THE ABBEY--I.
[Illustration: Laurentius]
I leave to courtly hands, to ecclesiastics of rank, to those who
understand the pomp and dignity of history, the Abbey Church, with its
royal memories and national associations. It is for Deans to dwell at
length upon this stately shrine of England’s story. Those whose place is
duly assigned and reserved for them at Coronations, Functions, and
Funerals in this Church; those whose office brings them into personal
relations with Kings and Queens, Princes and Princesses; those who
belong to the Palace as much as to the Abbey, are the fittest persons to
write on the events and episodes belonging to the Church, and to
enumerate the chapels, altars, tombs, and monuments within its walls.
Again, there is the building itself: this has been described over and
over again by architects and the students of architecture; stone by
stone the structure has been examined; hardly one that has not been
assigned to its builder and its date. We have been taught all that
remains of Edward the Confessor; all that Henry the Third began and his
son continued; what Richard the Second raised; what is due to Henry the
Seventh and what to Wren. We may leave aside, for the most part, the
ceremonies of state, Coronations,
[Illustration: ARMS OF THE ABBEY OF WESTMINSTER.]
Weddings, Funerals, the monuments, and the architecture. Are they not
written in the book of the Dean? Some of us, when we read of these great
Functions, fall into the reflection that in that time, as in this, the
place of the scholar, the poet, or the storyteller would have been
outside among the crowd; the man of letters would have been
distinguished beyond expectation had he been invited to stand somewhere
far back in the nave--if he had secured a point of vantage near the
North Porch, or anywhere in the Abbey Precinct where he could stand and
see the Procession sweep past, the Procession of Heralds, Trumpets,
Knights and Barons, and rich Lords, Bishops, and Mitered Abbots,
Pursuivants and more Trumpets, splendid banners and canopies and shields
borne by Nobles, Esquires, and the King’s Valets: lastly, their
Highnesses the King and the Queen themselves. If he should happily stand
near the Porch, he would hear the rolling of the organ and the voices of
those who sing. When the soldiers rushed out of the church at William’s
crowning to hack and cut down the people in suspicion of a tumult, the
poet was among them and was glad to escape with a broken head; when King
Richard’s men-at-arms slew the Jews, the poet who was then outside among
them thought himself happy that he was not mistaken for one of those
unfortunates; the poet was standing outside the Abbey Church--in a very
good place too--when, with Pageant, songs, and flowers, the whole world
turned out to welcome Good Queen Bess. At every Coronation before and
since that festival he has formed part of the outside throng. When the
Rejoicing and the Thanksgiving for the happy closing of Fifty Years were
solemnly celebrated, seven years ago, the poets and the men of letters
occupied their old, old place: it was the curb. All that was really
noble and great and worthy of honor in the nation was invited within the
walls. For literature was left, according to immemorial custom, the
usual struggle for a place upon the curb. The proper place for the man
of letters in this country has always been, and is still, the curb.
Here let us stand, then, happy at least in hearing the discourse of the
people. When the Procession has been reformed and has swept past us
again, we will betake ourselves to coffee-house or tavern, there to talk
about it, while the great folk--the Quality--sit down to their banquet
in Westminster Hall. If we take from Westminster Abbey its Kings and
Princes, its Abbots, its Coronations, its Funerals, what remains?
Exactly that which remains when you have taken out of history the Kings,
Barons, and great Lords. There remain the people--in this case the
monks, with the servants of the Abbey. If we consider the daily life of
one monk, we shall understand pretty well the daily life of all; and we
shall presently realize that our old friend Barnaby Googe is not an
authority to be altogether trusted; that the monks of Thorney were not
all gross sensualists, wallowing in their animalism; and that on the
other hand most of them were not, and in the nature of things could not
be, followers of the austere and saintly life, great scholars, or great
divines. The unremembered life of Hugh de
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE BENEDICTINE ABBEY OF WESTMINSTER.
(By kind permission of Professor Henry Middleton.)]
Steyninge, in Religion Brother Ambrosius, sometime monk in this
Benedictine House, may be chosen to illustrate the Rule, as it was
practiced in the fifteenth century, just before the Dissolution.
Hugh de Steyninge was the younger son of a knightly house; the family
originally, as the name shows, held lands in Steyninge, east of
Chichester; at the time of his father’s death--he was killed fighting
for the Red Rose at Tewkesbury--there was still a small estate in
Sussex, to which the eldest son succeeded; the second son was sent to
London, where he was articled to Sir Ralph Jocelyne, Draper, Lord Mayor
in the year 1476. (This son afterward rose to be Sheriff, and would have
been Mayor, but that he died of the sweating sickness.) A third son went
abroad and entered the service of the Duke of Tuscany. What became of
him is not known. Hugh, the youngest, for whom there seemed nothing but
the poor lot of becoming bailiff or steward to his brother, was so
fortunate as to receive admission to the most wealthy Monastery in the
kingdom. He was thus assured of an easy life, with the chance of rising,
should he show ability, to a position of very considerable dignity and
authority.
