§ 84.
In winter the morning or chapter mass was
sung between prime and terce, and terce was succeeded
by chapter. High mass and sext followed. Between
sext and none the convent was at work. After none
came the mid-day meal, and the rest of the day was
spent as usual until compline, with the omission of
the post-prandial rest, which in a season of long nights
was not needed. In orders in which manual labour
played a large part—the Cistercian and Premonstratensian,
for example—special portions of the day
were set aside for such work. The Cistercians worked
in the morning between chapter and terce, and in the
afternoon between none and vespers. In winter they
usually worked from chapter after terce till none,
apparently saying sext privately: in Lent they also
said none at their work, and did not have their meal
until after vespers. Their periods for reading and
contemplation were an interval between matins and
lauds in all seasons, the time between the morning
mass and sext in summer (for in this order there
seems to have originally been no high mass before
sext), and part of the interval between vespers and
compline. Premonstratensian canons worked in
summer from chapter to terce, and in hay-time and
harvest spent the greater part of the day in the
fields, saying their hours privately, and dining and
sleeping in the granges, if necessary. In winter work
was done after terce. The Premonstratensian hours
for reading were between sext and the mid-day meal
in summer or none in winter, and again after none or
the mid-day meal till vespers. In the summer the
canons were allowed their daily bevers or draught of
wine before vespers in the frater. The conduct of
the daily life in the various orders applies equally to
houses of female religious, where the officers corresponded
to those in male convents, the night and
day-hours were said and chapters were held on the
same model, and the only important difference was
that chaplains had to be imported to say mass and
hear private confessions, the hour for which in all
orders was usually after chapter.
