and choral duties. During the Benedictus and 
 Magnificat he goes from side to side of the choir, to en- 
 courage and give an example to the brethren of devout 
 singing ; but he has to be back in his place for the Gloria 
 Patri. At processions he walks between the two choirs to 
 keep them united in the chant. On great feasts he rules 
 the choir with six companions in copes, and preintones the 
 Gloria to the celebrant ; and his is the duty of singing the 
 choice portions of the Gradual and of the Tract. If necessary, 
 during the singing he makes signs with his hands to modu- 
 late the chant according to his judgment. The importance 
 of the precentor's office may be judged from the fact that 
 he had the power to nominate one out of three for the post 
 of prior, and had the same privilege in the appointments of 
 sacrist and almoner. 
 
 The Succcntor. — 'The succentor was in all things the aid 
 of the precentor. But to him especially fell the duty of 
 preparing the juniors for the parts they had to take in the 
 office. He also had to arrange the collects and their order 
 for the officiant. On him also was the duty of drawing up 
 the mortuary notices (Breincula) and despatching them to the 
 various houses. 
 
 The Sacrist and his covipanions. — The sacrist was one of 
 the obedientiaries that represented the choice of the convent. 
 He had the care of the church, the plate, the vestments, and 
 was responsible for the candles and the lighting not only of
 
 APPENDIX 285 
 
 the church 1 but of the whole establishment. He also had to 
 provide mats for the choir and those on the north side of 
 the cloister " from the abbat's parlour as far as the dormitory- 
 door ; " smaller ones for the novices, those for the chapter- 
 house, and those before every altar. All these had to be re- 
 newed every year. On him depended the arrangements to be 
 made for the burial of the confratres. Out of the funds set 
 apart for his office, he had to keep the roofs of the church 
 in order, besides those of the chapter-house and of that part 
 of the cloister jutting on to the church. He was not to talk 
 in the church " save for explaining some miracle or the 
 power of some relic or some notice ; and this, if necessary, 
 not openly but briefly, that it may seem as though done in 
 silence." The work of the sacrist was shared in by four 
 other monks, viz. two sub-sacrists (they could not enter the 
 sacristy without leave), a treasurer or Eevcstiarius, whose 
 special care was the relics, and a companion. These and 
 the sacrist himself slept in the precincts of the church itself, 
 so as to be always on guard and ready for opening and 
 closing the church. At the first sound of the bell the five 
 get up and call the servants of the church ; and it is laid 
 down that if they are not at office or mass they are to be 
 more sharply rebuked than those who sleep in the dormi- 
 tory. After compline they have to prepare the candles for 
 matins. Each novice and any one else who wished had one, 
 and there was one for the readers of the lesson and one for 
 the officiant. This last the sub-sacrist was to light, and to 
 see that it was a taper so well made as to give plenty of 
 light for the old monks and for those with weak sight. 
 During the Te Deum the sacrist had to see that the bell- 
 ringers did their duty and rang for lauds.'-^ On Sundays the 
 
 1 A note is made that the paschal candle is not removed until the day 
 after Trinity Sunday. 
 
 2 Et tunc puhandum est ad laudcs. The custom of ringing the bells during 
 the Te Deum is not as a sign of joy during that hymn, but is solely with the 
 view of giving notice that lauds, the original night office, is about to begin.
 
 286 APPENDIX 
 
 sub-sacrist has to get salt from the refectory-master for the 
 blessing of the holy water, and what is over he returns to be 
 distributed among all the salt-cellars in the refectory. 
 
 For the care of the altars special rules were laid down. 
 After a feast day all the special ornaments had to be re- 
 moved before prime of the next day. The high altar was 
 always vested in a frontal (on great feasts there was a 
 splendid silver frontal). The high altar should never be, 
 quod absit, without the pyx, with the Eucharist and the 
 book containing the four gospels and the name of our 
 deceased brethren and benefactors written therein ; so that 
 the priest who celebrates there may have a special remem- 
 brance of them, for instance : " And of all our brethren and 
 benefactors whose names are written in this book." In this 
 spirit of reverence for the holy altar servants were never 
 allowed to approach it or even to enter the sanctuary except 
 to do some work the monks could not do themselves. When 
 the treasurer put out the relics, he had to wear an alb and 
 to say with his assistant the seven penitential psalms and 
 the Litany of the saints ; it was his duty, too, to assist the 
 abbat in the sacristy when he washed his hands and combed 
 his hair before pontificating. Before every Easter, and as 
 often as necessary, the corporals were washed. They were 
 not dried at a fire, nor in the sun, nor in the wind, for fear 
 of smuts, but inside the house. After washing, the linen 
 (albs included) had to be " reconciled " by the abbat or 
 sacrist before use. The same ceremony had to be gone 
 through if any of the sacred vestments fell on the ground. 
 To the sacrist and his companions belonged the bells, and 
 they had to instruct the servants when and how to ring 
 them. The big bell was rung on the feasts of Christmas, 
 Easter, Whitsuntide, St. Augustine, SS. Peter and Paul, and 
 the Assumption. The clocks of the establishment were also 
 under their care. When the abbat was present at a mass, 
 the sub-sacrist had to prepare an offering of bread and wine
 
 APPENDIX 287 
 
 which the abbat made, and assist him when he washed the 
 priest's hands at the offertory and after the Communion. 
 Once a year at least the sub-sacrist made the altar breads. 
 Grain by grain the corn was chosen and placed in a clean 
 bag, and then it was sent by a trusty servant to the abbey 
 mill, which had to be specially cleaned for the occasion. 
 When the breads themselves were to be made, the sub- 
 sacrists, after washing their hands and faces, put on albs and 
 covered their heads with amices and then made the paste. 
 The servant who held the irons is ordered to wear gloves. 
 While the work is going on (and the making of a large 
 supply of altar breads to last perhaps for a year was 
 necessarily a long business), the monks employed said the 
 regular hours as well as those of our Lady and also the seven 
 penitential psalms, together with the Litany. Otherwise it 
 was all done in silence. A special note is made that the 
 wood for the fire ought to be very dry and prepared many 
 days previously. 
 
