One bright day at the close of July the Abbot called him to ride with him, for the order was not strictly a cloistered one, nor could it indeed be; they had their landed estates, their tenantry, their farms to look after. The offices were numerous, of necessity, and it was the policy of the order to give each monk, if possible, some special duty or office. Almost all they ate or drank was produced at home. The corn grew on their own land; they had their own mill; the brethren brewed, baked, or superintended lay brothers who did so. Other brethren were tailors, shoemakers for the community; others gardeners; others, as we have seen, scribes and illuminators; others kept the accounts—no small task.[23] In short, none led the idle life commonly assigned in popular estimation.
They rode forth then, the Abbot Alured and Alphege, the new brother. First into the town without the gates, far larger then than now, it was partly surrounded by walls, partly protected by the Rivers Isis and Tame; but within the space was a crowd of inhabitants dwelling in houses, or rather huts; dwelling even in tents, like modern gypsies, crowding the space within the walls, with good reason, for no man's life was safe in the country, and here was sanctuary! Even Brian Fitz-Count would respect Dorchester Abbey: even if some marauding baron assailed the town, there was still the abbey church, or even the precincts for temporary shelter.
But food was scarce, and here lay the difficulty. The abbey revenues were insufficient, for many of the farms had been burnt in the nightly raids, and rents were ill-paid. Everything was scarce: many a hapless mother, many a new-born babe, died from sheer want of the things necessary to save; the strong lived through it, the weak sank under it: there may have been those who found comfort, and said it was "the survival of the fittest."
Day by day was the dole given forth at the abbey gates; day by day the hospitium was very crowded. The hospitaller was at his wits' end. And the old infirmarer happening to die just then, folk said, "It was the worry."
"Who is sufficient for these things?" said Abbot Alured to his companion, as they rode through the throng and emerged upon the road leading to the hamlet of Brudecott (Burcot) and Cliffton (Clifton Hampden).
Their dress was a white cassock under a black cloak, with a hood covering the head and neck and reaching to the shoulders, having under it breeches, vest, white stockings and shoes; a black cornered cap, not unlike the college cap of modern days, completed the attire.
"Tell me, brother," said the Abbot, "what is thy especial vocation? what office wouldst thou most desire to hold amongst us?"
"I am little capable of discharging any weighty burden: thou knowest I have been a man of war."
"And he who once gave wounds should now learn to heal them. Our brother the infirmarer has lately departed this life, full of good works—would not that be the office for thee?"