Chapter VI · DISCIPLINE AND THE DAILY LIFE
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§ 80.
The chief object of this book has been to explain the position and use of the various buildings of a monastery, and in its course reference has been made to several leading features of the life which was led within them. The sketch may be completed by some brief notes on the arrangements for monastic discipline and the ordinary life of the house. The abbot was the head and father of the house, who presided in chapter and was responsible for the due correction of erring brethren and the treatment of the complaints which monks and canons were encouraged to make publicly in the daily chapter-meeting. His duties, however, were largely delegated to the prior, who was the officer charged with the maintenance of order in the cloister
. Where the prior was head of the house, the sub-prior took this secondary position. In monasteries where the number of brethren was large, as at Lewes or Peterborough, the prior was helped in the cloister by other monks, who were known as the sub-prior and the third and fourth prior. An old name for the junior priors was
circae
or
circatores
: their duty was to make periodical rounds of inspection in the cloister and dorter. But, in addition to these disciplinary officers, there were other officials, each of whom administered a special department of the convent. Their offices, held by commission from the abbot, were called obediences (
obedientiae
), and they themselves were known collectively as obedientiaries (
obedientiarii
). In the great monasteries the abbot had his own household officers, chosen from the monks: at Peterborough in 1440 he had his own seneschal, receiver or bailiff, cellarer, chamberlain, and chaplain
. Of the obedientiaries usually found in connexion with the convent, two, the precentor and sacrist, were in charge of the church. The precentor was responsible for the singing, the direction of processions and the repair and proper notation of the quire-books: he also, as at Barnwell, filled the office of librarian (
armarius
). The sacrist had control of the clock, bells, lights and ornaments of the church. They were sometimes assisted in their offices by a succentor or sub-chanter and sub-sacrist. The sacrist at Peterborough was excused from attendance in quire save on certain festivals. The same excuse applied for more obvious reasons to the cellarer and almoner, and to the monks who filled the offices of treasurer and master of the works, the second of whom controlled the repairs of the church and monastery. The cellarer and almoner were invariably found in all monasteries. The cellarer was the chief means of communication between the house and the world outside: he marketed and went to fairs, and bought the necessary provisions and furniture. The duties of the almoner have already been noticed: he and the cellarer were frequently assisted by a sub-almoner and sub-cellarer. The cellarer, whose checker was usually in the neighbourhood of the
cellarium
and kitchen, was in close touch with the fraterer (
refectorarius
) and kitchener (
coquinarius
), whose chief duties were to arrange the meals in the frater and to regulate the activities of the cook and his assistants
. He also was, as we have seen, responsible in some degree for the hospitality of the house, which was administered directly by the hosteller (
hospitarius
). Equally necessary to the conduct of the monastery were the infirmarer (
infirmarius
), who looked after the brethren in the infirmary and sometimes, as at Peterborough, had his separate lodging in its neighbourhood, and the chamberlain (
camerarius
), who attended to the clothes of the brethren and their bedding in the dorter. The receiver (
receptor
), treasurer (
thesaurarius
) or bursar (
bursarius
) collected rents in money: the garnerer or granger (
granatarius
) collected the tithe in corn which belonged to the monastery, and supplied the cellarer with his stores of bread and beer. These offices of course varied in different houses, and in the later middle ages some are found in combination; but, as the needs of all orders were to some extent the same, the differences are trifling
. Each was bound to render an account of his administration yearly or quarterly, and, where such accounts survive, the information which they give is from the social and economical point of view of the highest value.
§ 81.
The time-table of a monastic day in church and cloister must be reckoned with attention to the fact that the day, between sunrise and sunset, was divided, irrespective of the season, into twelve equal parts. The hours in winter were thus some twenty minutes shorter than in summer, and, with this in view, a different arrangement was adopted during the winter months, which began on Holy Cross day (14 September) and lasted till Easter. Artificial light was impossible in the cloister after sunset, and consequently in winter the brethren went to bed earlier. Their night was divided into two equal portions, between which came the night-office of matins followed by lauds. The rule of St Benedict contemplated an undivided night, with matins as the first day-office, said before daybreak; but the general practice followed in all orders was to rise in the middle of the night for matins and to return to the dorter afterwards. At Durham the monks dressed by the light of cressets—bowls filled with oil and floating wicks, and set in hollows in square stone stands at either end of the dorter. In most monasteries the brethren entered and left the church in procession before and after matins by the night-stair, and the time between dressing and the signal to go to church was occupied in private prayer. After preparatory psalms, the service began with the invitatory, which included the psalm
Venite exultemus
. It was divided into nocturns, each consisting of a group of psalms followed by three lessons: on ordinary days matins consisted of a single nocturn, but on most feast-days there were three. Lauds followed: this service derived its name from the three final psalms of the psalter, known from their opening words,
Laudate Dominum
, as the
laudes
. The whole night-office was of considerable length—equal, in fact, to that of the day-hours taken together—and was further increased by the addition of the office of our Lady and on certain days of
Placebo
, or matins of the dead. When it was over, the brethren returned to bed and rose, at daybreak in winter, at sunrise in summer, for prime, when the sub-prior unlocked the day-stair and the church was entered by the ordinary doorway from the cloister.
