9. THE DINNER
Dinner followed Mass directly, with only a brief interval for the washing of hands. As a rule, the midday meal would be served about eleven o’clock. The reader and servers were permitted to take some slight refection beforehand; and for this purpose could leave the church before the conclusion of the service with the refectorian and kitchener. On Sundays, however, the reader had to wait till after he had received the usual weekly blessing, but he might then go straight from the altar to take his bread and wine.
Just before the close of the service in the church, the prior came out into the cloister and either himself began to sound the signal for the dinner, or caused someone else, appointed for the purpose, to do so. If through any accident the meal was not quite ready, or, as one Custumal says, “if the bread be still in the oven,” it was the duty of the kitchener to wait for the coming of the prior and to inform him of the delay, so that the signal might not begin to sound before the cook was ready. In this case the community, upon coming out of the church, after they had performed their ablutions, sat as patiently as they could in the cloister till the signal was given. Ordinarily, however, the bell began to ring at their coming out of the choir, and continued to sound whilst they were preparing themselves for the meal, and, indeed, until all were in their places.
The prior, or the senior who was going to preside at the meal if he were absent, remained at the door of the refectory, and gave the sign for the bell to cease ringing when all was ready. Whilst waiting here, the various officials who had to make any communication to the prior about the meal, or ask any permission appertaining to their office, came to make their reports or proffer their requests. For example, the infirmarian had now to notify the names and number of the sick under his charge, or to ask permission for some one of the brethren to dine with them. The guest-master would do the same in regard to his guests, and, on the great feasts when the abbot had pontificated, he would frequently send his chaplain to the prior or presiding senior, when thus standing at the entrance to the refectory, to acquaint him that he had invited the sacred ministers who had assisted him in the function, to dine at his table. In some places also, on every fish-day, the cellarer acquainted the prior at this time what provision he had made for the community meal, in order that the superior presiding might judge whether there ought to be anything further supplied to the religious, by way of a caritas, or extraordinary dish.
The monks on entering the refectory were directed to pause in the middle and salute the Majestas over the high table with a profound bow. They then passed to their places to await the coming of the superior. If this was delayed they could sit down in their places till the bell, ceasing to ring, told them that the superior had given the sign for his entry. They then stood in their ranks and returned the bow he made to each side as he came into the hall. If the abbot dined in the refectory, each monk also individually saluted him as he passed up to his seat. The usual Grace was then chanted, and the prior, or whoever presided, gave the blessing to the reader, who came forward into the middle of the refectory to ask for it. Whilst the community were sitting down in their places at table, the reader mounted the pulpit and opened the book at the place he had already prepared. When all was quiet the superior sounded the small bell at his table as a sign that the reader might begin; and, when the first sentence had been read, he sounded it a second time for the commencement of the meal. That the interval between the two bells might not be over long, the reader is warned in some monastic directions to make choice in all refectory reading of a short sentence as the first.
REFECTORY PULPIT, CHESTER
The monk who read one week had to serve the next, and during his week of reading he was never to be absent from his duty except with grave cause. For example, if he were to be invited during his week of office to dine at the abbot’s table, he was to excuse himself and say that he was the conventual reader. The reason assigned is obvious: the reading had to be carefully prepared, and was besides a labour; so that to ask anyone to take the duty unexpectedly would mean not only that he would have a burden placed upon him, but that the community would not have proper respect paid to it, in having to listen to reading that had not been prepared previously. One common and useful direction given to the refectory reader is, that he was not to hurry. The quantity he got through was immaterial compared with distinct pronunciation and careful rendering. Any specially noteworthy passage should be repeated so as to impress its meaning upon the hearers.
When the second signal had been sounded by the president’s bell, the brethren uncovered their loaves, which had been placed under their napkins, arranged the latter, and broke their portion of bread. At the second signal, too, the servers began their ministrations. In some of the greater houses, at the beginning of the meal, two juniors, one from each side, took their goblets and spoons and came to the table of the presiding superior. Here they took up their places, standing at either end of the table, unless the superior should invite them to sit. These junior monks were to act as the special servers of the religious presiding in the refectory. They were to assist him in his wants, to anticipate them if possible, and to act as his messengers should he require them to do so. On first taking up their position, the senior of the two was directed to cut the superior’s loaf in two for him, the other was to fill his goblet with the beer or wine served to the community. These two assistants at the president’s table had to eat their meals as they stood or sat, as the case might be, at the ends of the high table, and were to be helped immediately after the president himself.
When the sign for beginning the meal had been given, two other juniors, one on each side of the refectory, rose from their places, and, receiving the jugs of beer or wine from the cellarer or his assistant, proceeded to fill the goblets set before each of the religious. When this was done they asked permission from the superior, by a sign, to fill the measure of drink intended as the convent’s charity to the poor. Meanwhile the servers had gone to the kitchen-hatch to bring in the dishes. These were taken usually first to the superior, and from this dish the two juniors serving at his table were helped; then, should there have been any one of the brethren lately dead, his portion, to be given to the poor, was served out into a special dish. Finally, in many places, two dishes were taken by the servers to the tables on each side of the refectory; one to the top and the other to the bottom and so passed along the tables, the monk who passed the dish, and he to whom it was passed, bowing to each other with ceremonial courtesy.
