Sext. The sixth hour, originally and properly said at midday.
None, noon. The ninth hour from sunrise, or the middle hour between midday and sunset--that is, about 3 o'clock.
Vespers, the next to the last of the canonical hours--the even-song.
Compline. The last of the seven canonical hours, originally said after the evening meal and before retiring to sleep, but in later medieval and modern usage following immediately on vespers.
B.V.M.--Blessed Virgin Mary.
NOTE E
The literary and educational services of the monks are described in many histories, but the reader will find the best treatment of this subject in the scholarly yet popular work of George Haven Putnam, "Books and Their Makers During the Middle Ages," to which we are largely indebted for the facts given in this volume.
NOTE F
In many interesting particulars St. Francis may be compared with General Booth of the Salvation Army. In their intense religious fervor, in their insistence upon obedience, humility, and self-denial, in their services for the welfare of the poor, in their love of the "submerged tenth," they are alike. True, there are no monkish vows in the Salvation Army and its doctrines bear a general resemblance to those of other Protestant communions, but like the old Franciscan order, it is dominated by a powerful missionary spirit, and its members are actuated by an unsurpassed devotion to the common people. In the autocratic, military features of the Army, it more nearly approaches the ideal of Loyola. It is quite possible that the differences between Francis and Booth are due more to the altered historical environment than to any radical diversities in the characters of the two men.