It was now extremely difficult to enter one of the richer Abbeys; a lad
of humble origin had no chance of admission. Sometimes Founders’ or
Benefactors’ kin possessed the right of nomination; sometimes admission
was bought by money or the gift of land; sometimes it was obtained by
the private interest of some great man.
At this time, however,--about the year 1472,--the monastic life, owing
to many causes, had lost some of its attractions. First, there was going
on a long and
[Illustration: HABIT OF A NOVICE OF THE ORDER OF ST. BENEDICT.]
exhausting civil war, in which many noble houses were doomed to
destruction, and the flower of English youth had to perish. Men had
become too valuable to be shut up in a cloister. Again, the spread of
Lollard opinions made all classes of people question the advantages of
the monastic life. Thirdly, the wars had greatly damaged the value of
the monastic property, so that an Abbey no longer supported so many
monks as formerly. Thus the number of monks decreased steadily. At
Westminster there had been eighty; before the Dissolution this number
sank below thirty; at Canterbury a hundred and fifty became fifty-four;
at Gloucester a hundred went down to thirty-six. Probably those who
remained had no desire to return to the former and longer roll, which
would involve a diminution in the splendor of their establishment. We
must remember that the external splendor of the Abbey, which does not
necessarily involve luxury and gluttony, was a thing always greatly
regarded by the Brethren: it magnified the Order; it glorified the
religious life. Even the most ascetic desired a splendid service, rich
robes, vessels of gold and silver, gorgeous tapers, a fine organ, a
well-trained choir of glorious voices, troops of servants, and stately
buildings. So that this remarkable diminution of numbers may have been
due, in some measure, to the increase of this kind of luxury.
However, there is no doubt that when little Hugh de Steyninge was
admitted to the Abbey of St. Peter the House was at its highest point of
splendor. It was the richest of all the English Houses; its manors had
partly recovered from the losses caused by the civil wars; the Abbot was
greater than any bishop; he lived in a palace; he entertained kings. The
Brethren were surrounded by lay brothers and servants; the early
austerities of the Rule had long been relaxed; the buildings of the
Abbey, Church, Cloisters, Chapter House were more stately than those of
any other House; the situation, close to the Palace and within easy
reach of the Port and Markets of London, was most desirable. Nobody
asked the boy if he would like to be a monk; nobody in those days ever
consulted boys on such subjects; the child was told that he would be a
monk, and he obeyed.
They offered little Hugh in the Church as a Novice. First they cut his
long curls round, offering the hair to the Abbey, an act which
symbolized something, but I know not what--only a Brother learned in the
Rule could interpret all the symbols in the ritual; he was then,
carrying in his hand the host and chalice, presented to the priest at
the altar. The parents, or their representative, then wrapped the boy’s
hands in the pall of the altar, and read a written promise that they
would not induce him to leave the Monastery or the Order. After this the
Abbot consecrated a hood for the boy and laid it upon him. He was then
taken out, shaved after the fashion of the Order, robed and brought
back, when he was received with prayers. This done, he was a Novice, and
was supposed to belong to the House for life, provided he entered upon
full vows in due course.
It took many years to make a perfect monk. The rules under which Hugh
was now brought up were more voluminous than those of the Talmudic Law.
Long hours of silence, sitting with eyes downcast, never being left
alone, allowed to play only once a day; the performance of every action,
even to the lifting of a cup to the lips, to be done according to the
Rule; the separation of the boys from each other,--all these minute
regulations, all these vexatious and petty precautions, learned after
frequent floggings, and fully observed only after the habit of long
years, gradually transformed the boy from possible manhood to certain
monkhood. Gradually the old free look vanished; he
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO CHAPTER HOUSE.]
[Illustration: WALL OF THE REFECTORY, FROM ASHBURNHAM HOUSE.]
became silent, timid, obedient. The House was all his world; the things
of the House were the only things of importance in the whole world. He
was not cruelly treated; on the contrary, he was most kindly
treated--well fed, well clothed, well cared for. He quickly understood,
as children do, that these things, so irksome at first, were necessary;
that all the elders, even the Abbot and the Prior, had gone through the
same discipline. All the time the boy’s education in other things
besides the Rule was going on. He was taught a great deal--grammar, for
instance, logic, Latin, philosophy, writing and illuminating, music,
singing, the history of the Order. The Benedictines always rejoiced in
a liberal education. The schoolhouse was the west cloister. Here, the
arches being glazed, desks were placed one behind the other, and the
boys sat in this single file, with their books before them. There were
rules of silence, rules of talking French only, rules how to sit, how to
carry the hands, rules here and rules there, regulations everywhere. If
they had all been enforced, imbecility must have followed. As Hugh did
not become imbecile, the regulations were certainly interpreted in a
kindly spirit. The Brethren, for instance, except the teachers, were not
allowed to converse with the boys; but we may be very certain that they
did converse with them, and that they were kind to them, because St.