 The Cellarer, Sub-cellarer, and the Corn-master. — To the 
 cellarer belongs all that concerns food, meat, fish, &c., "and 
 ought to be, according to the Eule, the father of the whole 
 congregation," and to have a special care to provide for the 
 wants of the sick. On the day when the chapter in the Rule 
 about his ofiice (cap. xsxi.) is read, he had to give "an 
 honest and festive service " to the monks in the refectory. 
 He has to attend the daily chapter, high mass, and the 
 collation, and at the offices for the dead and vespers and 
 matins of twelve-lesson feasts, and at all processions; for 
 the rest he was dispensed. He could not go out of the 
 monastery without permission, and always had to leave word 
 where he had gone to, in case he was wanted. When he did 
 not attend choir, he said his matins in the chapel of St. 
 Gregory, along with those who had been bled or were other- 
 wise excused. He eat in the common refectory or at the 
 abbat's lodging. Guests were to be received by him in a
 
 288 APPENDIX 
 
 courteous (curialiter) manner, "and in all things he is to 
 honourably minister to them." The servants of the house- 
 hold are under his care, and it is to him they take their oath 
 of fidelity. Every day while the convent is at dinner he 
 stands by the kitchen window to see that there is no defect 
 in the service. It is part of his duty to dispense the 
 extra dishes by way of pitance. For instance, the monk 
 who sang the high mass always received on that day an 
 extra pitance. The mill, the gardens and orchards were 
 under his charge, and the general care of the buildings was 
 part of his duty. He is told to be affable and pleasant 
 in his dealings with the monks, and is never to send any 
 one away annoyed by word of his. He has the power of 
 punishing the servants, by rebukes, by ordering them to 
 be flogged with a thin rod, or by fining them ; which fines 
 went to the poor, or for candles to be burnt before some 
 shrine. Then, " all and each of the brethren, four times in 
 the year, can receive from the sub-cellarer, without any con- 
 dition, an Exennium ^ in honour of their friends who come 
 to visit them, or can send it to them." The sub-cellarer 
 had to see that " the convent bread is sufficiently white, and 
 reasonably fermented and of good taste ; " and also of the 
 beer ; that it is well purified (defecatci), of good colour, 
 bright, and well malted (granata) and of good flavour. The 
 fish was to be in season and fresh, not kept for two or three 
 days and stinking, for "that it should not be from the 
 refuse of the people that the holy congregation be fed." 
 The bill of fare had to be sometimes changed, lest disgust 
 be generated, according to the saying, Idemptitas parit fasti- 
 dium.'^ Concerning the pitance, the cellarer shall see that 
 it is good, delicate, and well and decently (curialiter, a 
 favourite term) prepared," with everything necessary. The 
 food has to be ready and well cooked before the monks 
 
 ^ An Exennium was some little gift in the way of eatables or drinkables. 
 ^ Toujour pcrdrix !
 
 APPENDIX 289 
 
 enter the refectory, " for it is better that the cooks should 
 wait to dish up than that the servants of God should be kept 
 sitting and waiting without their food." 
 
 The Guest -master. — The guest- master represented the 
 hospitality of the monastery. He is always to keep the 
 guest-house supplied with beds, chairs, tables, towels, and 
 everything else needed for the comfort of the guests.^ When 
 he hears of an arrival he goes to meet them, and, benignly 
 receiving them, tells the guests whether it is a fast or feast 
 day in the monastery. According to the Rule, they are taken 
 to the church, and thence, after prayers, to the parlour, and 
 saying Benedicite, he salutes them with a holy kiss. He then 
 asks their names, residence, and country ; and having ascer- 
 tained these, leads them to the hospice, where, sitting down 
 with them, he reads to them, as the Rule says, something from 
 the divine page, and then speaks a few words salutary to 
 their souls. If the guests are monks and strangers to this 
 place, he then shows them the cloister and the dormitory, 
 and, if time allows, the offices ; and, for the sake of consoling 
 them (consolandi gratia, another favourite phrase), he can 
 take them over the whole monastery. The guests have to 
 be treated especially well, and " all humanity and honour 
 and welcome " shown to them by all. If the guest chances 
 to be a conventual prior of some house, he is always to have 
 the same allowances, both at dinner and supper, as the prior 
 of St. Augustine's; and a stranger abbat is served in the 
 refectory as the abbat of the monastery himself. A liberal 
 allowance of four candles, according to the right and ancient 
 custom (ex recta et antiqita consuetudine, another phrase of 
 frequent occurrence) is made for each monk guest, and eight 
 for a conventual prior. Should any guest wish to speak to 
 the abbat or prior, or to one of the claustral brethren, he 
 has to apply to the guest-master, who procures leave. If a 
 
 ^ For monk-guests /roccos cisdem per famulum suum continuo destinabit. 
 VOL. I. T
 
 290 APPENDIX 
 
 stranger (a monk) behaves in an unseemly manner, so that 
 his offence is great and known to all, the guest-master has to 
 proclaim him at chapter, and there publicly he makes satis- 
 faction. But if the fault is light he is not to be cited, but 
 secretly rebuked and warned to behave himself better, " so 
 that he may understand that in this house monastic observ- 
 ance flourishes." No monk-guest can go out of the enclosure 
 without the guest-master's knowledge : neither ought he to 
 leave when a brother is lying dead, until the funeral is over. 
 If, quod ahsit, he should have any complaint about the food 
 or drink supplied to himself or to his servants or horses, or 
 any want of the usual necessaries, the guest-master has to 
 mention it at the next chapter, and the president thereof 
 proclaims "the brother who has thus brought discredit upon 
 God and the Church." If any strangers (monks) come after 
 the grace has been said, they are to take their meals in 
 the refectory, and with the guest-master do penance for 
 coming in late ; and are then to be seated here and there 
 among the seniors. If there are guests at the high table 
 (ad skillam) they stay behind after dinner, and the guest- 
 master remains also. But if they are invited to dine with 
 the abbat or prior, the guest-master takes them there, and 
 returns after the meal to conduct them back again. If they 
 are not kept behind by the president, the guests have to go 
 out with the rest of the monks to the church, but remain 
 outside the choir, where with the guest-master they finish the 
 grace. " But if they be monks of St. Edmund's, or from a 
 monastery especially connected with ours," they enter the 
 choir with the rest of the convent. If they remain behind 
 with the president and guest-master, and such other monks 
 as the superior chooses, behind the door of the refectory they 
 are, as far as can be in silence, " exhilarated and consoled " 
 by drinking ; they are then, " according to the right and 
 antient custom," taken to the guest-quarters, where doubt- 
 lessly they were duly " consoled." The guest-master has to
 