In some houses the method of serving was somewhat different: the portions were served separately, having been previously divided under the direction of the kitchener or refectorian. When the first dish was pottage, the serving always began with the youngest member of the community, the superior receiving his last; in other cases the first dish was always taken to the superior’s table. The servers were exhorted always to attend to their work, not to keep standing about the kitchen-hatch, and much less to stop gossiping there; but to watch carefully and even anxiously for any sign that might be made to them by the brethren.
In some Custumals there were minute directions for the serving. Those who served the brethren were not to rush about, nor stand aimlessly in one place, nor gossip with the kitchen-servers even about the dishes they received. They were to watch to supply what was wanted; they were to serve with decorum and with patience, as if, indeed, they were waiting upon our Lord Himself; and they should not attempt too much at a time, as, for example, to try to carry in more dishes, etc., than they were well able to do. As a rule, they were to be contented to use both hands to carry one dish.
During the service of the first course, the reading was to proceed uninterruptedly; but when the community had finished eating it, a pause was made until the second course had been set on the table. Meanwhile, at some religious houses at this point in the dinner, the poor man selected that day to receive the alms of the community, or as the recipient of the portion of a deceased brother during the thirty days after his death, was brought into the refectory by the almoner. His share was given to him, and one of the juniors helped him to carry his food to the door. At this point, too, that is, after the first course, if there were not many to serve, permission from the superior was to be asked by a sign for one of the two servers to sit down and begin his meal.
The second course was served in a way similar to the first. Many and curious are the directions given as to what the monks might or might not do according to the code of mediæval monastic manners. The regular food, for example, was not to be shared with anyone, as, indeed, all had received their own portion; but if anything special or extra was given to an individual, except for sickness, then he might, and indeed would be considered wanting in courtesy if he did not, offer to share it with his two neighbours. These neighbours, however, were not to pass it on. If the superior in his discretion sent a brother some extra dish, the recipient was directed to rise and bow his thanks. If the dish came from the table of the abbot, when out of the refectory, he who received it was still to bow towards the abbot’s place as if he were present. If it came from anyone else than the superior, the recipient had to send it by the server to the senior presiding in the refectory, that he might, if he so pleased, partake of it, or even dispose of it altogether according to his pleasure. If any mistake was made in serving, or if by any accident something was dropped or spilt on the tables or ground, the delinquent had to do penance in the middle, until the prior gave a sign to him to rise, by rapping on the table with the handle of his knife.
Some of the hints as to proper decorum at table seem curious in these days. No one was to clean his cup with his fingers, nor wipe his hands, or mouth, or knife upon the tablecloths. If he had first cleaned the knife with a piece of bread, however, he might then wipe it on his own napkin. The brethren were exhorted to try and keep the tablecloths clean. Stained cloths were to be washed without delay; and to avoid stains, all soft and cooked fruit was to be served in a deep plate or bowl. Every care was to be taken not to drop crumbs upon the floor; salt was to be taken with a knife, and the drinking-cup was to be held always in both hands.
When the prior, or the senior presiding at the table in his place, saw that the monks had finished their repast, he knocked upon the table with the handle of his knife, as a sign for the collection of remnants intended for the poor. The two juniors appointed for this purpose then came forward, each carrying a basket, and bowing in the middle to the superior, passed down each side of the refectory, collecting the pieces of bread and anything else that the religious had placed in front of them as their individual alms. Whatever portion of bread any monk desired to keep for the evening meal, he guarded by covering it with his napkin. Any loaf, or part of a loaf, left uncovered after the dinner was over, was claimed by the almoner, as belonging to “the portion of the poor” at his disposal.
When the two juniors had finished their task, the prior rapping the table a second time, gave the sign for the servers to collect the spoons and knives, and take them to the kitchen hatchway to be removed for washing in the place set aside for that purpose. Meanwhile the monks folded their napkins and waited silently for a third signal, upon which they rose from their places and took up their position for Grace, facing each other on the inner sides of the tables. When they were ready in their ranks, the reader who was waiting in the pulpit, at a sign from the prior, sang the usual conclusion of all public reading: “Tu autem Domine, miserere nobis,” the community answering “Deo gratias.” Then followed the chanted Grace, which was concluded in the church, to which the community went in procession, during the singing of the Miserere or other psalm.
The officials and religious who had been occupied with serving, stood on one side at the end of the meal, and as the brethren went out from the refectory they bowed to them, to show their reverence for the community in its corporate capacity. The servers then went to the lavatory and washed their hands in preparation for their own meal. The refectorian remained behind when the community went out of the refectory, so as to see that all was ready for the second table. At this second meal the cellarer generally presided; and one of the junior monks was appointed to read whilst it was being eaten by the servers and by all those who for any reason had been prevented from dining at the first table.