Benedict could never wish to drive out of human nature that best part of
it which prompts man to be tender toward the young. What happened to
Hugh was that he acquired, little by little, the habit of living
according to Rule, that by continual iteration he gradually learned the
whole of the Litanies and Psalms, and that he obtained, before he became
a full monk, some knowledge of the various branches of learning in which
he had been grounded at his desk in the west cloister.
I pass over the ceremony of Profession. To give it in detail would take
up too much space; to quote extracts might convey a false impression.
Let it suffice that nothing was wanting to make the ceremony the most
solemn occasion possible. It is true that children were brought to the
Abbey quite young and without regard to vocation, but might not the
practice be defended on the grounds (1) that nothing, from the mediæval
point of view, could be better for a man than the Benedictine Rule, so
that everyone, even though he might yearn for the outer world, ought to
be grateful for this seclusion; and (2) that by the long years of
preparation and education, the calling to Religion, which ought to be in
every mind, was cultivated and developed? And really, when we consider
how many of our own clergy are in the same way set apart from youth,
without question as to their vocation, we need not throw stones at the
mediæval Benedictines.
[Illustration: THE ABBOT’S DINING HALL AT WESTMINSTER; NOW USED AS THE
DINING ROOM OF THE SCHOOL.]
Hugh, therefore, at the age of eighteen made his profession and became
Brother Ambrosius, a Junior in the House. His was the duty of reading
the Gospel and the Epistle; he carried a taper in processions; he read
the martyrology in the Chapter. And he now entered upon the daily round,
which was to continue until the end of his life or till old age demanded
indulgence.
It consisted mainly of services. They began at two in the morning with
Matins. These finished, the choir went back to bed; the rest remained to
sing Lauds for the dead. They then went to bed again until daybreak or
five in the morning, when they rose for Prime; at 7 A.M. there followed
Compline; at 9 A.M. there was Tierce; at 11 A.M. there was Sext; Nones
were held at 2 P.M., and Vespers at 6 P.M. There were thus eight stated
services, requiring certainly as much as eight hours out of the
twenty-four. They went to bed at 8 P.M., getting six hours of sleep
before Matins, and two or three after Lauds. This accounts for sixteen
hours. Then there was the daily gathering in the Chapter House, taking
perhaps one hour. This leaves only seven hours for meals, rest, and
work. We are told that a Benedictine House was to be self-supporting as
far as possible; everything wanted by the Brethren was to be made in the
place, if possible; every Brother was to be working when he was not in
the Church, in the Refectory, or in the Dormitory. We know that there
have been many learned works produced by Benedictines. Not, as I
understand it, that learning or art or handicraft was ordered by the
Founder, save as a means of keeping the hands of the Brethren out of
mischief. Dean Stanley wonders mildly why, in the long history of
Westminster Abbey, there was found no scholar in the Brotherhood, and
there was produced no learned work. One would rather be surprised if
any good work had been produced; nor can we readily believe that good
work could be produced by men wearied by seventeen hours of services and
ceremonies.[3]
[Illustration: TOWEL AUMBRIES IN THE SOUTH WALK.]
The situation of St. Peter’s exposed the younger Brethren to temptations
from which the monks of such retired spots as Glastonbury, Tintern, or
Fountains were happily free. These temptations assail the young Brother
Ambrosius with great violence during the earlier years of his
profession. It was, indeed, on account of these temptations that he was
more than once, in the Chapter House, flogged in the presence of the
whole fraternity. Eight years of drill and discipline, although they
made him a monk, had yet left in him the possibility of becoming a man.
Consider the dangers of the situation for a young man. On the other side
of the wall which formed the eastern boundary of the Abbey was the
Palace, the court and camp of the King, a place filled with noisy,
racketing, even uproarious life. There were taverns without the Palace
precincts where the noise of singing never ceased. There was the
clashing of weapons; there were the profane oaths of the soldiers; there
was the blare of trumpets; there were the pipe and tabor of the
minstrels and the jesters; the monks in their cloister, which should
have been so quiet, could never escape the clamor of the barrack. The
world, in fact, was always with these good monks--they could not escape
it; invisible, but audible, the temptations of the world, the flesh, and
the devil were continually presented to them through the medium of ears
unwilling, yet constrained, to hear. Only a low wall between a world of
action and the world of prayer; between a world rushing headlong down
the flowery path, gathering roses with both hands, committing sins all
day long, heedless of repentance, and a world of Rule, where even the
holy brethren had to step heedfully along the narrow walk prescribed by
the wisdom or the inspiration of St. Benedict.