 APPENDIX 291 
 
 warn his guests of the hours and places. He supplies all 
 their wants, even to clothing if need be, and distributes to 
 them what is wanted from the store of clothes belonging to 
 the deceased monks of the house. Only a monk of the order 
 is thus to be made as one of the family; all other guests, 
 religious and secular, are entertained in the outer guest- 
 house. According to the old custom, as long as a benedic- 
 tine guest behaves "with probity and honesty," he can stay 
 as long as he likes ; but if he be found to be a wanderer 
 (gyrovagus) and acting in an unseemly manner, he is to be 
 corrected in chapter with both words and stripes, according 
 to his fault, and then allowed to depart. A monk who comes 
 on foot is only to be received in the outer guest-house, for he 
 may be a truant (trutannus). He (and also poor chaplains 
 and clerics) is to receive from the almoner only entertainment 
 for the day, and is sent to sleep somewhere in the town. 
 But any monk who comes as a guest of one of the convent 
 is to be treated as one of the community. The parents 
 and relatives of the monks are received in the outer guest- 
 house, and are there to be most honourably and abundantly 
 entertained. 
 
 The Master of the Crypts. — The master of the crypts had 
 to provide there for the daily mass after prime, at which all 
 the juniors assisted. It was a mass of our Lady, and used to 
 be sung. 
 
 The Almoner. — The almoner had to visit the almonry two 
 or three times a day, and see to the distribution of food to 
 the poor which was made daily on behalf of the monastery. 
 He also visited the sick poor of the neighbourhood and took 
 them certain " consolations," and saw that they were properly 
 provided with what was necessary. Anything they asked for 
 was to be got if possible. The almoner did not personally 
 visit sick women, but sent his servants in his place. 
 
 The Refectory -master. — The refectory-master has to see 
 that the tables are properly prepared. On days when the
 
 292 APPENDIX 
 
 convent take supper he has to lay five loaves before the 
 president, viz. three " choyns " and two loaves of ordinary 
 bread, one for dinner and one to be kept for supper. He 
 has also to provide a loaf for the mixtum. On certain days 
 the convent had a better bread; simnel bread (siminella), 
 on some, and a species of gateau {gastellum) on others. He 
 has to taste the drink provided for the refectory. He has 
 to see to the lavatory outside the refectory being kept in a 
 proper state. He provides mats for the benches and straw 
 for the floor. At the beginning of each meal he "rever- 
 ently " places a spoon before each monk, but five or six before 
 the president on account of guests ; and towards the end of 
 the meal gathers them up again. Also when they have 
 wine he himself lays out the silver wine-cups ; and after the 
 pitance, he carries honourably up through the refectory the 
 cheese, and places it before the president and breaks it 
 curialiter, and then passes it to the guests and to the monks. 
 He must not speak " except for the sake of consoling, and 
 then not openly but briefly." He has to see that the table- 
 linen is changed whenever there is a general shaving of 
 the convent, or oftener if necessary ; also that six towels are 
 placed in the cloister every Sunday morning before the pro- 
 cession. Of the five at the lavatory near the refectory one is 
 kept for the sole use of the claustral prior, the other four being 
 for general use. The sixth hangs at the smaller lavatory near 
 the church door. At the high mass each day, as soon as the 
 first Agnus Dei was sung, the three servers for the week, 
 together with the reader, left the choir to take in the refec- 
 tory the mixtum allowed by the Rule (cap. xxxviii.). It was, 
 according to the day, bread and beer ; or vegetables, or eggs, 
 or fish, or cheese. The refectory-master had to serve them 
 without delay, and with all care and honour. They ate 
 sparsely, for they had to return to the choir for the next 
 hour of the ofiice.
 
 APPENDIX 293 
 
 III. THE CONVENTUS 
 
 I. The Rules of the Novitiate 
 
 When a young man desired to enter the monastery of 
 St. Augustine's, he had to remain for some time in the 
 guest-house as a postulant. When the day was fixed for 
 his admission, or as it was called " the shaving " of his head 
 (rashira), the prior gave him notice that three days before 
 he was to dine with the abbat. The abbat would then call 
 the prior and two or three of the seniors, and they appointed 
 the novice-master who was charged to instruct him in all 
 necessary for his state, and to supply all his wants. The 
 abbat then, after some kind words, left the youth in the 
 hands of the master, who examined him and found out if 
 he had everything he wanted for the time of his probation. 
 The postulant was then warned to cleanse his soul by con- 
 fession if necessary, and was instructed in the rudiments 
 of monastic ceremonial. These instructions were spread 
 over the intervening days, on one of which the postulant 
 dined with the prior. On the day of the rastura, after 
 prime, he attended the mass of our Lady and made an 
 offering after the Gospel. His master then took him to 
 the chapel of St. Bridget and there prepared him diligently 
 for the ceremony. When the hour arrived he went with his 
 master into the chapter-house where the convent was assem- 
 bled, and having profoundly prostrated himself before the 
 abbat, was asked by him what he desired, and replied in the 
 customary form. He was then bidden to rise, and was told by 
 the abbat how hard and trying was the life he desired. He 
 was asked if he was free-born, in good health, and free from 
 any incurable disease ; if he was ready to accept hardships 
 as well as pleasant things, to obey and bear ignominy for
 
