Caricature sometimes tells the truth more understandably than history or realism, and these facetiæ of Denys convey a fairly accurate idea of part of a monk’s life. From midnight to midnight it was lived by rule and rote, full of worship, full of work. But it will become us and entertain us to take a more serious view of the hospitality exercised by a great convent. The Guest House, or Hostry, was an important and integral part almost of every monastery. It was the especial duty of one of the senior monks to look to it that everything was ready for the guests who might come. The building devoted to the duties of hospitality were at Canterbury of very considerable size, a hundred and fifty feet long by forty broad, consisting of a main hall, out of which opened small sleeping apartments resembling cubicles. The abbot himself would receive and entertain guests of high degree; merchants and others doing business with the house would be taken charge of by the cellarer. The following passage, quoted by Abbot Gasquet from the Rites of Durham, is interesting: “There was a famous house of hospitality, called the Guest Hall, within the Abbey garth of Durham, on the west side, towards the water, the Terrar of the house being master thereof, as are appointed to give entertainment to all states, both noble, gentle, and whatsoever degree that came thither as strangers, their entertainment not being inferior to any place in England, both for the goodness of their diet, the sweet and dainty furniture of their lodgings, and generally all things necessary for travellers. And, withal, this entertainment continuing, (the monks) not willing or commanding any man to depart, upon his honest and good behaviour. This hall is a goodly brave place, much like unto the body of a church, with very fair pillars supporting it on either side, and in the midst of the hall a most large range for the fire. The chambers and lodgings belonging to it were sweetly kept, and so richly furnished that they were not unpleasant to lie in, especially one chamber called the ‘King’s chamber,’ deserving that name, in that the King himself might very well have lain in it, for the princely linen thereof.... The Prior (whose hospitality was such as that there needed no guest-hall, but that they (the Convent) were desirous to abound in all liberal and free almsgiving) did keep a most honourable house and very noble entertainment, being attended upon both with gentlemen and yeomen, of the best in the country, as the honourable service of his house deserved no less. The benevolence thereof, with relief and alms of the whole Convent, was always open and free, not only to the poor of the city of Durham, but to all the poor people of the country besides.”
Guests might remain some two days or nights, as a rule, special permission having to be obtained for any longer period.
Yet another quotation, this time from the Memoirs of the Life of Mr John Inglesant, wherein he narrates the visit to the Priory of Westacre in Wiltshire of Richard Inglesant, on an errand from the Earl of Essex and on business for the burly King Henry. The Priory was a small house and set in the country, but the impression his first night there made upon him will serve to carry us back along the corridors of time: “In the middle of the summer afternoon he crossed the brow of the hilly common, and saw the roofs of the Priory beneath him surrounded by its woods. The country all about lay peaceful in the soft, mellow sunlight.... The house stood with a little walled court in front of it, and a gate-house; and consisted of three buildings—a chapel, a large hall, and another building containing the Prior’s parlour and other rooms on the ground floor, and a long gallery or dormitory above, out of which opened other chambers; the kitchens and stables were near the latter building, on the right side of the court. The Prior received Inglesant with deference, and took him over the house and gardens, pointing out the well-stocked fish-ponds and other conveniences, with no apparent wish of concealing anything.... He supped with the Prior in hall, with the rest of the household, and retired with him to the parlour afterwards, where cakes and spiced wine were served to them, and they remained long together.... At last Inglesant betook himself to rest in the guest-chamber, a room hung with arras, opening from the gallery where the monks slept.... The Prior’s care had ordered a fire of wood on the great hearth that lighted up the carved bed and the hunting scene upon the walls. He lay long and could not sleep. All night long, at intervals, came the sound of chanting along the great hall and up the stairs into the dormitory, as the monks sung the service of matins, lauds, and prime.”
Yes, it was a busy, pious life that was led in a well-ordered monastery; the service of God and of man combined to leave few idle moments, and the true religions, we are told, combined “with monastic simplicity an angelic good humour.” As men vary outside, so do they within monastic walls: some saints, some sinners; some dour, some sweet; some patient, some hot-blooded. They were human, those old monks, though somehow to-day we are apt to look upon them as either too entirely other-worldly, or too entirely this-worldly.
Before quitting them it will not be unamusing, or, indeed, without instruction, to quote a few passages from Fuller’s The Church-history of Britain from the Birth of Jesus Christ until the Year M.DC.XLVIII., in which that worthy writer tells us of “Some generall Conformities observed in all Convents,” dealing with “the rule of the antient Benedictines.”
“Let Monks (after the example of David) praise God seven times a day.
“1. At Cock-crowing: Because the Psalmist saith, At midnight will I praise the Lord: and most conceive that Christ rose from the dead about that time.
“2. Matutines: at the first hour, or six of the clock, when the Jewish morning sacrifice was offered. And at what time Christ’s resurrection was by the Angels first notified to the women.
“3. At the third hour, or nine of the clock before none: when, according to S. Marke, Christ was condemned, and scourged by Pilate.
“4. At the sixt hour, or twelve of the clock at high noon: when Christ was crucified and darknesse over all the earth.