Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely

by John William Edward Conybeare

Each monk had to enter the convent provided with a pair of blankets, garments of all kinds, bedding, towels, a bag for clothes for the wash, a furred tunic, day and night boots, a silver spoon, and many other articles. The novices had tablets hung round their necks on which to write in pencil each breach of the rule as it was committed lest it should be forgotten in the public confession of such formal transgressions which every brother had to make at the daily Chapter. These youths had also each to carry, in a pouch provided for the purpose, a knife, a comb, a needle, and some thread.

A complete set of Cellerarius Rolls is preserved at Ely, and these give a full account of the food in use in the monastery, with details as to its cost; and it appears to have been both wholesome and plentiful. Beef, mutton, venison, bacon, fowls, fish, butter, vegetables, rice, and sugar were provided, and bread of five different qualities. No less than 2,450 eggs were required for a single week's consumption. There was an ample allowance of milk; but the principal drink was beer, made in the brewhouse bequeathed to the convent by Bishop Hugh de Balsham, and supplied, like the bread, in five different qualities, the most inferior being known as "Skegman." All the food was in charge of the Cellerarius and Granatarius, themselves brethren of the monastery. The latter functionary was responsible for the bread and the beer, as being both made from grain. Wine was only produced at special festivals, and was almost wholly imported from Bordeaux, Oporto, or Xeres in Andalusia; a trade still recorded in our current words "port" and "sherry." For though vineyards were common in mediæval England (and notably at Ely, as the epitaph to Alan of Walsingham reminds us), yet they very seldom produced drinkable wine, and practically existed only to supply vinegar, a condiment much in use for rendering dry fish less unpalatable.

The Benedictine Rule was strict in itself. The day began at 2 a.m., when every monk had to leave his bed for Mattins and Lauds, a Service occupying two hours. Then came an hour during which he might return to his bed,[220] to be waked again at 5 a.m., for Prime and Terce.[221] Then followed the daily Chapter Meeting, when the work of the coming day was apportioned, and the faults of the past day rebuked. This ended, all had to attend Low Mass, and at eight o'clock High Mass, which was over by ten. Then, and not till then, the monks partook of the first meal of the day. For this they repaired to the refectory, and on entering they paused and saluted with a profound bow the crucifix, hanging over the High Table, and known to them as the "Majestas." (This title was due to the phrase in the familiar hymn, Vexilla Regis, "God reigneth from the tree."[222]) Their food was eaten in silence while portions of Scripture were read aloud by one of the brethren. He was bound to prepare this reading carefully, and was directed to avoid all hurry, and to repeat any passage of special note, in order that it might make the deeper impression on his hearers. After this came study in the Cloisters, varied by a stroll in the Burial Ground for meditation on mortality. At 3 p.m. they went again to the church, to sing Vespers; at 5 p.m. came supper with the same accompaniment as the morning meal; Compline followed; and then it was bed-time. On some occasions the Rule was relaxed and the monks were allowed to take part in quiet games, particularly at Christmastide.

Once in six weeks each monk had to undergo the Minutio sanguinis, or blood-letting, supposed in those days to conduce to health; and this drove him into the infirmary, where he had to spend about a week along with a batch of his brethren undergoing the same treatment. This custom, which sounds to us so unreasonable, tended at least to break the monotony of monastic life. Those who could stand it all, and gain good by it, must have been men of iron both in mind and body.

Such was the discipline through which those men had to pass who built Ely Minster, and dwelt and worshipped there for close upon nine hundred years. The "Liber Eliensis" tells us "There was one Rule for all; the chief requirement was obedience, love of sacred worship, and a full resolve to maintain the honour of God's House." In words that form part of their Rule, they could say "We believe that the Divine Presence exists everywhere, but above all when we attend Divine Service."

In the year 1539 the Monastery was dissolved by Henry the Eighth, and reconstituted as a Chapter of Dean and Canons. As we read this the question forces itself upon our minds "What became of the monks thus disbanded?" At Ely the monastery could, it is true, hold seventy monks, but the full roll were seldom, if ever, in residence at one time. After the Black Death (in 1349) the number fell to twenty-eight; and in the year 1532, seven years before the monastery was dissolved, there were only thirty-six monks on the spot, besides the Prior. Father Gasquet, a most diligent searcher into the history of that time, allows that, in spite of all his labour, "hardly any detail of the subsequent lives of those ejected from the dismantled cloisters of England is known to exist." It is, however, recorded that three of the Ely monks, being noted as good choir men, received a pension of £8 a year (equivalent to about £80 now) besides an office. But such traces are scanty indeed; some monks who were priests were appointed to the cure of souls; others lived on the pensions allotted to them which were usually equivalent to about £50 a year, paid as a rule fairly and punctually; some received on quitting the monastery a grant of money; we hear that one band of monks went out into the world each with a sum of twenty-six shillings and eightpence in his pocket (barely £15 at the present value of money). Such was the fate of the inmates of the Abbeys that submitted to the demands of the King, as did Ely under Goodrich, the last of the Abbots. Where "voluntary surrender" was refused, as it was by the Abbots of Glastonbury, Reading, Jervaulx, and other Houses, on the ground that their monastery was "not theirs to give," the monks were turned adrift without any provision whatsoever for the future. Some fled to the Continent, others to Scotland, while many died as the natural result of a sudden change in their mode of life combined with privation and distress.

It is nearly four hundred years since all these changes befell Ely. Many devoted men have during these long years filled the See, men of mettle, of learning and piety. Among others we may mention Thomas Thirlby, Bishop from 1554-1559 during the reign of Mary Tudor, who was deposed under Elizabeth on refusing to take the oath of the royal supremacy, "having declared that he would sooner die than consent to a change of religion." For this he was imprisoned in the Tower for three years, till a visitation of the plague led to his being sent from the infected air of London to the purer atmosphere of Canterbury, as the prisoner-guest of Archbishop Parker, under whose charge he remained for seven years. His imprisonment does not appear to have been rigorous, as far as physical comfort was concerned; but, with the illiberality universal in those days, he was denied the consolations of his religion; he might neither say nor hear Mass, he might read no books except Protestant ones; he might write no letters, nor even converse with anyone save under strict supervision. At Lambeth Palace lodging was provided for him, till he died in the summer of 1570, and was buried in the adjoining Parish Church.

In the reign of James the First, from 1609-1619, Ely had as her Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, whose well-known Book of Devotions bears witness to his piety. That he was also a man of culture is evident by his being chosen to be one of the translators of the Bible.

In Matthew Wren, who was Bishop of Ely for twenty-nine years, from 1638-1667, we meet with another prisoner for his faith. Bishop Wren was anti-puritan in his aims; throughout his diocese his influence was exercised in favour of the re-introduction of reverent ceremonial in public worship; and for this he was sent to the Tower, where he remained for eighteen years, till the Restoration set him free and brought him back once more to his well-loved Cathedral.

He died in 1667, and by his own wish was buried in the chapel of Pembroke College, Cambridge, which he had built as a thankoffering for his release from prison—(that prison which his friend Archbishop Laud had left only for the scaffold); his nephew, the famous Christopher Wren, being engaged as architect. Thirty years before, he had, while Master of Peterhouse, built from his own designs the chapel of that college. The two chapels still face each other across the Cambridge street in strange contrast. The earlier one betokens an effort to restore Gothic architecture; the later shows that classical ideals had, for the time being at least, won the day.