10. AFTER DINNER
The community dinner would probably have taken about half an hour; and by the time the monks came from the church after finishing their Grace, it would have been about 11.30 in the morning. The first duty of the monks on coming into the cloister was to proceed to the lavatory to wash their hands again—a not wholly unnecessary proceeding in the days when forks were unknown, and fingers supplied their place at table. At Durham a peculiar custom was observed by the monks each day after dinner on coming from the church. They betook themselves to the cemetery garth “where all the monks were buried; and they did stand all bareheaded, a certain long space, praying among the tombs and graves for their brethren’s souls being buried there.” If None had already been said in choir, the community had now several hours to devote to reading or work, or both. If that canonical Hour had yet to be said, then the religious, after their ablutions, took their books and sat in the cloister till the monks at the second table had finished their meal, when the signal was given, and all went to the church and recited None together, returning to their occupations immediately afterwards, by which time it would have been about midday.
After washing his hands on coming out from Grace, the prior, or the senior who had presided in the refectory in his place, was directed in some houses to go and satisfy himself that all was well at the second table, and that those who had served others were themselves well served. From the refectory he had to go to the infirmary to visit the sick, and to see for himself that their needs had been properly supplied. When these two duties had been fulfilled, it was the custom in some places for the prior on occasions to invite some of the seniors to his room for a glass of wine, to warm themselves in winter, and for what is called in one Custumal “the consolations of a talk.” When the prior was not present, the presiding senior was allowed to invite some of the brethren to the domus recreationis—the recreation-room. At certain times and on certain feasts the whole community joined in these innocent and harmless meetings.
At this same time the juniors and novices with their masters were permitted with leave to go out into the garden and other places to unbend in games and such-like exercises proper to their age. In this way they were assisted when young to stand the severe strain of cloister discipline. Without the rational relaxation intended by such amusements, to use the simile constantly applied to these circumstances, “as bows always bent” they would soon lose the power of “aiming straight at perfection.”
The monk, it must be remembered, was in no sense “a gloomy person.” There is hardly anything that would have interfered more with the purpose of his life than any disposition to become a misanthrope. His calling was no bar to reasonable recreation. In fact, the true religious was told to try and possess angelica hilaritas cum monastica simplicitas. Thus at Durham we read of the greensward “at the back of the house towards the water” where the younger members of the community played their games of bowls, with the novice-master as umpire. On the stone benches, too, in the cloisters at Canterbury, Westminster, Gloucester, and elsewhere, traces of the games played centuries ago by the young religious may still be seen in the holes and squares set out symmetrically, and oblongs divided by carefully-drawn cross-lines. Sometimes we read of hunting, contests of ball, and other games of chance. Archbishop Peckham was apparently somewhat shocked to find that the prior of Cokesford, in Norfolk, at times indulged in a game of chess with some of his canons. In other houses he found that dogs were kept and even stranger pets like apes, cranes, and falcons were retained in captivity by the religious. It is difficult to draw the exact line by passing which monastic gravity is supposed to be injured, and so there was, no doubt, constant need for regulation on all these matters. But some such amusements were necessary, and by them, the tension of long-continued conventual exercises was relieved. The monastic granges to which from time to time the religious went for a change of scene and life were most useful in this regard and enabled them to recreate their strength for another period of service.
In the disposition of the early part of the afternoon, some slight changes had to be made between the winter and summer observance. In summer, immediately after the dinner, the community retired to the dormitory for a sleep, or rest, of an hour’s duration. This was the rule from Easter till the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in September, and all the community were bound to observe the hour for repose if not for sleep. The period of rest, thus allowed at midday, was taken in reality from the night. During the summer the times for vespers, and supper, and bed were each an hour later than they were in the winter months, when the light failed earlier. This hour, by which in summer the sleep before Matins was shortened, was made up by the rest after dinner. During the same period, except on vigils and such-like days when None was said before the dinner, that canonical Hour was recited after the midday sleep. On the signal for the termination of the hour of repose the religious came from the dormitory and, having washed, sat in the cloister till the notice was given to proceed to the church for None, which at this time of the year would have been finished some time between 12.30 and one o’clock.