In the cloisters the Brother Ambrosius sat before his books, eyes
down-dropped. What did he read on the illuminated page? I know not; what
he heard--and it filled his heart with yearnings indescribable--was the
sound of pipe and tabor, the merry squeak of crowd, and the jangled
bells of tambourine; was the lusty song trolled out by soldier; and--ah,
Heaven!
[Illustration: CHAPEL OF THE PYX.]
why is everything that the natural man longs for sinful?--the singing,
like the voice of a bird for silver sweetness--it sank into the soul,
and blurred the page of the Psalter, and made him giddy--the singing to
the tinkling of the mandolin--the singing of girls. All that life, that
worldly life, the life of those who feasted and drank, sang, made love,
and died on the battlefield, going headlong--there was no doubt
whither--might be heard all day long in the cloister of the Abbey. Did
no young man ever leap to his feet, tear off hood, gown, and robe, and
rush out of the Abbey gate (that which led into King Street), and so
into the outer life, there to wallow in the transitory joys of this
sinful world?
There are no chronicles of the House left to tell if this lamentable
lapse ever happened. So, on the other side, did the chanting of the
monks, the rolling of the organ, awaken no thought of repentance in the
rude soldiers? We know not; for, again, no chronicles survive of the men
who followed the King and had bouche of Court. In the course of time
even these temptations ceased to assail the young monk. Brother
Ambrosius became like his brethren; he mechanically chanted the Psalms
and the responses; his chief joy was in Refectory; he sat in the
cloisters and whispered the small talk of the day; he went to
Misericorde for indulgence permitted; as for scholarship, he had no turn
for it. His whole life was worked out according to formula and by
repetition. Just as the laborer goes forth every day with his spade for
twelve hours’ digging without a murmur or any discontent, so did Brother
Ambrosius every morning rise at two to begin the many hours spent in the
services of the day. They were his work. And for the ordinary monk, of
no more than average intellect, it was quite enough work for the day.
Brother Ambrosius was never advanced to any post of honor or dignity in
the House. A certain rusticity, perhaps a certain dullness produced by
the discipline acting on a mind of only ordinary intelligence, prevented
his advance. But he presently became not only learned in the minor
points of the Rule, but also a great stickler for forms. He knew
everything: the exact time and manner of changing clothes, putting on
shoes, taking knife in hand, lifting the cup to drink, holding the hands
in the Chapter, and other important points. He knew them all: he watched
his Brethren; he insisted on observance; he was so jealous for these
things that the Sub-Prior once rebuked him, saying that the Rule must be
obeyed indeed, but that he who thinks too much of his brothers’
obedience in small things is apt to forget his own obedience in great
things.
Perhaps this Brother at one time may have entertained ambitions. There
were many offices of honor in the House. Might not he, too, aspire to
rise? Who would not wish to be an Abbot, and especially a mitered Abbot?
Besides ruling the House and the Brethren, the mitered Abbot had the
rank of a peer; he rode abroad, hawk in hand, his mule equipped with
cloth of gold, followed by a retinue of a hundred persons; he created
knights; he could coin money; he received the children of noble families
among his pages; he administered enormous estates. Or, if he could not
be Abbot, he might be Prior. The privileges and duties and powers of the
Prior are bewildering to read: to go first after the Abbot; to sit in a
certain stall; to put on his hood before the others,--in the
[Illustration: DOOR TO THE CHAPEL OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR; NOW PYX
OFFICE.]
cloister as well as out, precedence was the chief thing sought. Or there
was the office of Sub-Prior, who sat among the monks at meat, said
grace, saw that everyone behaved properly, and, at five o’clock in the
evening, shut up the House.
There were next the offices of administration. The importance of the
Altarer could not be denied. He had the care of refectory, kitchen, and
cellar. The interest naturally taken in the proper administration of
kitchen and cellar caused the officer exemption from at least half the
daily services. There was the Precentor (_cantor_), a functionary who
knew the exact order of everything in church, refectory, cloister, and
dormitory. He was the Director of Ceremonies; so complicated were the
rules, so exact and minute were the prescribed ceremonies, robes, and
gestures, that no one except those who had been brought up from
childhood in the House could hope to learn or to remember them all.
