In its revival under De la Mare, St. Albans was almost unique among the English abbeys; in no other case was there any movement comparable with it. Yet there is a grave danger of overrating the significance of De la Mare’s abbacy. The monastic system cannot be said to have been reinvigorated nor primitive fervour restored. The revival was confined within narrow limits, and, on the whole, its fruits were small. It was, however, sufficient to blunt the edge of much of the contemporary criticism which in the fourteenth century was being applied to the monastic system. Chaucer, for example, in his Prologue, described for all time the typical monk of his day—
A Monk ther was, a fair for the maistrye,
an out-rydere, that lovede venerye;
A manly man, to been an abbot able.
Ful many a deyntee hors hadde he in stable:
and, when he rood, men mighte his brydel here
Ginglen in a whistling wynd as clere
And eek as loude as doth the Chapel-belle,
Ther as this lord was keper of the celle
The reule of Seint Maure or of Seint Beneit,