11. THE DAILY WORK
The chief working hours in a mediæval monastery, including a period for recreation and outdoor exercise, were between twelve o’clock and five in winter, and one o’clock and six in summer. It was during these five hours that the chief business and work of the house was transacted. The officials then attended to the duties of their offices; the writers and rubricators made progress in their literary and artistic compositions in the cloister or scriptorium; the juniors and novices studied with their masters, or practised public reading and singing under the precentor or his assistant; those who had work in the kitchen, or the bakehouse, or the cellar, etc., addressed themselves to their allotted tasks. In a word, whilst the morning of each monastic day was devoted mainly to prayer and the church services, the afternoon was fully occupied in many and various labours and in the general administration of the monastery. Of course manual labour, that is the working in the gardens, or fields, or workshops of the establishment, always occupied at least a part of the working hours of every monastery, and frequently a large part. This manual labour was necessary for health and exercise, and it was insisted upon in all monastic codes, not so much as an end in itself, as a means to avoid idleness, and to strengthen the constitution of individuals by regular and systematic corporal exercises. The work of a labourer in the fields and gardens was never looked upon as derogatory to the monastic profession; and St. Benedict expressly tells his followers that they are to look upon themselves “as true monks, when they have to live by the labour of their hands.”
CARMELITE IN HIS STUDY
This manual labour was generally a conventual work, that is, undertaken in common; and the permission of the superior was always required to stay away from it. In some Orders, such as the Cistercian and Cluniac, it was performed with a certain amount of ceremonial usage. The prior, for example, rang the bell, or struck the tabula to call the brethren together, distributed the necessary tools amongst them, and then led the way to the place where they were to dig, or weed, or plant, etc. In the Cluniac houses, the abbot went with the community. When they were assembled at the door of the cloister he was to be informed, and he then came into their midst saying, “Eamus ad opus manuum”—“Let us go to our manual labour.” Upon this, the youngest leading the way, the monks went in procession to where they had to work, saying the Miserere or other psalm. Arrived at the place, they stood round the abbot till the psalm was ended, then the abbot said the Deus in adjutorium—“O God, come to my aid,” etc., with the “Our Father” and the versicle of Prime to obtain God’s blessing on the labours of the day: “Look down, O Lord, upon Thy servants and upon Thy works, and guide Thou Thy sons.” To which the community replied: “And may the glory of the Lord our God be upon us, and may He guide us in the works of our hands and direct us in our manual labour.” Then bowing to the abbot and to each other, they began the task allotted to them.
At the conclusion of their period of labour the religious returned to the cloister as they had come; the tools were gathered up and put away; and after a short time allowed for washing, they went to the refectory for an afternoon drink of some kind. After this they returned to their places in the cloister: the novices and juniors to their studies, the seniors to their reading or writing.
12. THE VESPERS
At five o’clock in winter and at six in summer the bell rang for Vespers. In some houses, however, as for instance at Durham, the Vespers were always sung at the fixed hour of three in the afternoon, which would divide the working hours of the day into two portions. This would probably have been the rule in all cathedral monastic churches, where, as being public places of worship, regularity of hours would have been aimed at. At the first signal for the Vesper hour the books were all replaced in the aumbry in the cloister, and the community then waited until the commencement of the tolling of the great bell, when they betook themselves to their places in choir. The Vespers were sung with varying pomp and ceremony, according to the rank of the feast celebrated, and the monks were vested for the service in cowls, albs, or copes, according to the solemnity of the occasion.
13. THE SUPPER
Immediately after the Vespers, at the beginning of the “Suffrages of the Saints,” or later if Vespers of the “Office of the Dead” were to be said, the cellarer and refectorian left the choir to see that all was prepared for the evening meal, should there be one. At Durham the hour of supper was always five o’clock, after which the doors of the cloister and public rooms were locked and the keys given to the sub-prior until seven o’clock the following morning. In English monasteries the general rule as to supper apparently was that during the summer half of the year—that is from Easter to the 14th September—the second meal was served on all days, except on vigils and fast days. From the feast of All Saints to Advent, supper was only granted on the great feast days, when the community were vested in copes in the choir. During Advent, and in fact till Easter, except during the short time between Christmas and the Epiphany, there was but one meal a day in most religious houses. The infirm and those who through weakness needed more food had to receive special dispensation from the superior.
On supper days the prior, or whoever was presiding in the choir, left the church at the same time as the cellarer and refectorian, and began to ring the bell or gong for the meal. The community then came out of the church and, as at dinner, went to wash their hands at the lavatory, and thence to their places in the refectory. In many monasteries it was the custom for the seniors to serve and read during this meal, which was short, consisting of one good and full dish (generale), and one pittance or light additional plate, consisting of cheese, fruit, nuts, or the like. The prior was served, as at dinner, by two juniors, who took their places at the ends of his table and had their meal there. There was a special “pittance” for this table, and from it the prior, or whoever was acting for him, was supposed to reserve something for the senior who was reading. One dish with the “pittance,” and sufficient to serve those who sat thereat, was placed at the head of each table and passed down.
The conclusion of the supper was like that of the dinner. The religious went to finish their Grace in the church, and thence passed up to the dormitory to change their day habits, girdles, and boots for those better adapted for the night. When this was done they went again into the cloister to wait there till the signal should be given for the evening Collation or reading. At Durham there was no interval between the supper and the Collation; but “Grace being said,” we are told, “the monks all departed to the chapter-house to meet the prior, every night, there to remain in prayer and devotion till six of the clock, at which time upon the ringing of a bell they went to the Salve.”
