Mediæval London, Volume 2: Ecclesiastical

by Walter Besant

The services began at two in the morning with Matins; this finished, the Choir went to bed; the rest sang Lauds for the dead; they went to bed again and slept till daybreak or five, when they got up and had Prime; at 9 A.M. there was Tierce; at 11 A.M. there was Sext; at 2 P.M. there was Nones; at 6 P.M. there were Vespers. The monks went to bed at eight, having given up eight hours at least out of the twenty-four to services in the church. Eight hours were spent in sleep. One hour was spent in the daily gathering in the Chapter House, leaving seven for meals, exercise, recreation, and study. The rules were in some cases relaxed for scholars, but, even making allowance for such relaxation, it is clear that the monk, who was a student, was at a great disadvantage compared with the student who lived outside.

The church was, of course, the most important part of the buildings of a monastery. South of the nave was the cloister, with its four walks, in which the monks spent their time when not in church; on the east of the cloister was the Chapter House; on the south, the Refectory; on the west, the Abbot’s House. Beyond the cloister were the dormitories, the Scriptorium, the Misericordia, the Infirmary, the Guest House. Beyond these were the Kitchen, Buttery, Pantry cellars, Brewery, Bakehouse, Laundry, offices for making and mending, orchards, gardens, vineyards, fishponds etc., and stables. An important House had a great establishment to keep up. This was presided over in its various departments by the Brethren themselves, whose offices will be enumerated presently. This work occupied a good many of the Seniors. In fact there were so many offices that it is difficult to discover how they could find time for purposes of study. If they wanted to study, or if they wanted to meditate, there was the cloister, but no other place. Desks were set out there; but as the novices’ school was also carried on there with, as sometimes happened, mechanical work by some of the Brothers, it would seem impossible, according to modern ideas, to carry on serious study amid such interruptions. It is a commonplace to speak of the monotony of a Religious House. Considering that most of the inmates knew no other kind of life, they hardly felt the monotony; and, besides, we must remember that the House was filled with its own ambitions, its envyings, its disappointments, which relieved it of monotony. Who would not desire to be Abbot and to rank with an Earl? The Abbot enjoyed that rank: when he rode abroad he was followed by a retinue of a hundred persons; he could create knights; in some cases he could coin money; he was guardian to many noble children who became his pages; he administered a splendid estate. Or one might laudably desire the office of Prior: he went first after the Abbot; he had his own stall; he put on his hood before the others. Or there was the sub-Prior: he sat among the monks and saw that every one behaved properly; he also, at five o’clock in the evening, shut up the House.

Then there were administrative offices. These were the Altarer, the Precentor, the Director of Ceremonies, the Kitchener, the Seneschal, the Bursar, the Sacrist, the sub-Sacrist, the Almoner, and the Master of the Novices. There were also the offices of less honour, but which still conferred responsibility and even power; such as those of the Infirmarer, Porter, Refectorer, Hospitaller, Chamberlain, Keeper of the Granary, Master of the Common House, Orcharder, Operarius Registrar, Auditor, Secretary, Butler, Keeper of Baskets, Keeper of the Larder, apart from the mere service of the House, which required Baker, Brewer, Carpenter, Carver, Sculptor, Bookbinder, Copyist, etc. As for the morality of the monks, I am inclined to believe that the Religious Houses maintained much more of their early piety than we have been accustomed to believe. That they grew luxurious in their living, and in some cases immoral in their lives, seems to have been due to the cause assigned by Wyclyf and the Lollards—their great wealth. While they were poor they lived simple lives; they practised the Rule; they worked at copying Gospels and Mass Books; some of them kept Chronicles of their own age—an invaluable service; they received the sick and the poor. In the very worst times that the country ever experienced, the monasteries stood up here and there over all the land to witness for justice, and righteousness, and mercy. Bad as these times were, they would have been far more ferocious and more cruel but for the existence and the example of the monasteries.

At the same time, there were always scandals. Who could expect in a monastery that all the younger monks should retain their purity? And when there was nothing else to think about, who could expect men not to think about their food? In the time of Henry the Second, Giraldus Cambrensis relates that the monks of Canterbury had sixteen covers, or more, with an abundance of wine, “particularly claret, mulberry wine, mead, and other strong drinks.” And it is related by the same authority that the monks of St. Swithin’s complained to Henry the Second that the Bishop had reduced their dishes to ten. Upon which the King swore that the Bishop should reduce the number to what suited himself, namely, three. The monastic life expected of those who followed it, not a mere obedience to the Rule, but a total absorption in the spirit of the Rule, so that the Brethren should not look constantly for possible relaxation and for indulgences, but should desire more and more all the austerity possible under the Rule. And because there was everywhere a falling-off from the austerity of the Rule, new branches were continually founded, and new Orders continually sprang up, in order to return to the ancient Rule with new austerities. When the Brethren fell to relaxing any portion of the Rule, the downfall of the House began. Then the spirit went out of the services, the meaning went out of the offices, the sense went out of the Rules; the Brethren became either like Rabelais, weary to death with the daily iteration of services, or they became careless and sensual, evading and breaking vows as well as the Rule; or they became dry sticklers for order and jealous for minor customs, though the essentials had long been lost. This was already the case in the fourteenth century. Decay was active in most of the Monastic Houses; things were whispered; but still the bequests poured in upon them from citizens rich and poor; people were loth to part with the belief in the godly monks. And that there were still saintly hearts in the cloister, still pious women in the nunnery, even in the worst times of any, there can be no doubt. But, further, there can be no doubt, also, that there was never any considerable or notable body of scholars in the English Monasteries from the time of their foundation to their Dissolution, and that no Monastic Rule ever devised was calculated to create a love of learning or a school of students, theologians, or philosophers.