§ 82.
The day-hours were said every three hours, as their names imply—prime at the first, terce at the third, sext at the sixth, none at the ninth. In summer prime was followed in Benedictine and Cistercian houses by chapter. This began with the versicle
Pretiosa
('Right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints') which preceded the martyrology or account of the saints commemorated on the day: this was followed by the necrology, or list of the dead to be remembered, and by a chapter of the rule with a sermon or commentary. The work of each monk was allotted for the day, and the meeting closed with
clamationes
or individual complaints, public confessions and corrections by the head of the house. The interval between chapter and terce was occupied by the monks in work in the cloister or in their various offices. Terce was followed by the chapter mass, during which at Durham half the monks in priest's orders said their private masses. The other half said their masses during high mass, which was sung about an hour after the chapter mass and immediately before sext. During this time, no food was taken. Bread soaked in wine (
mixtum
) was allowed to those whose strength was hardly equal to the long morning. In the Premonstratensian order, where, as in Augustinian houses, the chapter mass seems to have been sung immediately after prime, and chapter was followed after an interval by terce, the
mixtum
was distributed after terce to the infirm and the novices. All spare intervals were filled by work, and silence was rigorously maintained, all necessary conversation taking place in the parlour.
§ 83.
The first meal (
prandium
) took place at mid-day in the frater, soon after sext. During the meal the reader for the week, who had taken his repast before the rest, occupied the pulpit and read from the Bible or some pious book. Grace after meat ended with the
Miserere
, which was sung in procession through the cloister, the concluding collect and suffrages being said in church. The brethren then retired to rest in the dorter, until none. Work of various kinds filled up the time between none and vespers, a service which corresponded in its general structure to lauds. After vespers and the usual grace came supper (
caena
). During the interval between supper and compline (
completorium
), the last office, the convent met in the chapter-house for collation, at which the
Collationes
of Cassian or a chapter from some other monastic author were read. Compline ended the day, although, in times of lax discipline, there arose a custom of sitting up late in the warming-house which called for correction from episcopal visitors. The strict rule, however, required that the brethren should repair directly after compline to the dorter, and that all doors in the church and cloister should be locked until prime. At Durham the sub-prior went the round of the dorter towards the middle of the night to see that all was in good order. The rule required constant vigilance on the part of the officers, especially with regard to the maintenance of silence and the prevention of the accumulation of private property by the brethren.
§ 84.
In winter the morning or chapter mass was sung between prime and terce, and terce was succeeded by chapter. High mass and sext followed. Between sext and none the convent was at work. After none came the mid-day meal, and the rest of the day was spent as usual until compline, with the omission of the post-prandial rest, which in a season of long nights was not needed. In orders in which manual labour played a large part—the Cistercian and Premonstratensian, for example—special portions of the day were set aside for such work. The Cistercians worked in the morning between chapter and terce, and in the afternoon between none and vespers. In winter they usually worked from chapter after terce till none, apparently saying sext privately: in Lent they also said none at their work, and did not have their meal until after vespers. Their periods for reading and contemplation were an interval between matins and lauds in all seasons, the time between the morning mass and sext in summer (for in this order there seems to have originally been no high mass before sext), and part of the interval between vespers and compline. Premonstratensian canons worked in summer from chapter to terce, and in hay-time and harvest spent the greater part of the day in the fields, saying their hours privately, and dining and sleeping in the granges, if necessary. In winter work was done after terce. The Premonstratensian hours for reading were between sext and the mid-day meal in summer or none in winter, and again after none or the mid-day meal till vespers. In the summer the canons were allowed their daily bevers or draught of wine before vespers in the frater. The conduct of the daily life in the various orders applies equally to houses of female religious, where the officers corresponded to those in male convents, the night and day-hours were said and chapters were held on the same model, and the only important difference was that chaplains had to be imported to say mass and hear private confessions, the hour for which in all orders was usually after chapter.
§ 85.
It is probable that the observances of all orders in the two centuries before the suppression tended to become very similar. Records of visitations in the fifteenth century shew that there had grown to be scarcely any difference between the ordinary customs of Benedictine monks and Augustinian canons: injunctions delivered to a house of one order were repeated in almost the same terms to a house of another. The Carthusian order stood apart from the rest, however, by virtue of its ascetic rule—a rule stricter and more frugal even than that followed by the early Cistercians. Each monk lived his own life in his cell, going to church for the night-office, the early masses and vespers, and to the frater for the mid-day meal and supper on Sundays and certain feast-days, but otherwise saying his offices alone and served with his two meals a day through a hatch in the wall of his cell. On Sundays and chapter festivals all the hours, except compline, were said in church, and two chapters were held, one after prime and the second after none. In this life of lonely austerity, given up to contemplation and precluded even from the field-work and farming which were part of the activity of the strictest orders, later medieval sentiment found much to admire; and the popularity of the Carthusians in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was probably a recognition of their maintenance of the primitive simplicity from which the older and greater houses had declined.