There were, besides, the Kitchener, who ordered and arranged the food,
and looked after the sick in the infirmary; the Seneschal, who was a
kind of bailiff and held the courts; the Bursar, who received the rents
and paid the bills and the wages; the Sacrist, who had charge of the
Church plate and vestments and candles, and, with the Sub-Sacrist, slept
in the church; the Almoner, who did a great deal more than administer
alms, for he provided the mats and the rushes for the cloister, chapter
house, and dormitory; he distributed broken victuals to the poor, and he
was to seek out cases deserving of help and relief in the town or
nearest villages--_e. g._, St. Thomas’ Hospital was originally the
almonry of Bermondsey Abbey, and it was in the town of Southwark that
the Almoner sought for deserving cases. Next, there was the Master of
the Novices. There were other offices, but these were chiefly held by
lay brothers and by servants, of whom, in Westminster Abbey, there were
some two hundred, following every conceivable trade that was wanted for
the maintenance of the Abbey.[4]
Brother Ambrosius held no office, and presently lost whatever ambitions
he might have had. But the life, which seems to us so monotonous, was to
him full of variety. There was always something to expect, just as
children are always looking forward to holidays, to a birthday, to a
change. For instance, here are some of the incidents which saved him
from falling into lethargy. On certain days the Brethren shaved each
other in the cloister. On an appointed day, two days before Christmas,
the whole Brotherhood bathed. On Christmas Day there were rules about
combing the hair. At the same season they celebrated the Office of the
Shepherds, acted by boys for the angels and the Brethren for the
shepherds. They also enacted a Feast of Asses, for which there was to be
prepared a furnace made of cotton and linen ready to be fired; there was
a procession of prophets, including Balaam on his ass, the angel
represented by one of the boys. This drama finished with the appearance
of Nebuchadnezzar with an idol: three youths were called upon to worship
the idol; they refused and were instantly thrown upon the lighted
furnace, and as instantly taken out again by a supposed miracle. At
this
[Illustration: TREASURE CHEST IN THE CHAPEL OF PYX, USED IN THE
TRANSPORTATION OF THE KING’S EXCHEQUER.]
juncture the Sibyl appeared, but her reason for joining in the drama is
not apparent.
At this season there was also the Liberty of December, with its Feast of
Fools, the Abbot of Fools, the burlesque services, the bawling,
drinking, and misrule permitted at that season.
On the Epiphany they performed another miracle-play called the Office of
the Three Kings. Another Feast of Asses represented the Flight into
Egypt. On Shrove Tuesday there was feasting. At Easter there was a
succession of offices, plays, shows, and processions. At Whitsuntide the
Descent of the Holy Spirit was represented by the flight of a white
pigeon.
This multiplication of rules, this attention to trifles, these childish
diversions, prove, if any proof were wanted, the deadly dullness of the
monastic life, unless it was lit up by spiritual fervor. The ordinary
mind cannot dwell continually upon things spiritual, yet it must be
occupied with something; therefore, when the monks were not engaged in
services or in the Refectory, although they were ordered to work at some
bodily or intellectual pursuit, most of them occupied themselves with
trifles; they amused themselves with childish shows; they admonished and
corrected each other with boyish discipline. We need not ask why
Westminster produced no great scholars: it was not the real business of
the Abbey to produce scholars, but to sanctify the life of the monk, and
to sing so many services a day for the good of the Brethren first and of
those outside afterward. Now comes the question, How much of the Rule
was obeyed in the latter days, just before the Dissolution? The
discipline varied from House to House. It is very certain that the
Carthusian Rule was strictly observed at the Charter House, and that
[Illustration: A PILLAR NOW STANDING IN MR. THYNNE’S GARDEN AND FORMING
PART OF THE RUINED CHAPEL OF ST. CATHERINE.]
the Benedictine Rule was observed with laxity at the Priory of the Holy
Trinity. Chaucer’s jolly monk has horses in the stable; he can go abroad
as he pleases; he is not dressed as a monk. Again, there is one of the
stories concerning Long Meg of Westminster which seems to show that the
monks went about in the taverns outside the Abbey. Yet the holding of
certain offices gave permission to go outside the Abbey.
[Illustration: JERUSALEM CHAMBER, ABBOT’S RESIDENCE, WESTMINSTER.]
There is every kind of evidence to prove that luxury and pride and
laziness had become a common charge against the monks long before the
Dissolution. Was there a voice or a hand raised in London or Westminster
to save the Houses? Why, had there been even a small minority in London
by whom the Houses were respected, Henry had not dared to touch them. He
beheaded those who opposed his will. True, the great nobles he beheaded,
but not the crowd, who, had they cared for the Houses, could have
defended them against all the power of the King. But the scanty memoir
of Hugh de Steyninge, which has been collected painfully from various
sources, does not enable me to state with any exactness how far the Rule
was still observed.
