Page:Sussex Archaeological Collections, volume 6.djvu/181

 ; after this we sane the mid-day service, and ate, drank, and slept; again we arosfand sang tie nones (nonam) ; - and now we are here before thee ready to hear whatever thou hast to say. Muff. When will you sing vespers ^^ and compline ? ^^ Nov. When the proper hours arrive. Magf. What is thy daily food ? JVov. Vegetables, eggs, fish, cheese, butter, and beans, and all clean things^ I eat with thanksgiving. Ma^. And what dost thou drink ? JVov. Beer, if I can get it ; if not, water. Maff. Dost thou drink wine ? JVov. I am not rich enough to buy wine ; besides wine is not the beverage of boys and simpletons, but of the aged and the wise. Moff, Where sleepest thou ? Nov, In the dormitory with the brethren. Nov. Who waketh thee for noctums P Maff. Sometimes I hear the signal and get up ; sometimes my master^ rouseth me sharply with the rod. Maff. Oh good boys, and weU-behaved scholars, your teacher exhorts you to obey Divine discipline and conduct yourselves gracefully (eleganter) wherever you may be. Go with a desire to please (morigerate), when you hear the church bells, and enter into the oratory, and bend in suppliant guise before the sacred altars, and stand in comely order, and sing together with one accord, and seek pardon for your faults, — ^then go forth without rudeness to the cloister or the school."

Such was monastic life, or such it professed to be, before it sank into disrepute and ruin.

This priory was planted on a rich alluvial soil, high enough in situation to be removed beyond the reach of floods, but so as to have an appearance of lowly sequestered comfort. At its origin it stood at the edge of that extensive common known then, as now, by its ancient title of the Dicker, comprehending many himdred acres of waste to the west of the convent and finally enclosed within the memory of many persons now living. ®* On the other side was the primaeval forest, bounded to the south-west and south by the downs and the morasses of Pevensey, and stretching away north and north-west, far into the interior, the remains of the grand " Coit Andred," or " Silva Anderida." Called in this eastern part the forest of

The " Magister Noviciorum." See

«» Three p.m. p. 149, n. 44.

M Six p.m. ^ It was completed, I am informed, so

^ Nine p.m. Making, with the midday lately as 1815. service, the seven " synaies."