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.