 294 APPENDIX 
 
 the love of Christ. To these he answered, " Yes, by the grace 
 of God." Then pursuing the examination, the abbat asked 
 if the postulant had ever been professed in any other stricter 
 order ; whether he was bound by any promise of marriage, 
 free from debt and irregularity. On receiving an answer in 
 the negative, the abbat granted his prayer ; and he was forth- 
 with taken by the novice-master to have his head shaved and 
 be invested with the monastic habit. Now he was under 
 tutelage, and remained a " novice " until he was ordained 
 priest, although only for one year was he technically such.i 
 
 The life for novices was regulated in the greatest detail. 
 For instance the ceremonial used in the refectory was minute 
 and tended to secure regularity and recollection, together 
 with courtesy one to another. They had to enter in due 
 order, bow to each other, and while the others were coming 
 in had to say silently a De proficndis as a solace for the holy 
 souls. After grace had been said they were to take their 
 places at the table, but not to stir till the reading had 
 begun; then they should uncover their loaves, put their cup 
 in its place, and get their knives and spoon ready. They 
 were taught not to drink until the signal was given. From 
 the consuetudinary we learn that the novices communicated 
 every Sunday and on the feasts of Christmas, Ascension 
 day, the three last days of holy week, the three days of 
 their profession, and the ember-days. They were taught to 
 have great reverence for the abbat and for all bishops and 
 prelates. If by chance the abbat came to give them a 
 conference, they all humbly sat on the ground at his feet. 
 During their year's probation the novices never eat meat 
 except under most extraordinary circumstances. There are 
 minute directions about changing their clothes and the 
 times, places, and manner thereof ; about the care of the 
 
 ^ The novice-master had an assistant " in that the most laborious and 
 tiresome of all ministries."
 
 APPENDIX 295 
 
 lavatory and personal cleanliness; about blood-letting and 
 the bath, &c.^ 
 
 As the time for profession approached, the novices were 
 instructed how to read and how to chant, how to serve in 
 the church, and how to bear the thurible. Offices were dis- 
 tributed week by week, first to one side of the choir then 
 to the other ; so all had an opportunity of learning. Before 
 the day came they had to write out the formula and then 
 petition in chapter for the grace of profession, and pass 
 through a public examination as upon entry. The cere- 
 mony was performed by the abbat during the mass, after 
 the Gospel had been sung. For three days after their 
 profession the hood was worn over the face {bisque ad 
 medium nasi), and they kept rigorous silence. At the fol- 
 lowing chapter, the newly professed took oath to preserve 
 the secrets of the chapter ; not to complain out of spite or 
 wicked zeal against the priors and officers of the order ; and, 
 as far as in them lay, not to allow the monastery to be 
 burthened with debt. 
 
 2. The Rules of the Cloister 
 
 The monk's life was largely spent in the cloister. There 
 all sat in order and in fixed places. No one was allowed 
 to go outside the cloister without leave. Silence was always 
 
 1 It must be remembered that novices were, as a rule, but young men 
 and had to be trained into habits of regularity and politeness, without 
 which community life would be unbearable. And such rules as are laid 
 down in the consuetudinary are, after all, only the expression of regulations 
 which tacitly exist in every well-ordered family. They were inspired by 
 the same thoughtfulness for the feelings of others which is the mark of 
 a true gentleman wherever he is to be found. The rules were not left to 
 the individual ideas of any one novice-master, but were the established 
 and written rules of a house that had traditions of seven hundred years 
 at its back when this consuetudinary was written, and was therefore 
 able to stamp with an unmistakable character all who were educated 
 within its walls.
 
 296 APPENDIX 
 
 observed save on certain days and times when conversation 
 was allowed. At other times, they had to obtain leave to 
 go into the parlour (locutoriuvi) in order to speak. The 
 abbat, according to his preference, sat at the top of the east 
 cloister near the chapter-house door ; the prior in the north 
 cloister near the parlour door, the sub-prior in the eastern 
 cloister near the smaller lavatory; the third prior on the 
 western side. The novices and scholars used the southern 
 cloister as their school. No one sat in the eastern cloister 
 except the abbat and sub-prior and those appointed to hear 
 confessions. Those brothers who were in penance also sat on 
 this side. In the cloister they all sat one behind the other : 
 but sideways when talking was allowed. On these occasions 
 " Let no one dare to ask about the gossip of the world nor 
 tell it, nor speak of trifles or frivolous subjects apt to cause 
 laughter. No contentions are to be allowed. While talking 
 is allowed, no brother should read a book or write anything 
 unless he sits altogether apart." The monks were not 
 allowed to go to the novices. These were not allowed to 
 speak or to sit close to one another. They were always 
 under the eye of a guardian, who while he was on duty was 
 not allowed to read or write or do anything which would take 
 his eyes away from watching. The monks seem to have 
 always worn their hoods during the daytime. French was 
 the general language of the monastery — Latin only occasion- 
 ally. In the cloister took place the weekly washing of the 
 feet, and while the monks were engaged in the process they 
 wore their hoods drawn over their faces. Shaving took place 
 here. The prior fixed the day (in the winter once in two 
 weeks, in the summer twice in three weeks) and four barbers 
 attended. The seniors were shaved first, "because in the 
 beginning the razors are sharp and the towels dry," says the 
 consuetudinary. The cloister was spread with straw in the 
 winter and with green rushes in the summer.
 
