Mediæval London, Volume 2: Ecclesiastical

by Walter Besant

“That a monk when he is cloistreless

Is lykened til a fish that is waterless”

(a proverb also quoted by William of Langland), but in order to show that the contemporary monk was not of that opinion he adds:—

“Thilke texte held he not worth an oistre.”

The rich clothing and unclerical garb of the monks outside the cloister, and their fondness for hunting, are the principal charges brought against them in the fourteenth century.

SAVOY CHAPEL AND PALACE
Drawn by Schnebbelie and engraved by Warren for Dr. Hughson’s Description of London.

Let us consider the actual life of a monk, a Benedictine monk. To begin with, it is a great mistake to suppose that an Abbey was always and for choice planted in some remote and secluded spot. As the people of the eleventh and twelfth centuries no more acted without good and sufficient cause than we their descendants, there must have been a very good reason to justify the foundation of so many Religious Houses within and without the walls of the City of London. Dear to many were the quiet meadows beside the rushing stream, beneath the hanging woods, far from the noise of men, of Tintern, of Fountains, of Dryburgh, or of Blanchland: dearer to others the thought of the life close to those walls, which held so much of violence, passion, ambition, and crime, which their very presence would calm and shame and admonish; of the men broken and ruined, of the women disgraced, to whom these quiet cloisters offered a resting-place; why, to the very worst, the most hardened of murderous ruffians, to such as Chaucer’s shipman, pirate and murderer, the daily prospect of these walls, the ringing of the bells, the voices chanting Litany and Laud, the sight of the friars going about among them, the knowledge that these men and women lived in abstinence from all that the world called pleasure; that they possessed no property; that they desired none of the things which the world desires; this reflection, the obtrusion of these facts, acted as a continual admonition and call to repentance. Of course there was the danger, the continual danger, always present in human affairs, of the relaxation of the Rule; the loss of the first enthusiasm; the decay of the first intention. A Benedictine who rides abroad dressed like a knight with hawk and hound, for whom a hundred manors send up their rent, their wheat and their game; who keeps a splendid table; who admits to his order only young men well born; to whom the place is like the College of All Souls, a House of Fellows with no duties, ceases to be regarded with reverence on account of reputed piety. When not even the memory is left of the early piety; when the air is thick with stories of incontinence and greed; when the land is everywhere parcelled out among the religious; then they become intolerable, and must be swept away. We shall have to return to this subject. Meantime let us consider the monastic life at a time when the monasteries were at their wealthiest, and when the ancient Rule, although very far relaxed, had not yet become an object of common contempt, when the monks and friars had not yet quite fallen from their ancient reputation. The time chosen for this view of the monastic life is that before the Wars of the Roses, which greatly impoverished the Religious Houses and at the same time deprived them of novices. Just as the first incursions of the Danes emptied the Anglican and Saxon Monasteries, so the long Wars of the Roses called out the younger as well as the elder sons to the wars. Now, by this time, the rich monasteries were entirely recruited from the younger sons of the gentry. Great nobles placed their children in monasteries. Thus, Ralph, Earl of Westmoreland, had twenty children, and three of his daughters became nuns. Edward the Fourth made one of his daughters a nun. One of the children of Owen Tudor and Katherine of Valois was placed in Westminster Abbey as an infant, and there remained for life as a monk. Edward the First had one daughter a nun. Thirteen daughters of nobles were in Ambresbury at the same time. The fact that the Abbey was for gentlefolk is clearly brought out by the list of names of the Westminster monks given in the Podelicote case. This occurred in the year 1303. It was the robbery of the royal Treasury or the Chapel of the Pyx at Westminster. Here were kept many of the things required for the assay of new coins, and at the time of the robbery the chapel contained an altogether unusual amount of specie, about £100,000, equal to perhaps a million of money in our time. The robber was Richard de Podelicote, who got into the Abbey from the palace, which, as the king was away, was probably less strictly guarded than usual. He climbed through one of the Chapter House windows, and so into the Refectory. He carried away many of the silver cups and managed to escape safely. However, he returned another time and attacked the Treasury. For this he had to cut through solid stone walls, and conceal his work; night after night he returned, and in his confession he makes no mention of any confederates. His perseverance was successful, and he took the money and all the gold and silver things which could be conveniently melted down away with him, but left behind the large jewels that he could not easily have got rid of. However, the stuff was afterwards traced, not only to Podelicote himself but to many others. Such is the story, and most amazing it is. There is no doubt that the chief actors were hanged, though there is no actual record of such a hanging. All the monks, forty of them, were sent to the Tower, presumably for their carelessness in guarding the Treasury. They were released after two years. In a letter from the king we have a record of their names, and these names show almost in all cases gentle birth. In effect, it wants no proof to understand that the desirable endowments of a Religious House, whose Brethren were like the Fellows of a College richly founded, would not be bestowed upon the children of rustics and servants. Here and there, no doubt, a rustic’s son might get advancement by the promise of exceptional ability; but this was in the ranks of the secular clergy rather than in the Religious Houses. The future monk was brought in, appointed by interest, as to a very good thing, when a boy. It was extremely difficult to procure such an appointment.

Founder’s kin, Benefactor’s kin sometimes helped; generally it was by private interest that lads were admitted as novices. The monks were not, as a rule, anxious to enlarge their numbers: rather to keep them down, so that the revenues of the House should provide amply for all. Sometimes admission was obtained by gifts or the conveyance of land. I have said that during the Civil Wars the number of monks decreased enormously; at Westminster it declined from eighty to thirty; at Canterbury from a hundred and fifty to fifty-four; at Gloucester from a hundred to thirty-six. This decrease was due, no doubt, partly to the disastrous influence of the War on rents; partly to the demand for fighting men; partly, I believe, to an increasing distaste for the monastic life. The child fortunate enough to be appointed was formerly presented in the Church as a novice; his parents first cut off his curls, offering his long hair to the Abbey. They then placed the chalice and the Host in his hand and led him to the priest at the altar. Here they wrapped his hands in the pall of the altar, and heard read a written engagement that they would not tempt the boy from the House. After this the Abbot consecrated a hood for the boy and laid it on him. He was then taken out, shaved after the fashion of the Order, robed, and brought back, after which he was received with prayers. It took long years to break in a novice, to teach him obedience, to crush his will, to take the fighting spirit out of him, and the love instinct out of him; in fact, if stories are true, the success of the system was often incomplete in every point. The novice had to sit in silence for hours, with down-cast eyes; he was never left alone to play at freedom; he had to do everything in a manner prescribed by rule, even the lifting of a cup at meals, even the carriage of the hands when seated; things had to be said in a certain form; services were frequent, and the singing of Psalms went on all day long and half the night. The Church ceremonies were involved and elaborate. By the time the novice was admitted he already knew every Function in the book, and all the Psalms and Prayers by heart. By this time, also, the House was all the world to him. What went on outside he knew not, the House was everything—father, mother, brothers and kin; he had no ambition except to rise to monastic honours. He had completed his education. If he were a Benedictine, that education was liberal: he was taught grammar, logic, Latin, philosophy, writing and illuminating, music, singing, and the history of the Order. After his profession, the Benedictine theory was that he continued his studies. If he did they were, in most of the English Houses, sterile of results. At eighteen the novice made his profession. There was then no retreat possible for him, he was a monk for life. At first he was a Junior, and as such he read the Gospel and the Epistle for the day; he carried a taper in processions; he read the martyrology in the Chapter.