14. THE COLLATION AND COMPLINE
About half-past six in winter, and half-past seven in summer, a small bell was rung in the cloister to call all together for the evening reading, called the Collation, which took place in the chapter-room. Whilst the bell was ringing any of the community who desired, on days when there was no supper, could go to the refectory and obtain some kind of drink, called the potum caritatis, with which possibly was also given a small portion of bread, to sustain them till their dinner the following day. When they had finished this very modest refection, the brethren at once betook themselves to their places in the chapter-hall, where the reader was already waiting in the pulpit with the book open at the place where he left off the night before.
Meanwhile the abbot, or prior in the absence of the abbot, waited for a time in the private parlour ready to hear any petitions for exemption from rule, and grant any leave that might be necessary. When this business had been transacted he came to the Collation, at which all were bound to be present. The reading apparently only occupied a short time, and in the brief interval between this and the Hour of Compline the community could in the summer pass into the cloister, or in winter time could go to warm themselves at the fire in the common recreation-room.
15. COMPLINE AND BED
At seven o’clock in the winter, and eight in the summer, the tolling of the bell called the community to Compline—the last conventual act of the monastic day. This Hour was not necessarily said in the choir of the church. At St. Mary’s, York, for example, the brethren recited their Compline standing in the Galilee, the juniors nearest to the door. The Office began with the Confiteor, as the Collation had already taken the place of the Capitulum, with which otherwise the Hour of Compline commenced. When the anthem to the Virgin Mother of God, with which Compline always concluded, was being said or sung, all turned to the Crucifix or Majestas.
Immediately the triple-prayer of the Pater, Ave, and Creed, said at the end, was finished, the superior gave a signal, and the community rose and passed to the door of the church. Here either the superior or the junior priest who had said the prayers at Compline was ready to sprinkle each with holy water as he passed in solemn silence to the dormitory. Before half-past seven, then, in winter, and an hour later than this in summer, all would have been in bed, and the busy round of duties, which so completely filled the working day of every mediæval monastery, would have come to an end.
CHAPTER VIII
THE NUNS OF MEDIÆVAL ENGLAND
No account of English monastic life would be complete without some special reference to the nuns and nunneries. It is, it may be first observed in passing, altogether wrong to apply the word “convent” exclusively to houses of nuns, as is so frequently done in these days. The title “convent” as well as that of “monastery” and “abbey” was applicable to any house of either monks or nuns, and the exclusive use of the word for a religious house of women is, indeed, of quite modern origin.
It is unfortunate that our information in regard to the inner life of the nuns in pre-Reformation England is so scanty. Beyond the delightful picture we get of the social life of the nuns of Kington in Old Jacques’ recollections, as recorded by John Aubrey, and the charming portrait of the prioress who
“Was so charitable and so pitous ...
and al was conscience and tendre herte,”
in Chaucer’s tales, there is but little information to be obtained about the nuns of England; of the simple, hard, yet happy lives they led in their cloistered homes, and of the ample charity they dispensed to all in their immediate neighbourhood.
ELIZABETH HARVEY
ABBESS OF ELSTOW
Of course, so far as the usual forms, manners, and customs of cloister life are concerned, what has been already said of the monastic method of life generally, applies to nuns, with certain necessary reservations, as well as to monks and canons. It will be useful, however, to furnish the reader with some account of certain special features of female religious life. One of the most charming mediæval pictures of that life is given in an account of the abbesses of the Benedictine nunnery of Wherwell, in Hampshire. It records the unblemished life and good deeds of the abbess Euphemia, who ruled the house from A.D. 1226 to 1257, and is translated from the chartulary of the abbey by the Rev. Dr. Cox in the second volume of the Victoria History of the County of Hampshire. The account is too delightful not to be given in full.
“On the 6th of the Kalends of May, in the year of grace 1257, died the blessed mother abbess, Euphemia, most worthy to be remembered, who, by our affection and good fellowship, and with divine sanction, succeeded the late abbess Maud of sweet memory. It is, therefore, most fitting that we should always perpetuate the memory, in our special prayers and suffrages, of one who ever worked for the glory of God, and for the weal of both our souls and bodies. For she increased the number of the Lord’s handmaids in this monastery from forty to eighty, to the exaltation of the worship of God. To her sisters, both in health and sickness, she administered the necessaries of life with piety, prudence, care, and honesty. She also increased the sum allowed for garments by 12d. each. The example of her holy conversation and charity, in conjunction with her pious exhortations and regular discipline, caused each one to know how, in the words of the Apostle, to possess her vessel in sanctification and honour. She also, with maternal piety and careful forethought, built, for the use of both sick and sound, a new and large infirmary away from the main buildings, and in conjunction with it a dormitory with the necessary offices. Beneath the infirmary she constructed a watercourse, through which a stream flowed with sufficient force to carry off all refuse that might corrupt the air.