 APPENDIX 297 
 
 3. The Rules of the Refectoey 
 
 In the refectory the monks preserved their respective 
 places. They had to wash their hands before entry, and 
 each say the De profundis while taking his place. At the 
 sound of the skilla, which the president strikes, grace is 
 begun, always by the precentor or succentor. The monks 
 stand facing the east. At the end of the grace the reader 
 approaches the step before the high table and asks the 
 blessing. Until he has read the first sentence the monks 
 sit quietly at the table. Should the reader, however, not be 
 able to find the book at once he recites a short sentence from 
 Scripture (Deus caritas est), so as not to keep them waiting 
 unduly. The one who presides sits in the middle of the 
 high table and has the little bell to give signals. The guests 
 are placed on either of his sides. Should a bishop or abbat of 
 some other order be present, out of respect he takes the chief 
 place, but does not preside at the skilla ; a benedictine abbat, 
 however, presides as if at home. The various dishes are taken 
 first to the superior and then in order round the community. 
 The monk who sang the high mass that day is always served 
 after the guests, and then the non-professed novices. No 
 waiter (the monks, all but the novices, served week by week) 
 is allowed to carry three dishes at once. The refectory being 
 the common dining-hall, no singularity in eating or drink- 
 ing is allowed. No noise to be made ; for instance, if there 
 are nuts, they are not to be cracked with the teeth, but a 
 monk is privately to open them with his knife, so as not 
 to disturb the reader. Should he spill anything, he has to 
 go and do penance in the middle of the refectory if strangers 
 are not present. He is not to make signs across the 
 refectory, not to look about or watch what the others are 
 doing ; he is not to lean on the table ; his tongue and eyes 
 are to be kept in check, and the greatest modesty observed.
 
 298 APPENDIX 
 
 His ears, however, are always to be attentive to the reading 
 and his heart fixed on his heavenly home. He eats with 
 his head covered with the hood. " No one, whether in the 
 refectory or outside, should drink without using both hands 
 to the cup, unless weakness in one hand prevents him. . . . 
 And this manner of drinking was common in England 
 before the coming of the Normans." If the president sends 
 any special dish to some one brother, the receiver rises 
 in his place and bows his thanks. When the meal is 
 finished each monk covers up the bread that has to serve 
 for supper, and sets his knife and spoon and salt vessel in 
 order. They then begin grace, and go out in procession to 
 the church where it was finished. The reader and the servers 
 have to go out also, but do not go into the choir ; and as 
 soon as they have privately finished their grace they return 
 to the refectory for their meal, which is served precisely as 
 the others. But they " as a reward of their labour ought to 
 be served in the most honourable and best manner possible, 
 both of the vegetables and pitance, and of the extra dish." 
 
 4. The Eules of the Chapter 
 
 One of the most important features in the government of 
 the abbey was the daily chapter ; it was the mainspring of 
 discij)line and the upholder of fraternal charity. Without 
 such an institution it would have been impossible to govern 
 the house. According to the old custom, every day before 
 the chapter, the prior summoned the guardians of the order, 
 some of the seniors and other discreet monks, if necessary, 
 to consult with them about what should be treated of in the 
 chapter or corrected ; so that nothing should ever be done 
 there on the spur of the moment or without advice. In 
 chapter only those things which pertained to salvation were 
 to be treated of, business matters being spoken about else- 
 where ; but any pressing business which required the know-
 
 APPENDIX 299 
 
 ledge and assent of the whole convent could be briefly gone 
 into after the main business was completed. All in the house 
 were bound to attend. The superior entered first and was 
 followed in due order by the seniors ; and when all had 
 taken their places a junior read the martyrology for the day. 
 The tabula or list of duties and notices was then read, and 
 each monk on hearing his name bowed. Then followed a 
 discourse if the superior thought fit, and at the end he said 
 Loquamur de ordine nostra. At this point the non-pro- 
 fessed novices rose and went out.^ 
 
 There were " three voices " recognised in the chapter : 
 the accuser, the answerer, and the judge ; and another 
 "five voices," to wit: he who presided; the guardians of 
 the order ; the precentor and succentor ; the brothers charged 
 with keeping the silence, " because silence is called the key 
 of the whole order " ; and then the almoner and sub-almoner. 
 These five in their order were the first to "proclaim" any 
 one whom through their respective ofiices they knew had 
 infringed the rule. The monk so proclaimed had to go out 
 into the centre of the chapter and, prostrating, made con- 
 fession of his fault, and, saying meet culpa and promising 
 amendment, then received penance and rebuke. Should he 
 be accused falsely he could " sweetly " say that he has no 
 recollection of the fault. Special severity was to be shown to 
 the juniors, for then " order will much better flourish in the 
 congregation." Every one who had ceased to be under ward 
 had a right to speak in the chapter on three points ; defects 
 
 1 " The word capituluin can conveniently be said to mean caput Utium, 
 for in chapter all strife is put an end to and any discord or dissension 
 there may have been among the brethren. The chapter-house is the 
 workshop of the Holy Ghost, in which the sons of God are gathered to- 
 gether and reconciled to Him. And it is especially the house of confes- 
 sion, the house of obedience, mercy, and forgiveness ; and the house of 
 unity, peace, and tranquillity, in which whatever exterior offence com- 
 mitted to the knowledge of the brethren is confessed, and by satis- 
 faction is mercifully forgiven."
 
 300 APPENDIX 
 
 in the public worship, the breaking of silence, and the 
 distribution of the alms. On other subjects he must 
 ask leave to speak. But the abbat's councillors, four- 
 teen or sixteen seniors {senpectes vel senes), chosen from 
 both choirs, have freedom of speech when any matters 
 which concern observance and the increase of religion 
 are discussed. Any one who speaks is to be heard by 
 all, and is not to be rebuked for what he says unless he 
 speaks disrespectfully. Any one disagreeing with what 
 has been said, can with all modesty and reverence dis- 
 pute the matter, "lest discordant contention finds place 
 for overthrowing of the order." But disturbers of the 
 chapter, the disobedient and those disrepectfully contend- 
 ing with their superiors, are to be sharply corrected by 
 words, stripes, and fasts, that their bad example may not 
 corrupt others. Provision is made against any insulting 
 language to the president of chapter, and should such occur 
 the guardians and all seniors are at once to proclaim him. 
 Every fault confessed has to be punished. If in penance a 
 monk is ordered to receive stripes, the president appoints one, 
 never the proclaimer nor a junior, to execute the sentence ; 
 and the culprit, according to the old usage, prostrated and 
 received on his bare shoulders the number of stripes or- 
 dained.^ But according to the later custom he sits with his 
 face and head enveloped in the hood. "While corporal 
 discipline of this kind is being inflicted upon a brother all 
 the rest sit with bowed and covered head, and with kind and 
 brotherly affection should have compassion on him." In the 
 meanwhile no one speaks, or even looks at him, except the 
 president and the inflictor and some of the elders, especi- 
 ally the confessors of the house, who can intercede for him. 
 The list of punishments is given, and is divided into those 
 for light faults, such as : separation from the common table ; 
 
 ^ According to the old custom a thick rod was used ; but in later days 
 a birch of " several lither twigs."
 
