We will pass on, now to the Cloisters, begun by Edward the Confessor, but rebuilt in the fourteenth century. Looking back four or five hundred years we see the monks pacing to and fro, gossiping or transacting the petty details of their daily life, and, as the time came, digging graves for one another in the central grassplat. Here the monks shaved each other's heads—an art in which they were expected to be very skilful, and here the novices carried on their studies. Rough mats took off the chill of the stone benches in some degree, and the floor was littered over with hay and straw in summer, and with rushes in winter. But in cold or stormy weather it must have been a desolate place at the best, for the lower parts of the windows opening on the central court were never closed.
Along the South Cloister lay the magnificent refectory, an upper hall of the time of Edward II., with arcades of the time of the Confessor beneath it. Very strict were the rules of behaviour in this great dining-room. No monk might speak, and guests might only whisper. There were particular rules against leaning on the elbows, sitting with the hand on the chin, or cracking nuts with the teeth. The beautiful and commodious hall of the refectory was occasionally used for various secular gatherings. In 1244, Henry III. held a great Council of State in it. Here Edward I. met a large gathering of clergy and laity, and demanded half their possessions. The Dean of St. Paul's, in his consternation, fell dead at Edward's feet. The King took slight heed of this occurrence, and persisted in his demands, till he obtained all he wanted. Several of the early assemblies of the Commons of England took place in this hall.
The dormitory of the monks was over the East Cloister; there is a gallery still remaining, opening into the south transept of the Abbey, by which they came to their midnight services.
In the Eastern Cloister you see an ancient door, leading to what is now called the chapel of the Pyx. In it is the Box or Pyx, containing specimen standard-pieces of all the gold and silver coins of the realm. Once in five years this strong room is opened, and coins newly issued from the Mint are compared with the standards, to make sure that the coinage is not degenerating. But in ancient days this chamber was the treasury of England. Here the sovereigns kept their money in hard coin, as well as the regalia, and many priceless relics, such as the Holy Cross of Holyrood, the sceptre or rod of Moses, and the dagger that wounded Edward I. at Acre. In 1303, whilst Edward I. was invading Scotland, news was brought him that his treasury had been broken into, and his vast hoards carried away. The abbot and forty-eight monks were sent to the Tower, and after a long trial, two of their number were proved to have been concerned in the robbery. Amongst the iron-work of the door there are fragments of human skin, which in all probability once pertained to these robbers, and ever after remained as terrible warnings to the monks, as they walked along the Cloisters. The king's money was henceforward kept elsewhere, the regalia after a time sent to the Tower, and the relics disappeared at the Reformation.
From the Cloisters we can readily reach the Chapter-House, the octagonal building so conspicuous on the left hand before entering the Abbey at Poets' Corner. It was founded by Edward the Confessor, and rebuilt by Henry III. This beautiful building was at first the meeting-place of the convent, in which all difficulties were adjusted and satisfaction made for faults. The abbot, with his three priors and sub-prior, occupied five richly-decorated stalls at the eastern end. Above them rose a great crucifix to which the monks bowed on entering. Then followed complaints, confessions, judgments, punishments—such monks as were thought to need it were stripped to the waist, and publicly scourged at the central pillar.
When the Commons began to meet apart from the Lords they met a few times in the refectory, as I told you just now, but they soon settled down in this Chapter-House. It would be too long and tedious a story for me to attempt to recount the important acts that were passed in this memorable edifice. The Commons sat here till the last day of Henry VIII's life; their next meeting was in St. Stephen's Chapel in the adjacent Palace.
From 1547 to 1863, the Chapter-House was used as a storehouse for the public records. A special building for these has since been erected in Chancery Lane, and by a grant from Parliament this beautiful and time-honoured building has been redeemed from the miserable condition resulting from centuries of neglect.
A little way from the Chapter-House stands a small square tower known as the Parliament Office. It is thought that this tower was once the convent prison, but however that may be, it was sold by the Abbey to Edward III., and was for many years the royal jewel-house. Its present name arose from the fact of all acts of Parliament being deposited here, till they were moved to the Victoria Tower in 1864. From the jewel-house, in the days of the abbots, there used to be a path leading to a stream that ran down to the Thames. Hereabouts lived the hermit of Westminster, in what was called "The Anchorite's House." From age to age, a succession of hermits dwelt here, how chosen for the post we do not know, but we hear of Richard II. visiting the hermit in 1381, and of Henry V. doing the same at the time of his father's death in 1413. It is said that one of these "holy men" had been buried in a leaden coffin, in a small chapel adjoining his cell. The keeper of the palace, William Ushborne, paid a plumber to dig up this coffin and bring it to his office, after throwing the bones down the cloister well. Tradition says that the plumber fainted and died in Ushborne's house. Ushborne was guilty of other crimes; he managed to steal a piece of the convent land and made it into a garden with a fish-pond in the middle. He was supping with his neighbours one evening on fish from this pond, and had taken two or three mouthfuls of a large pike, when he shouted "Look! look! here is come a fellow who is going to choke me." He died on the spot, killed by the fish he had reared on the scene of his sacrilege. Adjoining the land stolen by Ushborne was the Infirmary, (now College) Garden, where sick brothers took exercise. Of the infirmary, only a few fragments of arches remain—but these undoubtedly date from the time of the Confessor. Here the sick monks dwelt, visited at times by the long procession of the healthy brethren. Here also lived the "playfellows"—the monks over fifty years of age—who were told nothing unpleasant, were freed from the ordinary rules, and were permitted to enjoy the privilege of censuring anything they heard or saw.
The Infirmary Chapel (in which, by the way, the young monks were privately whipped to spare them from the more public floggings in the Chapter-House) was dedicated to St. Catherine. Many bishops were consecrated and many church councils held in this building, of which only a few arcades and pillars forming part of modern buildings now mark the site. A curious scene was enacted here, at a church assembly, in 1124, when the Archbishops of York and Canterbury quarrelled about precedence. Richard of Canterbury took his seat on the right-hand side of the Pope's Legate, whereupon, Roger of York, who claimed that place, went and sat down in Canterbury's lap. He was speedily pulled off by Canterbury's servants, and much knocked about. Severely bruised, and with his cope torn, York rushed into the Abbey, where he found the king, and told his wrongs. The king bound over both the archbishops to keep the peace for five years, and the Pope issued an edict that Canterbury should be Primate of all England, and York Primate of England.
In the next century, St. Catherine's Chapel witnessed a stirring scene, when Henry III., holding in one hand a Gospel, in the other a lighted taper, swore to uphold Magna Charta. The king and all the great dignitaries present threw their candles on the ground, then holding their noses and shutting their eyes, they exclaimed "So go out in smoke and stench the accursed souls of those who break or pervert this charter." No voice was louder than that of the king's in shouting "Amen and Amen!" and yet somehow, in future years, he did not seem to bear in mind his solemn covenant. It was quite as well for England that he did not, for out of the resistance to his perfidious folly sprang the English Parliament.