There exists no portrait of this, or any other, Brother. He lived in the
Abbey, whose walls he never left till he died, full of years, and with
the reputation of having been a good monk. He was buried in the cemetery
close to St. Margaret’s Church, with his brethren of a thousand years:
of them, and of their works, the name and the memory have long since
perished. Although no portrait remains of Hugh, in Religion Brother
Ambrosius, we can discern his face after the manner of the photographer
who produces a type by superposition. There are thirty generations of
Westminster monks passing in procession before us. Here and there one
perceives the keen eye and the aquiline nose of the administrator. Such
a brother will become Abbot in due course. One observes here and there
the face of a scholar: such a brother is moody and irritable; he cannot,
even after forty years, reconcile himself to the wearisome iteration of
services. Here and there one observes an ascetic, thin, pale,
fiery-eyed; here and there the face of a saint--the kind of face which
you may see on the marble tomb of Westminster’s greatest and noblest
Dean. The rest are like our friend Hugh de Steyninge: they are dull and
heavy-eyed; their faces express the narrowness of their lives; they are
not alert, like other men; they have no craft or guile in their eyes; in
worldly things they are ignorant; you have only to look at them to
discover this. But Hugh de Steyninge never became a hypocrite, nor was
he ever a sensualist; at the worst
[Illustration: ABBOT’S PEW (SHOWING THE MEDALLION OF CONGREVE BELOW).]
he was a man checked in his growth, stunted in mind, ignorant, incapable
of the finer emotions because he was thus stunted; an imperfect man
because he was cut off from the things which made the real man in the
Palace Yard beyond the wall: viz., the dangers and perils and chances
of life; the struggle for life; the natural affections; the madness of
battle, victory or defeat. What compensation could there be for a life
so stunted? Alas! poor Hugh! One of his brothers, I believe, was killed
in battle, and another was hanged for alleged conspiracy; he was quite
safe all his life, his eternal future even was assured. And yet--yet----
Besides, there are sins in the cloister as well as without. No man, even
among the Trappists, can escape from himself, from the wanderings of his
thoughts, from his instincts and his heredities. He has buried the half
of himself--is it the nobler part? For the other half, besetting devils
still contend.
Some of us can remember how under the old system at Cambridge the Senior
Fellows remained in College all their lives, their interests centered in
the Society, dining in hall every day, sitting over the College port in
Combination Room every day. Few among the Seniors, as one remembers
them, were any longer capable of intellectual work; they had never had
any ambitions; they played bowls in the garden; they walked every day
the customary round; they were in Orders; they were regular at chapel,
and they led decorous lives; when they grew very old they fell into the
hands of their bedmaker. Of other women they knew little. Such as were
these aged dons, so were, I believe, the monks of Westminster,--dull and
respectable, decorous, obedient to so much of the Rule as they could not
escape, and stupid and ignorant,--since they had been locked up within
those walls from childhood. Just as those old dons had long since lost
any enthusiasm for learning which might once have possessed them, so our
friend Hugh de Steyninge, plodding through the monotonous days, with the
iteration of the same services till he knew every line by heart, had
long ceased to connect their words with any meaning.
[Illustration: A. SQUARE WINDOW (NOW WALLED UP), USED BY THE ABBOT TO
MAINTAIN SURVEILLANCE OF THE MONKS AT NIGHT.]
There is one exception to the general charge of worldliness and luxury.
It is an officer--rather a resident--of the Abbey concerning whom
historians are mostly silent. Of him alone it can be said that he was
most certainly neither luxurious nor sensual nor a hypocrite. This man
was the Solitary, the Recluse, the Anchorite or Ankret, of the Abbey.
The Ankret must not be confused with the Hermit, who was another variety
of the Recluse. The latter chose his own place of residence: sometimes
it was a cave, sometimes a hollow tree, sometimes a cell on or near a
bridge, sometimes a wood; he was a law to himself; he owed obedience to
no one; all he had to do was to impress the people with the belief that
he was a real hermit in order to live by their charity. The Ankret, on
the other hand, was set apart and consecrated by a solemn service; there
was generally one at least attached to every great religious House,
there was an Ankret or an Ankress belonging to many parish churches. On
the other hand, no church was allowed the distinction of a Recluse
without the special permission of the Bishop. Thus in 1361 the Bishop
granted permission to the parish church of Whalley to maintain two
Ankresses in the churchyard, with two women as their servants, on an
endowment provided by Henry, Duke of Lancaster. These two Ankresses were
apparently immured in their cells, the attendants bringing them their
food. In many cases the Ankress slept in the church, which she swept and
kept clean. This office might appear desirable for many a poor woman,
and probably such an Ankress was never wanting. But to be actually
immured; to sit for the rest of life in a narrow cell with a narrow
grating for light and air and conversation; without fire or candle;
alone day and night, in good or bad weather, without hearing a voice or
speaking with anyone; unwashed, uncombed, in rags and cold and
misery--this could never come to be regarded as a trade or calling by
which to make one’s livelihood. Of the Ankret’s sincerity we can
scarcely entertain a doubt.
[Illustration: MONK OF THE ORDER OF ST. BENEDICT.]
The following extracts from an unpublished chronicle by a nameless
Brother may illustrate the Service of Consecration of an Ankret. The
date appears to have been about the beginning of the reign of Henry IV.