“Moreover she built there a place set apart for the refreshment of the soul, namely a chapel of the Blessed Virgin, which was erected outside the cloister behind the infirmary. With the chapel she enclosed a large space, which was adorned on the north side with pleasant vines and trees. On the other side, by the river-bank, she built offices for various uses, a space being left in the centre where the nuns are able from time to time to enjoy the pure air. In these and in other numberless ways, the blessed mother Euphemia provided for the worship of God and the welfare of the sisters. But notwithstanding all this, she also so conducted herself with regard to exterior affairs, that she seemed to have the spirit of a man rather than of a woman. The court of the abbey-manor, owing to the useless mass of squalid outbuildings, and the propinquity of the kitchen to the granary and old hall, was in much danger of fire; whilst the confined area and the amount of animal refuse was a cause of offence to both the feet and nostrils of those who had occasion to pass through. The mother Euphemia, realising that the Lord had called her to the rule of the abbey at Wherwell, not that she might live there at ease, but that she might, with due care and despatch, uproot and destroy and dissipate all that was noxious, and establish and erect that which would be useful, demolished the whole of these buildings, levelled the court, and erected a new hall of suitable size and height. She also built a new mill, some distance from the hall, and constructed it with great care in order that more work than formerly might be done therein for the service of the house. She surrounded the court with a wall and the necessary buildings, and round it she made gardens and vineyards and shrubberies in places that were formerly useless and barren, and which now became both serviceable and pleasant. The manor-house of Middleton, which occupied a dry situation and was close to a public thoroughfare, and was further disfigured by old and crumbling buildings, she moved to another site, where she erected permanent buildings, new and strong, on the bank of the river, together with farmhouses. She also set to work in the same way at Tufton, in order that the buildings of both the manor-houses in that neighbourhood might be of greater service, and safer against the danger of fire. These and other innumerable works, our good superior Euphemia performed for the advantage of the house, but she was none the less zealous in works of charity, gladly and freely exercising hospitality, so that she and her daughters might find favour with One Whom Lot and Abraham and others have pleased by the grace of hospitality. Moreover, because she greatly loved to honour duly the House of God and the place where His glory dwells, she adorned the church with crosses, reliquaries, precious stones, vestments, and books. And because the bell-tower above the dormitory fell down through decay one night, about the hour of Matins, when by an obvious miracle from heaven, though the nuns were at that moment in the dormitory, some in bed and some in prayer before their beds, all escaped not only death but even any bodily injury, she caused another bell-tower of worked stone to be erected, conformable to the fair appearance of the church and the rest of the buildings, of commanding height, and of exquisite workmanship. But as she advanced in years, towards the end of her life, there was imminent danger of the complete collapse of the presbytery of the church; by the advice of skilled builders, she caused the presbytery to be taken down to the last stones of the foundations; and because the ground was found to be undermined and unsafe, she caused the damp soil to be dug out to a depth of twelve feet till firm and dry ground was found; when, having invoked the grace of the Holy Spirit, with prayers and tears she laid with her own hands the first stone of the foundations. Moreover she rejoiced to have found favour with God, so that before her last days were ended she saw this work that she had begun brought to its desired end. Thus she, who had devoted herself when amongst us to the service of His house and the habitation of His glory, found the due reward for her merits with our Lord Jesus Christ, through the prayers and merits of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of the blessed apostles SS. Peter and Paul, in whose honour, at the instigation of the abbess Euphemia, this church was dedicated, who with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ever liveth and reigneth God through all the ages of eternity. Amen.”
Of the life, social and religious, led by the nuns of England, something may be learnt from the few scattered account-books that have survived the general destruction of documents in the sixteenth century. The following sketch is founded upon one such paper-book of accounts now in the public Record Office. It was printed privately some few years ago, and is here reproduced as affording, in the judgment of some, a not uninteresting glimpse into the cloister life and work led in the nunneries in the early days of the fifteenth century. The accounts were kept in a small book by a nun called Dame Petronilla.
BENEDICTINE NUNS IN CHOIR
Her family name (or was it that of her birthplace?) was Dunwich, and in keeping her accounts she had as assistant and auditor another nun, Dame Katherine Midelton. Their convent was Grace Dieu in Leicestershire—the only religious house of Augustinian nuns in England. The scanty but picturesque ruins of their old convent may still be seen not far from the present Cistercian Abbey of Mount St. Bernard, and quite near to Grace Dieu Manor-house, the home of Ambrose Phillipps de Lisle. The convent was founded in Charnwood Forest by Lady Rohesia de Verdon in the middle of the thirteenth century, and it is said that the boundary of the garden, made by the sisters to resemble that of Gethsemane, may yet be traced with a little trouble. Wordsworth wrote several of his poems in the immediate neighbourhood, and thus describes the situation of the old nunnery as seen, or rather not seen, from Cole Orton some few miles away:—
“Beneath yon eastern ridge, the craggy bound
Rugged and high of Charnwood’s forest ground
Stand yet, but, stranger, hidden from thy view,
The ivied ruins of forlorn Grace Dieu.”