The monasteries possessed a vast amount of property in lands and houses. The lands were cultivated, and the houses held, in the usual manner. I gather, from what is said on the subject, that monks made good landlords, just, if exacting. In their schools they gave free education, but not to all-comers. They also taught certain trades, but not all; not those of a mere menial kind. Thus they taught carving, painting, weaving, embroidery, damask work, enamelling, lapidary work, music, and making musical instruments, illuminations, copying of MSS., medicine, surgery, the making up of drugs and the composition of cordials. Every Religious House had within itself a library, a reading-room, a school, a burial-ground, a cloister, gardens, and walks. Every novice brought some property. Everything, as I have said, points to the fact that the mediæval monastery in England belonged to the gentry and not to the lower class.

The monastic life in London was at its best in the twelfth century; later on, besides the scandals, which perhaps were false or exaggerated, we hear of relaxations, monks obtaining license for residing outside the House, for “cutting chapel,” for indulgences in wine and other things.

Let us turn to the Friars. There were five Orders of Friars in London: the Franciscans, who came to London in 1224; the Dominicans, who settled first in Oxford, 1221; the Austin Friars, whose London House was founded in 1253; the Carmelites, or White Friars, in 1341; and the Crutched or Crossed Friars in 1244. The most numerous and most important of these, the most deeply loved and reverenced, were the Franciscans, or Grey Friars.

The first appearance of the Franciscans in London was in the year 1224, when a small company of them appeared and asked for a place wherein to build themselves a humble lodging. They were granted a place in the least desirable part of the City, close beside the Shambles, next to “Stinking Lane.” Here they stayed. For many years after their arrival they worked among the poorer classes of the people, silently and without attracting much attention. Presently it began to be noised abroad among the citizens that there was an extraordinary band of Brethren who had no money and would take none; who had no food except what was given to them; who went into the poorest and the worst streets, who prayed with the dying murderer and comforted the dying harlot, and attended the sick robber in a spirit of divine forgiveness and love. Then the hearts of all went out towards the Franciscans. Never was any Religious Order so reverenced, never were any religious men so loved and worshipped by the good people of London. All the world brought them gifts; they were ruined by the gifts; since they would not receive estates, they must have gold and jewels; with the gold they built a church, magnificent even in that age of magnificent churches; since they must remain poor, they spent all their money on the church and its decorations and furniture.

And then the inevitable decay set in; with so great a Church and so noble a House the old begging for daily bread became a form; boxes were put up in shops and houses, and the collectors came round at regular intervals and cleared them; not a citizen of any substance but left money in his will to the Franciscans; they received endowments of chantries and obits; they took money for burying great persons in the Church. The Friars grew careless and self-indulgent; the old zeal for the poor died away; they were no more seen in the hovels of the poorest. The Franciscan Rule, in fact, proved too severe to be maintained in all its rigour. Yet the Dissolution of the Religious Houses shows that in some particulars it was kept up. For instance, the only property possessed by the Grey Friars when they left their House was the rent of a few houses built within their precinct. They had no estates. The great House, with its splendid church, was maintained by the gifts of nobles and rich merchants; by the endowment, as mentioned above, of chantries; and by the masses daily bought and said, or sung, “for the intention” of the purchaser. It is the modern custom in some Catholic countries to buy a mass before undertaking any enterprise; even before beginning some necessary work, such as haymaking. This mass is sung “for the intention” of the purchaser. There is, therefore, reason to believe that the faithful purchased formerly, as they do still, masses for “good luck.”

The rise, the extent, and the gradual decay in the respect held for Friars is illustrated very remarkably by the Calendar of Wills. From this valuable book, which may be accepted as a perfectly trustworthy guide so far as it goes, I have extracted the following tables of bequests to the five Orders of Friars. These bequests were sometimes made collectively, so much each to all the Orders of Friars; sometimes singly, so much to the Austin Friars, or the Preaching Friars. It will be seen how the fashion of bequeathing money to the Friars grew and increased and how it died away, as the popular respect for the Friars decreased, and the new ideas spread.