Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/61

Rh the gate-houses. The treasury was grated with iron and had a well-locked and bolted iron door. The chief furniture within was a table of green cloth for telling the money on, whether tenants' rents or pilgrims' gifts. In this treasury was kept the chapel-seal, the deeds and law-papers of the monastery, and also the deeds of gentlemen near the town who thought them safer there than in their own houses. The cloister porter prevented strangers interrupting the novices in their school, and the singing-classes in theirs. Prayers were read daily at six in the cloister school, except on Sundays and holidays.

The dormitory frequently opened on one side of the cloister. Here the tired monks came to dream of saints and martyrs, and sometimes no doubt of ghastly temptations that excelled even St. Anthony's wildest nightmares. Among the Benedictines at least every monk in the convent dormitory had a little chamber to himself, with a window towards the chapter-house. Each room contained a desk and supply of books.

The dormitory at Worcester was 120 feet long and 60 feet wide, a vaulted stone roof being supported by five large pillars. It was at first an open hall, presenting to the eye of the sub-prior, who was keeper of the dormitory, the whole range of beds at one view. In later ages the monks had their cells divided, in strict convents monks slept in all their day-clothes, not even removing their girdles. The spital or lodging for poor travellers and pilgrims was sometimes over one of the gates of the cloister.

The novices' dormitory also faced the cloister, and every novice had a chamber to himself. At each end of the long dormitory there were often a dozen cressets or fire-baskets burning, to light the monks when they arose more or less reluctantly. Every night, at a certain hour, the sub-prior's footsteps were heard on the stairs, it being the custom for him to see that every cell contained its monk, that peace and good-will prevailed, and that there was no dicing, carding, or brawling going on.

The sub-prior generally sat at dinner and supper with the brethren, and when supper was over, and the bell rang for grace, which was always repeated modestly by one of the novices, the sub-prior then rose and left the head of the table, and went to the chapter-house to meet the prior, and spend the time with him in prayer and devotion till six o'clock. At that hour a bell, no doubt much detested by the novices, rang, and all the doors of cells, frater-house, dormitory and cloister were at once locked, and the keys delivered to the sub-prior, not to be surrendered by him to the punctual janitor till seven o'clock the next morning.

The monks' dining-hall, sometimes called the loft, was above the convent cellar. The meal was served from the great kitchen in through the dresser-window. A novice mounted a pulpit and read from the Gospels while the brethren dined. Immediately after dinner the novices in some convents rose and went to the garden or the bowling-alley, where their master attended to preserve order and decorum. Then the older monks ascended add paced through the cloisters under the prior's lodgings to the quiet cemetery garth, where the dead lay, and there stood bareheaded for a space, praying softly among the grassy and mossy tombs for the souls of their past brethren. It was a pious custom, though no doubt among unworthy brothers and in lukewarm times, it sometimes became a mere burdensome formula.

Good monks must always have been numerous we know; still what a picture Chaucer gives us of the monks of Edward III.'s reign! What sensual, guzzling cattle he makes the monks and friars, and their greedy retainers the summoners. Stewards for the poor! Stomachs only for fat capon and stubble goose. How they canter about and philander and hawk, and bellow forth ribald jests; no more serving God than the lowest attorney does who grinds down the widow and orphan to make his bread. No devotion among them; no abnegation of self, only the pride of Belial and gross sensual indulgence. Servants of Christ, indeed! rather slaves of Asmodeus and Mammon.

Look at the monk in the Canterbury pilgrimage, who loved drinking, and had many a dainty horse in his stable; and when he rode, the jingling bells on his bridle sounded as clear and loud in the whistling wind as the bell of the monk's own chapel. This was the precious monk who let old things go, and who held fast and close to the mere world, the flesh, and the devil. The saying that "hunters are not holy men" he cared no more for than for a pullet hen. He was an arrant prick-spur, and had greyhounds swift of foot after the hare, and for them he spared no money. He was no sackcloth-wearing grimy monk. He was a dandy. His sleeves were trimmed at the hand with the finest fur in the land, and a curious pin of 