Our guide-books, of course, ascribe the destruction of the convent in 1539 to the fact of serious complaints having been made of certain irregularities on the part of the inmates. Most people nowadays know how to estimate these “complaints” at their right value, proceeding as they did from the Visitors of Henry VIII., who having been sent for the purpose of finding evidence of irregularities to justify the intended spoliation, of course found them. In the special case of this convent of Grace Dieu we have subsequently the direct testimony of the country gentlemen of Leicestershire, that the fifteen nuns following the rule of St. Austin then inmates of the establishment, and whose good name had been so vilely traduced by the king’s emissaries, were all “of good and virtuous conversation and living,” and that their presence in the wilds of Charnwood Forest was a blessing to the neighbourhood.
We are, however, concerned with the convent of Grace Dieu in much earlier days: very nearly a century and a half before its final destruction in 1539. Dame Petronilla and Dame Katherine kept their accounts of the establishment in this old paper-book “from the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first year of King Henry V.,” for four years: that is, from 1414 to 1418. The volume in question, though simple enough in its style of book-keeping, presents in reality the general accounts of the house. Probably Dame Petronilla would have opened her eyes very wide indeed at the present system of elaborate checks and counter-checks devised to exercise the brains and possibly the patience of modern cellarers, and “double entry” and such-like mysteries would probably have seemed to her a useless expenditure of time and nerve-power, and hardly consistent with the religious simplicity which ascetic writers had taught her to cultivate. Her system is simplicity itself: so much received for such a thing, ordinary or extraordinary: so much spent, and on what; that is all.
In one point, however, this careful nun does not hesitate to take a considerable amount of trouble. What would a cellarer say to-day, were he or she asked to give the ages of all the live stock under their care! Dame Petronilla would have been quite able to do so at any moment, for from time to time she enters, not indeed the birthdays of the cattle and pigs, but their ages. In 1415, for example, which by the way was the ever-memorable year of Agincourt, this is her “tally” of all the pigs in the keeping of the herd, Nicholas Swon (or should it be Swine?)
“5 boars, i.e.—two aged three years, two aged two, and one aged one; ten sows, i.e.—nine at three years, and one aged one; forty-one small pigs of a year, and thirty of six months old; ten full grown pigs, and ten porcelli lactantes sub matribus or sucking pigs.”
Pork, it is clear, must have been one of the chief articles of food for the nuns and their retainers, since there are frequent notices of pigs transferred from the farm to the larder; on two occasions during the four years, Dame Petronilla chronicles the death of a good many of the convent pigs from disease. Their stock of cattle appears somewhat large at first sight, till it is realised that with one thing and another there were a good many mouths to feed in this establishment. Thus in one year we find a list of 32 cows, “three of which had not calved; three bulls, 16 steers, 22 heifers and eight bull calves.” Besides this there were 27 yoke-oxen under the care of their driver, and 29 calves, one of which on the account-day is noted as having, since the making of the list, gone to the cook to furnish forth the conventual dinner. At this same time Henry Smyth, the outdoor bailiff, gives in the account of Henry, the shepherd, which shows that he had 103 ewes and 52 lambs under his pastoral charge.
The revenue of the convent consisted chiefly of the rent of lands and buildings and the sale of produce, timber and such-like. Thus we have the rent of a farm at Belton put down as £21 17s. 9d., this being the largest item in the receipts, and indeed a very large item in those days from any farm rent. From another parcel of land, besides the rent, one year Dame Petronilla and her assistant, Dame Katherine Midelton, account for the price of sixteen quarters of lime at 9¾d. the quarter. Roger Dan, the miller, pays a rent of £5 13s. 4d. for the mill at Belton, and at the same time there is another receipt for “half a hundred merkefish and twelve stone of cheese.” Besides these and other similar sums which are entered under the heading of “ordinary,” we find, such “extraordinary” receipts as £3 for twenty-four ash trees, and a few shillings for the skins of lambs that had been used in the kitchen. Another year we see that 100 kids were sold at 2s. each, and that there was a sale of hurdles and faggots about Shrovetide. Thirty stone of wool was purchased at one time by one Thomas Hunte, a neighbour, who, by the way, had his two daughters evidently at school in the convent; once there was a sale of fish from the mill down at Belton, and it brought into the nuns’ exchequer over £6.