It will be observed that the practice of whispering or singing news,
gossip, and scandal instead of the appointed Psalms was practiced at
Westminster.
“After the singing of Mattins, on the morning of St. Thomas’ or Mumping
Day, when the Brethren began the Lauds for the Dead, it was whispered
abroad that the Abbey Ankret was dead at last. Brother Innocent, my
neighbour on the right, sang the news in my ear when we turned to the
Altar for the _Gloria_: ‘Dead is our holy Ankret; he is dead; he died at
midnight; the Abbot confessed him; he is dead.’ I for my part in like
manner transmitted the news to Brother Franciscus. In this manner,
though by our Rule it is a sin, do we lighten the labour of chanting and
keep off the sleep which is sometimes ready to fall upon us.
“We knew that his time had come: he had reached the extremity of age
allowed to man--even, it was said, his hundredth year. For sixty years
he had been immured. Those who conversed with him--but of late his
discourse was wild--saw through an iron grating a long, bent figure,
with white hair and white beard reaching to his waist. His face was like
the face of some corpse which had escaped corruption--so thin, so white,
so sunken it was; but for the gleaming of his eyes one would have
thought him the figure of Death as he is painted in the cloister of
Paul’s. He was reckoned a very holy person; the Brothers were justly
proud of having an Ankret of such reputation for saintliness. Formerly,
it was said, he would recount engagements with Devils, such as those
which happened to St. Dunstan, our Founder, when he was a recluse at
Glastonbury, or those which happened to St. Anthony; but of late, the
Devils being routed, he was left to his meditations, and his discourse
consisted of pious ejaculations, some of which have been written down by
the Cancellarius; and for the last year or two, his soul being rapt, his
voice spoke only words uncertain. King Richard himself, that noble
benefactor of the House, thought it not beneath his dignity to take
counsel with the Ankret before he went forth to stay the rebellion. I
know not what the holy man told the young king, but all men know how the
leader was killed and the rebels were scattered. Like the renowned
Mother Julian of Norwich, our Ankret brought honour and offerings to the
House.
“Now he was dead. After daybreak, when we met in the Common Room, the
air in the Cloisters being eager and cold, we whispered each other, ‘How
shall we bury him? With what honours? Will he work a miracle? Shall the
House obtain at length a saint for itself? If so, those of St. Albans
and those of the Holy Trinity of London will not hold up their heads
beside us. And who--if any--who will succeed him?’ And at this question
we hung our heads and dropped our eyes, and murmured, ‘Nay, if one were
worthy; but these vows are too much for me.’ Yet there must be found
someone, because an Abbey without an Ankret is like a ship without a
rudder. We Monks pray for the world; the Ankret prays for the Monks.
Unless we know that all night long the Ankret in his cell is praying for
the House and ourselves, who can sleep upon his bed?
“The anxiety was speedily set at rest; for it became
[Illustration: ABBOT ISLIP’S CHAPEL.]
known that one of the Brotherhood--a most unusual circumstance--the
Sub-Prior--Heavens! nothing less than the Sub-Prior, who might
reasonably expect to be Prior, and even Abbot!--had humbly offered
himself to the Abbot for this living sacrifice. Yet, when we considered
the matter, it seemed neither wonderful nor unexpected. The
Sub-Prior--Humphrey of Lambhythe--was always a silent man and zealous in
his duties. As one of the monitors he had been thought too zealous, and
many a Brother could show upon his back the marks of the zeal which had
placed him on the culprit’s bench in Chapter. The Sub-Prior! Perhaps he
would be more free to carry on his austerities in the Ankret’s cell: he
cared nothing for the Refectory, and his drink was only water. Heaven
would doubtless reward him, and perhaps would grant to the Brothers of
lower saintliness a milder Sub-Prior. In this life compassion and
indulgence are more desirable than the strict investigation of every
little sin.
“That night the Sub-Prior spent alone in the Abbey Church, after
confessing to the Abbot and receiving absolution from him. In the
morning we set him apart and consecrated him according to the Order
prescribed. And the manner of his consecration was as follows:
“The Sub-Prior, being a priest, was taken into the choir, where he
prostrated himself with bare feet. The Abbot and three of the Brethren
who were priests having taken their places, the Cantor began the service
with the Responsory, ‘_Beati in melius_,’ after which the Abbot and
assistants before the altar sang with the choir certain Psalms, fourteen
in number. After the Psalms followed a Litany, the choir singing after
each clause, ‘_Ora pro eo_.’ The Litany finished, the Abbot advanced
toward the prostrate brother bearing a
[Illustration: THE WESTMINSTER SCHOOLROOM, FORMERLY THE ABBOT’S
DORMITORY.]
crucifix, a thurible, and holy water, and, standing over him, he thrice
sprinkled him with water, censed him, and prayed over him. The Abbot
then raised the candidate with his own hands, and gave him two lighted
tapers, at the same time admonishing him to remain steadfast in the
love of God. Then the candidate, standing, listened to the Deacon, who
read first from the Prophet Isaiah, next the Gospel according to Saint
Luke, as on the Festival of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. After
this the new garments which he was to put on were blessed. The candidate
then took the vows, which were three only, and those the same as the
vows at profession--viz., of chastity, of obedience, and of
steadfastness.
