Some few of the Kitchener’s notebooks have survived, shewing in the utmost detail all the items of his expenditure on the food of the brethren. Wednesday, Friday and Saturday were ordinarily kept as days of abstinence from meat. It seems probable from the form of certain entries that meat was served in the Refectory only on Sundays. In the Misericorde where the brethren who had been bled took their meals, as well as those monks who for any reason had been ordered a more generous diet, meat was served on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, both at dinner and supper—unless of course some fast-day fell on one of these, while eggs might be served for supper there on Wednesdays.
The ordinary dinner in the Refectory consisted of two fish courses with the Convent loaf in addition. On Sundays it was not uncommon to provide nine pieces of beef, two sheep and two fat pigs, with “smalle poddynges.� Forgotten terms are recalled in scroffe or Shrove Sunday and Shrove Monday as well as Shrove Tuesday. On the two latter days a breakfast was provided, in addition to the ordinary fare, of red herrings and red sprats. Throughout Lent neither meat nor eggs was provided either in the Refectory or Misericorde, but leeks, onions, and peas for pottage occur frequently, with now and then a pittance of salt eels. The Sunday dinner was varied by the provision of figs and almonds. One red herring each was served on Good Friday with some almonds and rice, but white herrings were bought for guests. On Schere or Maundy Thursday it was the custom for the Abbot to supplement the Convent meal. Easter Day of course saw a considerable relaxation. Eggs for breakfast and supper, veal and beef at dinner with currant puddings to follow, not to mention two gallons of wine, marked the joyous character of the festival. The Kitchener’s expenses varied between three and six pounds a week.
One other important officer remains to be noted, the Warden of the Lady Chapel. He had his own property and consequently was obliged to submit his accounts for yearly audit, but it is sufficient to say of him that he did for the Lady Chapel in all respects what the Sacrist did for the rest of the church.
A number of minor officials receive occasional mention. We read of the Wardens of other Chapels in the monastery, of the Keeper of St. Edward’s Shrine, the Keeper of the relics and so on, but curiously enough only here and there is there any actual record of a Guestmaster and that only in the reign of Henry III. It seems probable that every professed monk in the monastery was provided with some specific task or charge.
It would be easier to write a volume than a single chapter on monastic life at Westminster. What has been here set down is no more than what the surviving rolls and documents of the later times actually tell as to the surroundings and life of the last sixty years of the monastery’s history.
CHAPTER II.
THE EARLY YEARS OF BROTHER JOHN ISLIP.
In the closing years of the fifteenth century, almost certainly in the year 1492, John Islip began to keep a diary. Like many another such volume it is remarkable for the prolixity of its earlier pages, the scantier entries which succeed them, and the final omission of all but necessary business notes which had to be recorded somewhere. It is from this diary that the facts of his first years are derived. He was twenty-eight years old and it seemed a fitting occasion to put down something of the story of his life, for already he had become of some importance in the monastery by his appointment to offices of considerable responsibility and trust. So he records what seemed to him the leading events of his earlier days and some few happenings in the life of the outside world that had struck him as of interest or importance.
He was born at Islip in Oxfordshire on June 10th in the year 1464. Islip itself had been the birthplace of Edward the Confessor whose father is said to have built a palace there. Its manor was an early endowment given by Edward to his newly-founded monastery of Westminster and, if old Thomas Hearne is to be believed, “the said mannour was formerly the best wooded of any mannour that belonged to Westminster.�
As far back as the reign of Henry III. (1216-1272) there had been at Islip a small chantry chapel in memory of the Confessor which the same writer tells us stood “a little way Northward from the church but fifteen yards in length and a little above seven in breadth.� It may be assumed that its character changed with the dissolution of the chantries in 1547, for it was afterwards turned into a barn and is shewn as such in an engraving in the Gentleman’s Magazine for December, 1788, but is recorded there as having disappeared at least twenty years before.
From the time of its first building the Abbot and Convent of Westminster had appointed the chantry priest who ministered at its altar. The little town had already been the birthplace of at least one great churchman in the person of Simon, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1349, and had given one monk to Westminster in the same century. The more conscientious of the chantry priests were wont to spend in the education of children the considerable leisure that their duties allowed them, and it is no great flight of fancy which imagines the first training of and the awakening of the first sense of vocation in John Islip as due to the teaching of such an one.