 APPENDIX 301 
 
 to take the meal three hours later than the community ; ^ 
 to take a lower place in choir and chapter ; not to celebrate 
 mass nor to assist ministerially ; not to read in public, nor 
 sing nor act as thurifer or acolyth ; not to make the offer- 
 tory, nor receive the pace or the holy communion ; to pros- 
 trate during part of every office. For grave faults perpetual 
 silence (in choir as well as elsewhere) ; bread and water every 
 Wednesday and Thursday ; the last place in the community. 
 For the very grave crimes imprisonment according to the 
 Kule. Such an one had also to lie prostrate in the doorway of 
 the church at each hour, so that the monks passed over his 
 body on entering or going out, and he had to sit outside 
 the choir as one excommunicated. 
 
 If any one in chapter became altogether rebellious and 
 would not be otherwise controlled, he was seized by the 
 brethren, who took away his knife and girdle, lest he should 
 in his madness do harm, and was then put into the prison. 
 
 Every one was liable to be proclaimed, even the abbat ; 
 but he, as a rule, had to be reverently spoken to by some of 
 the seniors outside the chapter, should he have been guilty 
 of any serious fault. But if his fault was notorious and it 
 was judged useful, he could in a few words be proclaimed in 
 the chapter. The prior, when proclaimed, stood in his place 
 and bowed. If it was a serious offence, two of the seniors 
 at his request go into the middle and do penance in bis 
 stead. The abbat is warned by the consuetudinary to have 
 a great respect for his prior, and not to rebuke him publicly 
 for an indiscreet word or so. The obedientiaries are not 
 to be proclaimed by the names of their offices, but by their 
 simple name and number — e.g. Nonnus A quintus vel nonnus 
 A clecimus. If by chance there are several of the same name, 
 all of them have to rise until the proclaimer indicates which 
 one he refers to. There are to be no mutual proclamations 
 
 1 The time, while the others were eating, had to be spent in prayer in 
 the church.
 
 302 APPENDIX 
 
 in the same chapter, nor is any one to proclaim after he has 
 once sat down. The proclamations over, any monk who had 
 a petition to make then went into the middle, and prostrat- 
 ing, in answer to the abbat's demand what he asked, replied, 
 " I ask and beseech God's mercy and yours for — " according 
 to his need. This was the occasion when a monk asked for 
 prayers for his deceased parents and relations, for himself 
 before ordination, for leave to give up some work imposed 
 upon him, for mercy for others, for leave to go to the 
 infirmary, or for the blessing before profession, &c. These 
 petitions being heard and granted, if judged well, any lay- 
 men or others who desired confraternity were admitted by 
 the chapter, and their petition was granted. The business 
 being completed, prayers for the dead were said by the 
 president, and upon the signal the blessing was given and all 
 retired. 
 
 5. The Rules of the Dormitory 
 
 The dormitory was a place of perpetual silence. The 
 monks wore their hoods drawn over the face, and walked 
 with slow and grave footsteps and eyes cast down. After 
 compline the convent go processionally to the dormitory, 
 and according to ancient usage paused at the latrine for 
 the common need. On entering the dormitory, each stood 
 before his bed and said privately the compline of our Lady. 
 They then prepared their beds for the night, and took off 
 their upper garments according to a fixed rule ^ and got into 
 bed. If any one was in the habit of calling out in his sleep, 
 he slept elsewhere than in the common dormitory. 
 
 The monk rose at midnight for matins. Some, to stir up 
 their fervour, used the words, Ecce sponsus venit, exite ohviam 
 ei ; others, the words Surgite mortui qui jacetis in sepidch'is 
 vestris et occurrite ad judiciiom. The prayers used while 
 
 ^ " Vestiti staminis, femoralibus et ccdigis atque cincti cingidis aut vestibus vel 
 carrigiis dormire debent."
 
 APPENDIX 303 
 
 getting up were the Ave Maria, with special reference to 
 the midnight hour at which Christ was born. After the 
 oflfice they went back to the dormitory. When they rose 
 again before prime, they signed their foreheads with the 
 cross and said, each one, the Credo and the prime of the 
 little office of our Lady. According to the regulation, all 
 had to have their feet out of bed before the sound of the 
 caller has ceased ; and he is instructed to sound slowly, as 
 it were for the space of a Miserere. On rising they turn 
 back their beds and go to the lavatory to wash and comb 
 their hair ; then to the church for prime ; after which came 
 the private masses. 
 
 In the olden days the monks changed their clothes on the 
 occasion of the bath, which used to be taken four times 
 a year. But since a stricter interpretation of the Rule 
 was introduced, and the general bathing allowed only twice 
 a year, the monks were allowed to change their clothes 
 when they wished. They had a specified mode of making 
 the change, which was always done after prime ; and after 
 putting on their clean clothes they were ordered to wash their 
 hands before returning to the cloister. 
 