“The candidate next kneeled at the altar, and, kissing it three times,
repeated each time the words ‘_Suscipe me, Domine_,’ etc., the choir
responding. This done, he offered the two tapers at the Altar, and again
kneeled while the Abbot removed his monastic frock and clothed him with
the garments newly blessed. Then followed a service of prayer. It was
the _Veni Creator_, with the _Pater-noster_ and ‘_Et ne nos_.’ The Abbot
then, standing on the north side of the Altar, preached to the Brethren
and to the congregation assembled, commending the new Recluse to their
prayers. The candidate then himself sang the Mass of the Holy Ghost.
“We had now completed that part of the consecration which takes place in
the church. The Abbot then took the new Recluse by the hand, and led him
down the nave of the church, followed by the choir and all the Brethren
unto the little door leading into the West Cloister. The church was
filled with people to see the sight. A new Recluse is not seen every
day. There were the _domicellæ_, the maidens of the Queen, come from the
Palace; there were knights and pages, and even men-at-arms; there were
Sanctuary men, women, and children; men with hawks upon their wrists;
men with dogs; merchants from the wool staple; girls of
[Illustration: TOMBS OF VITALIS, GERASMUS DE BLOIS, AND CRISPINUS,
ABBOTS OF WESTMINSTER.]
wanton looks from the streets and taverns beyond the walls. The hawks
jangled their bells, the dogs barked, the women chattered, the men
talked loudly; the girls looked at the Brothers as they passed, and
whispered and laughed; and I heard one Brother say to another that this
was a thing which would make the Sub-Prior return to the Monastery an
he saw it. And all alike craned their necks to see the man who was going
to be shut up in a narrow cell for the rest of his days.
[Illustration: TALLY FOR 6_s._ 8_d._ ISSUED BY TREASURER TO KING EDWARD
I. TO THE SHERIFF OF LINCOLNSHIRE ABOUT 1290.]
“The Ankret’s cell is on the south side of the Infirmary Cloister. It is
built of stone, being twelve feet long, eight feet broad, and with an
arched roof about ten feet high. On the side of the church there is a
narrow opening by which the occupant can hear mass and can see the
Elevation in the Chapel of St. Catherine. On the other side is a grating
by which he can receive his food and converse with the world. But it is
too high up for him to see out of it; therefore he has nothing to look
upon but the walls of his cell. This morning the west side had been
broken down in order to remove the body of the dead man and to cleanse
the cell for the newcomer. So, while we gathered round in a circle and
the people stood behind us, the Abbot entered the cell, and censed it,
and sprinkled it with holy water, singing more Psalms and more prayers.
When he came forth the Recluse himself entered, saying aloud: ‘_Hæc
Requies mea in seculum seculi_.’ The choir sang another Psalm. Then the
Abbot sprinkled dust upon the head of the Recluse with the words
beginning ‘_De terra plasmasti_.’
“This done, the _Operarius cum suis operariis_ replaced the stones and
built up the wall anew. And then, singing another Psalm, we all went
back to the cloister, leaving the Sub-Prior to begin his lifelong
imprisonment. A stone bench for bed; his frock for blanket; a crucifix,
and no other furniture. In the cold nights that followed, lying in my
bed in dormitory, I often bethought myself of the former Sub-Prior alone
in his dark cell, with Devils whispering temptation through the
grating,--Devils always assail every new Recluse,--well-nigh frozen,
praying with trembling lips and chattering teeth. No, I am not worthy.
Such things are too high for me.
“But the new Sub-Prior proved to possess a heart full of compassion, and
the House had rest for many years to come.”
NOTE (_in another hand_): “This Recluse, formerly Humphrey of Lambhythe,
surpassed in sanctity even his predecessor. It was to him that Henry V.
repaired after the death of his father, as is thus recorded by Thomas of
Elmham: ‘The day of the funeral having been spent in weeping and
lamentation, when the shades of night had fallen upon the face of the
earth, the tearful Prince, taking advantage of the darkness, secretly
repaired to the Recluse of Westminster, a man of perfect life, and
unfolding to him the secret of his whole life, being washed in the bath
of true penitence, received against the poison of his sins the antidote
of absolution. Thus, having put off the cloak of iniquity, he returned
decently garbed in the mantle of virtue.’”