The mention of Thomas Hunte’s daughters may be supplemented by evidence in these accounts of other children being under the care of the “White Ladies” of Grace Dieu. Thomas Hunte appears to have paid at the rate of 17s. 4d. for each of his two children, but as it is expressly stated that it was for their food only, probably their education was thrown in without consideration. Lady Beaumont also had a daughter in the convent, for whom she and her lord undertook to pay £2 13s. 4d. a year; but when Dame Petronilla last made up her accounts, or rather in the last account we have from her pen, the good nuns had only got £2. Lord Beaumont, however, was evidently too great a personage to be reminded of the missing 13s. 4d., and the convent authorities evidently desired to stand well in his favour. They fed him well, for instance, when he came to see his child; for on one occasion Dame Petronilla gives some of the expenses of his entertainment. These included, besides 1½d. for “1 shoulder le molton,” and 8d. for two lambs, an almost unique payment for two fowls for the nobleman’s table. This slight glimpse of the relations between the convent and the neighbouring gentry, in regard to the education of their children, affords a corroboration of one of the laments made at the general dissolution, that their destruction was a terrible thing for those who had hitherto made use of them for this purpose. According to Robert Aske, the leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace, one of the reasons why the Yorkshire people strongly resented their overthrow, was because “in nunneries their daughters were brought up in virtue.”
Another practice revealed by these old accounts was that of people coming to stop at the convent for the celebration of some of the greater feasts. Thus for one “All Saints’ Day,” Mary de Ecton, Joan Villiers, and the two daughters of Robert Neville were lodged and entertained by the nuns. These visitors eventually made an offering for the hospitality shown them; as, for instance, on this very occasion each of the Neville ladies paid 5s. and Joan Villiers 6s. 8d. The last-named lady was at Grace Dieu no less than four several times in the year 1418, and each time left behind a similar offering. At another time Giles Jurdon paid 7s. for the board of his daughter during the week of Pentecost, when she probably came to visit her sister, who, known as Dame Elizabeth, was a nun in the convent. Roger Roby also, who was apparently the father of Dame Alice, was entertained by the nuns twice in the year 1416, and gave an alms of 6s. 8d. at one visit and 13s. 4d. at the other.
It may be of interest to give a list of the nuns at this time living in Grace Dieu. They were fourteen in number, exclusive of the prioress, and their names were:—
Dame Margaret Kempston, prioress.
Dame Alice Mortimer, sub-prioress.
Dame Margaret Twyford.
Dame Philippa Jake.
Dame Alice Dunwich.
Dame Katherine Midelton.
Dame Anne de Norton.
Dame Alice Roby.
Dame Margery Witham.
Dame Katherine Pounce.
Dame Alice Prestwold.
Dame Elizabeth Jurdon (originally put 3rd).
Dame Petronilla Dunwich (originally put 5th).
Dame Elizabeth Hakulthorp.
Dame Alice Powtrell or Pouncstrell.
The spiritual needs of this community were, of course, ministered to by a chaplain. He is generally called “Sir William,” but on one occasion he appears as “Sir William Granger, or Norwich.” He was paid 38s. 4d. a year as his stipend, and this was to include 6d. as the price of a pair of gloves. On certain occasions, as on the greater feasts, Sir William had other clerical help, such as that of “Henry the Chaplain,” and the “Parson of Hatherun.” It is not uninteresting to notice that the nuns’ little present for the services of these reverend gentlemen was, it would seem, delicately handed to them in purses purchased for the purpose. They had also the ministration of an “extraordinary” confessor, a certain Friar William Young, and to him was given 1s. 8d. for the expenses of his journey each time he came to the convent. Something additional was, of course, bestowed on him when, as in 1418, he remained to help in the Holy-Week services. At times, not very frequently, “my Lady,” the prioress, entertained the clergy at a little simple banquet; she did not merely provide for them, for that, of course, the convent always did with true hospitality; but she dined with them. Dame Petronilla does not say, when they “dined with my Lady,” but when “my Lady dined with them,” as, for example, when she notes on the Sunday within the octave of our Lady’s Assumption in the year 1416: “a sucking-pig for the table of my Lady, because to-day she dined with the Vicar.”
It may be mentioned that Dame Petronilla and her assistant Dame Katherine made up their accounts from Sunday to Sunday, as far as expenses are concerned, so that in running through the pages it is possible to form some idea of how these good mediæval nuns lived. I do not think that the most captious critic could charge them with feasting on the “fat of the land,” or with much indulgence in the luxuries even of those primitive days. There is one peculiarity, however, in these otherwise excellent accounts, which rather interferes with a full knowledge of the commissariat at Grace Dieu. The sisters did not think it necessary to enter among the payments the value of the farm and garden produce they consumed, beyond the cost of sowing and gathering into their barns. However, we know that they must have eaten bread and made use of the exceedingly few vegetables and pot-herbs that were then grown in the gardens of England, so we may take these as additional to the “food stuffs” shown in the accounts as paid for. A few examples will be sufficient to give the reader an insight into the general catering at Grace Dieu early in the fifteenth century. These are the first entries among the expenses written by Dame Petronilla when she commenced her duties as “Treasurer,” as she calls herself in one place, after the Feast of the Purification, 1414.