12. DOOR-KEEPERS
In most great monastic houses there were naturally several porters or door-keepers. The kitchen-porter was in some ways the most important, as so much of the traffic from the outer world to the cloister came this way. He was set there for the purpose of preventing any unauthorised person gaining access to the kitchen so as to disturb the cook; and at all times he had to check the coming in of seculars, or of begging clerks, or of the neighbours, unless they could show leave or business. He had to receive and distribute all the daily alms of food to those waiting at the gate. The porter of the great cloister gate had to watch over the main entrance of the house, to open the door to visitors, and at once to acquaint the guest-master of their arrival.