15. COMPLINE AND BED
At seven o’clock in the winter, and eight in the summer, the tolling of the bell called the community to Compline—the last conventual act of the monastic day. This Hour was not necessarily said in the choir of the church. At St. Mary’s, York, for example, the brethren recited their Compline standing in the Galilee, the juniors nearest to the door. The Office began with the Confiteor, as the Collation had already taken the place of the Capitulum, with which otherwise the Hour of Compline commenced. When the anthem to the Virgin Mother of God, with which Compline always concluded, was being said or sung, all turned to the Crucifix or Majestas.
Immediately the triple-prayer of the Pater, Ave, and Creed, said at the end, was finished, the superior gave a signal, and the community rose and passed to the door of the church. Here either the superior or the junior priest who had said the prayers at Compline was ready to sprinkle each with holy water as he passed in solemn silence to the dormitory. Before half-past seven, then, in winter, and an hour later than this in summer, all would have been in bed, and the busy round of duties, which so completely filled the working day of every mediæval monastery, would have come to an end.
CHAPTER VIII
THE NUNS OF MEDIÆVAL ENGLAND
No account of English monastic life would be complete without some special reference to the nuns and nunneries. It is, it may be first observed in passing, altogether wrong to apply the word “convent” exclusively to houses of nuns, as is so frequently done in these days. The title “convent” as well as that of “monastery” and “abbey” was applicable to any house of either monks or nuns, and the exclusive use of the word for a religious house of women is, indeed, of quite modern origin.
It is unfortunate that our information in regard to the inner life of the nuns in pre-Reformation England is so scanty. Beyond the delightful picture we get of the social life of the nuns of Kington in Old Jacques’ recollections, as recorded by John Aubrey, and the charming portrait of the prioress who
“Was so charitable and so pitous ...
and al was conscience and tendre herte,”