 There was a siesta in the middle of the day, for which 
 they had to undress as for the night. Each bed-place had 
 a shelf and a hook provided, but no other convenience 
 except for the old and infirm. The bed-clothes were not 
 to be of scarlet or any vivid colours. Great cleanliness 
 was ordered in the dormitory, and no dirty or old boots 
 were allowed to be kept in it. The chamberlain was re- 
 sponsible for the well-keeping of the dormitory, and had 
 to have it thoroughly cleaned out, at least once a year. Hay, 
 changed often, was strewn on the floor, and a large mat two 
 and a half feet wide (which the guardian of the manor of 
 Northburne had to provide) stretched the whole length of 
 the dormitory. The beds were of straw, and had to be re- 
 newed every year. The chamberlain, besides the care of the
 
 304 APPENDIX 
 
 dormitory, had to see to the monks' clothing, and had to 
 make on stated days a distribution of various articles of 
 clothing. Each monk had a new habit at least once a year, 
 also one pilche,^ one set of night wear, and one pair of 
 slippers, &c. Boots were to be renewed once a year, and 
 " no one could refuse to accept a pair of boots, if too large ; 
 but the chamberlain should do his best to get each one 
 fitted." The old clothes were given to the poor, and there- 
 fore it is laid down that the monks' clothing is not to be 
 mended too much. 
 
 6. The Rules of the Infirmary 
 
 The prior or guardians have to visit the infirmary every 
 day after the private masses, after each meal, and after 
 compline, to see the sick and make inquiries and receive 
 complaints. If a brother is unwell, he has to get leave to 
 go to the infirmary, and goes to the cellarer and gets for his 
 consolation, doubtlessly, from him a good fat capon and some 
 wine, from the sacrist a supply of candles, &c. ; and thus 
 supplied, is prepared for any contingency. He has to go 
 to the infirmary for at least eight days, and during that time 
 is not allowed, without special leave, to celebrate mass, but 
 has to assist at the daily mass said in the infirmary. " In 
 the infirmary no unseemly noise should at any time be made, 
 nor should any sound of musical instruments be ever openly 
 heard there. But if it is considered necessary for any one 
 who is weak and ill, to have his spirit cheered up by the 
 sound of music and harmony, the infirmarian can provide 
 such relaxation. The sick brother is taken into the chapel 
 and the door shut ; then some brother or some honest and 
 private servant can, without offence, play sweetly the music 
 of the harp for his delectation. But great care must be 
 taken lest any sound or melody of this kind should be 
 
 ^ These were of lamb's wool, cat or wolf's skin.
 
 APPENDIX 305 
 
 heard {quod ahsit) in the infirmary hall, or in the cells of the 
 brethren." The sick are to have every attention and all that 
 they want ; and it is ordered that one of the servants of the 
 infirmary has to go into the town to the apothecary when 
 required to get the medicines, to collect herbs for decoctions, 
 and, under the doctor's orders, to make the tisanes, &c. 
 
 Should these, together with the fat capon and other con- 
 solations, prove efficacious, the brother, when restored to 
 health, had to present himself before chapter and ask ab- 
 solution and penance for all the faults and infringements 
 of the Rule he had been guilty of while ill. But if the 
 sickness was unto death, the end was met and prepared for 
 as became monks. 
 
 When it was announced that a brother was dying, the 
 whole convent gathered together in the church, together with 
 the abbat, and then went in procession to visit the sick, and 
 to anoint him. The monks, headed by juniors bearing the 
 holy water, cross, candles, and thurible, chanting the seven 
 penitential psalms, set forth towards the infirmary. The 
 sacrist followed bearing reverently the holy oil, and the 
 abbat in alb, stole, and maniple humbly followed, accompanied 
 by his chaplain bearing the ritual. Arrived at the place, 
 the monks stand choirwise and continue their chanting while 
 the sick man is aspersed and incensed. The public con- 
 fession is made by the sick man himself if possible, and he 
 is absolved by all his brethren, and absolves them in turn. 
 Then, according to the old usage, after having kissed the 
 cross he is anointed by the abbat. Meanwhile a priest goes 
 with acolythes and candles to the church and brings the 
 Sacrament of Christ's Body, borne on a paten, to the sick 
 chamber, and on entering all kneel and adore. The mouth of 
 the sick monk is rinsed out before he receives the sacred host, 
 and immediately before communion he makes his profession 
 of faith and receives the ablutions of the priest's fingers after- 
 wards. For eight days after the anointing, special prayers 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 3o6 APPENDIX 
 
 are said for the sick man by the convent, at the end of each 
 office and also at the morrow-mass. And now the sick man 
 prepares himself for death by resuming the old ascetic 
 practices. No longer does he take meat (unless he recovers), 
 nor does he use a softer bed than usual. One of the monks, 
 priest or deacon, whomsoever the sick man names, is assigned 
 to him as tutor and friend, and special servants, who have 
 special privileges, are appointed to wait on him. He is never 
 left until death supervenes or he recovers. The brother is 
 constantly to read the passion of our Lord to him as long as 
 he can hear ; and when unable to do so, the psalter is said 
 to assist him in his agony. When death is at hand, accord- 
 ing to the old custom, ashes were strewn on the floor in the 
 shape of a cloth, and haircloth laid thereon ; and on to this 
 penitential bed the dying man was gently lifted, according 
 to the example of St. Martin, who told his disciples that 
 Christians ought only to die on ashes and sackcloth. But 
 the more humane usage of later times modified this custom, 
 and the ashes and haircloth were put upon the bed itself. 
 As soon as the agony began the convent were summoned, 
 and with thurible and cross, and singing Credo and peni- 
 tential psalms, they assisted at the departure of their brother. 
 The deceased, clad in his night garments (it was specified 
 that the clothes had to be good, even new), with his face 
 covered with a sudarium, was borne into the church, and 
 there the office of the dead was sung, and vigil kept around 
 the body, which was never left until the funeral. He was 
 borne to the grave by his brethren, and laid therein by two 
 monks vested in albs. In the chapter immediately after 
 his death, the convent took the discipline conventualiter for 
 the relief of his soul. For thirty days office was said for 
 him, and the month's mind duly kept. Doles were made 
 to the poor on his behalf; and each priest in the house said 
 ten masses, and those not priests ten psalters. Notice of 
 the death was sent to all religious houses in Great Britain,
 
 APPENDIX 307 
 
 except to the mendicants, and a dirge and mass celebrated 
 in each. In the houses specially connected with St. Augus- 
 tine's, the name of the dead was inserted by the precentor 
 in the Martyrology, and besides the public mass each priest 
 said one, and the others read fifty psalms. 
 
