“5. At the ninth hour, or three of the clock in the afternoon: when Christ gave up the ghost, and, which was an hour of publick prayer in the Temple, and privately in his closet with Cornelius.

“6. Vespers: at the twelfth hour, or six a clock in the afternoon: when the evening sacrifice was offered in the Temple, and when Christ is supposed taken down from the Crosse.

“7. At seven of the clock at night (or the first hour beginning the nocturnall twelve): when Christ’s agonie in the garden was conceived began.

“The first of those was performed at two of the clock in the morning: when the Monks (who went to bed at eight at night) had slept six hours, which were judged sufficient for nature.”

Further, we read:—

“Let every Monk have two Coats, and two Cowles, etc.”

“Let every Monk have his Table-book, Knife, Needle, and Handkerchief.”

“Let the Bed of every Monk have a Mat, Blanket, Rugge, and Pillow.”

We may part from them with the words of Hasted in our ears; of the Reformation and of the destruction of Becket’s shrine, he says: “This great change could not but seem strange to the people who had still veneration for their reputed saint; and the violence offered to his shrine could not but fill their hearts with inward regret, and private murmurings; but their discontent did not break out into open rebellion here, as it did on some like occasion in different places in the kingdom. To quiet the people, therefore, and to convince them of the propriety, and even necessity, of these changes, the monks were in general cried out against, as given to every shameful and abominable vice; and reports were industriously spread abroad, that the monasteries were receptacles of the worst of people.... The greater monasteries were, for the most part, well governed, and lived under the strictest discipline; ... they promoted learning, they educated youth, and dispensed charity with a liberal hand to all around them.... The Prior, who at the time of the dissolution had presided over this convent for three-and-twenty years, was a learned, grave, and religious man, and his predecessors had been such for a length of time before. The convent was a society of grave persons; the aged were diligent to train up the novices both in the rules of their institution, and in gravity and sobriety.... All their revenues and gains were expended, either in alms and hospitality, or in the stately and magnificent building of their church.... Their time was for the most part spent in exercises of fasting, penance, and devout meditations, and in attending the divine offices in the church.”

The lives of nuns in convents of women were to all intents and purposes practically the same as those led by monks, so we will visit for a few minutes—in spirit—the nunnery of St Sepulchre, which stood near the old Riding-gate. It was founded by St Anselm about the year 1100 for Benedictine nuns, whose lives were passed very much in accordance with those of their brother monks. Hasted tells us that Prior Walter, of Christ Church, gave to the nunnery “as much wood as one horse, going twice a day, could fetch thence, where the wood reeves should appoint”—namely, from the wood of Blean, beyond Harbledown; “but there being much uncertainty in this grant, the nuns, in 1270, releasing it, procured in lien and by way of exchange for it a certain portion of the above-mentioned wood to be assigned and made over to them; which wood retains from these nuns the name of Minchen Wood at this time.” And further on he says discreetly, “Time and indulgence of superiors bringing their corruptions, nuns became in process of time not such recluses as their order required.” So in 1305 steps were taken by Archbishop Winchelsea to keep them more straitly. It was here that the Holy Maid of Kent, “the great impostor of her time, was a veiled nun and votaress.”