 When news came of the death of a confrater, a dirge and 
 solemn mass was sung as the oflficial act of the convent, and 
 each priest said a mass, and the other monks fifty psalms. 
 The name of the coiifrater was entered in the Martyrology, 
 and his anniversary kept as that of one of the monks. It was 
 also inserted in the next hrcviculum which was sent out, 
 and thus he shared in the prayers of every house. 
 
 7. Some Genera.l Rules 
 
 Among the regulations scattered throughout the consue- 
 tudinary are some of special interest. In the Ueformation- 
 cula of abbat Nicholas Thorne it is laid down that on days 
 when the convent assisted at a sermon they could say the 
 usual penitential psalms privately ; and this and the like 
 dispensations were given, so that the office itself might be 
 said more slowly and more devoutly. The eating of meat 
 was allowed to the brethren who bore the weight of the 
 office ; but never in the refectory but in the domus miseri- 
 cordiarum, and always with the provision that never less than 
 thirty monks were to be present at the ordinary meal in the 
 refectory. No seculars were to be allowed in the domus 
 misericordiarum, and the monks had to serve themselves. 
 Obedientiaries and others whom business took abroad were 
 not allowed to eat meat, especially in public ; for, it is 
 recognised " this is against the Rule, and altogether against 
 canonical institution." 
 
 " Let the confessors discreetly do all that belongs to their 
 office, viz. to know how to weigh and discern between sin
 
 3o8 APPENDIX 
 
 and sin ; between person and person ; between manner and 
 manner; and what circumstances aggravate a sin." 
 
 "Also let the brethren frequently confess, at least once 
 a week ; and not only once but twice or thrice, or daily if 
 their conscience demands it, for it is said the just man falls 
 seven times a clay. And those who confess, let them be ready 
 to receive and duly perform penance." The confessors have 
 every month to give in, to the abbat or other superior, the 
 names of those who confess to them, and whether they 
 confess according to the above manner. Those who do not 
 confess within the ordinary times are to be rebuked and 
 publicly punished in the chapter. 
 
 No priest is to refrain from celebrating more than four 
 days without the superior's consent ; nor the others from 
 weekly communion. Transgressors were to be put on lenten 
 fare till they repented. 
 
 The monks were not allowed to write or receive letters 
 without permission. 
 
 " That our Rule of our holy father Benet be held by all in 
 great reverence. That the statutes of the popes, of the legates, 
 and of the general chapter of our order are to be read in the 
 chapter-house at fixed times, and are to be observed as 
 far as they do not go against our privileges or reasonable 
 customs." 
 
 That the monks all dress alike, the same cut, the same 
 colour and material. 
 
 That in processions the monks should go orderly and 
 gravely, and that there should be a distance of seven feet 
 between each monk. 
 
 That no brother should become a guardian or have ward 
 of seculars without special leave. No one is to take part in 
 secular disputes unless for the convent or church. 
 
 The brethren were for the future forbidden, under pains 
 provided for in the canons, to play at chess, dice, &c., or 
 to use bows or slings, or run with poles, or throw stones,
 
 APPENDIX 309 
 
 big or little, or to be present at fights or duels, or baiting, 
 or cock-fighting, or to run in the woods, with shout and 
 hounds, in the profane sport of the chase. 
 
 That behaviour is to be guarded between the monks and 
 seculars as well as among themselves : and that no one gives 
 ear to rumours or such like fatuities which profit not the soul. 
 
 That all wicked carnal affections and foolish consortings 
 be repressed ; and all giving of blows is forbidden. 
 
 That the younger monks, after they have finished their 
 tutelage, should study Holy Scripture, for nothing is more 
 hateful than not to know how to occupy oneself. Let them 
 learn off by heart the epistles and gospels for the whole 
 year. Before they venture to read them publicly, they must 
 be diligently practised. 
 
 There are some who practise private acts of mortification 
 and leave unobserved those prescribed by the Rule. Such as 
 these are to be rebuked. 
 
 Since some of the monks get bled too often and without 
 necessity, in order to get the solatium allowed at those times, 
 it is ordered that bleeding is only allowed once in seven 
 weeks. 
 
 Those who have leave to go outside the enclosure do not 
 therefore get leave to eat and drink outside, or to go to the 
 houses of seculars. On journeys, monks are to go to houses 
 of our own order in preference to any other. 
 
 No one is to be promoted to the priesthood save by a 
 special favour and by the advice of the seniors. If any 
 youth of ability is sent to the university, he has to know 
 by heart, before he is allowed to go, the psalter, the 
 hymns, canticles, communion of saints, the ferial antiphons, 
 and short responsories, and all the versicles of the whole 
 antiphonary. 
 
 There are some who claim a general dispensation from 
 compline. No such licence is ever to be given. Permission 
 is only granted in individual cases from certain and reasonable
 
 3IO APPENDIX 
 
 causes. Those who are dispensed are to say their compline 
 sitting near the chapter-house door, and not walking about 
 the cloister. They, also, are to be in the dormitory before the 
 curfew sounds. 
 
 "And let the brethren take heed that they fail not in 
 these, for very perilous it is to fail in such laws until 
 they have been revoked by the abbat, or with his permission 
 by the prior or sub-prior in full chapter. There are some 
 who attach little weight to the precepts of chapter, and say : 
 ' We will do what is ordered for two or three days, so that 
 we may seem to accept and obey them ; but beyond this we 
 don't care.' Such as these wickedly sin." 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &• Co. 
 Edinburgh &= London
 
 
 
 
 
 v5 ^•s?r?^^^^v:,^''?^''v. . .