MONASTIC DIET
One of the commonest and cheapest ways of abusing the religious, and
bringing monastic life into contempt, has always been to depict the
monk, and sometimes the nun, as usually given up to extravagant living
in the satisfying of the appetite for food and drink. The coarse ballad
of older times flung such charges broadcast, and today the tenors and
basses of high-class concerts continue to sustain popular delusions by
songs of “Simon the Cellarer” stamp. Moreover, the modern poster and
smaller advertisements appear to think that nothing tends so much to
increase the sale of wines and spirits as the often cleverly rendered
pictures of jovial monks tippling beer or sampling vintages amid
impossible surroundings.
The Devil, naturally enough, was ever ready specially to tempt the
monk, vowed to a limited dietary, to gluttony and drunkenness, and to
do his work on insidious and gradual lines. Now and again, in some
very rare cases, he succeeded; and occasionally a corrupt superior
infected for a time his flock until sharply pulled up by a visitation.
Such cases, though severely punished, could seldom be kept secret, and
the worldling, whose own conduct was rebuked by the generally high
level of the religious life, took an evil pleasure in retailing and
exaggerating the news. But on the whole, in days when there was much
proneness to coarse sins even among those of high position, the vowed
religious of England led exemplary lives, and occupied a decidedly
higher plane than the secular clergy. We do not take the rest of our
history from scurrilous writers of either prose or verse; the student
who attempted to do this would be laughed out of court; it is merely
the innate and perpetual hatred of the world for Christ that has made
many an historian, or writer of historical sketches, so ready to turn
aside from any patient study of the lives of those who tried specially
to deny themselves for the Master’s sake, and to accept cynical sneers
in the place of sober facts.
Perhaps a few plain statements with regard to the eating and drinking
of England’s religious may tend to dispel views that are far too common
even among those who have no desire unfairly to belittle the cloistered
life. A diet roll for the year 1492 that has been printed _in extenso_,
and was fully analysed by Dean Kitchin, yields interesting results
as to the fare at a large Benedictine house in the days when they
certainly fared better than in earlier periods. On Monday before
Christmas Day there were placed on the refectory tables of St.
Swithun’s for general consumption at the two meals, dishes of moile
made from marrow and grated bread, tripe, beef, mutton, calves-feet,
and 170 eggs. The cost of this food was 8_s._ 4_d._, or about £4 of our
money. On Christmas Day the fare was only a very little better, and
cost 9_s._ 6_d._; the dishes were seasoned vegetables, tripe, brose
or bread soaked in dripping, beef, mutton, and stew or onion broth.
On days of strict fast their fare that year was salt fish, relieved
by dried figs or raisins as an extra, and mustard. “The charge for
mustard, 1½_d._,” says Dean Kitchin, “runs through all the fast days;
it would appear that during the time of a meagre indigestible fish diet
the brethren needed something to warm and stay their poor stomachs.”
One or two remarks are necessary for the due understanding of
Benedictine diet-rolls, of which several are extant besides those of
Winchester. Although there were a variety of dishes, it was usual, save
on feast days, for the monk to partake of only one dish, though the
old as well as those in the infirmary were often allowed a pittance,
or something extra. The general method of serving was for two dishes
to be handed to or placed in reach of each; “if anyone cannot eat of
one dish let him eat of the other, if of neither they shall bring him
something else so long as it is not a delicacy.” The great quantity of
eggs used--eggs not being permitted as an addition to but instead of
meat--seems to prove that even in the somewhat easy-going house of
St. Swithun, towards the end of its days, the large majority of the
professed monks did not follow a flesh dietary but only those who were
dispensed. No. 39 of the old Benedictine rule strictly forbade flesh of
quadrupeds or of birds except to those who were genuinely weak or ill
(_omnino debiles et egrotes_); but this rule was afterwards relaxed by
general councils of the order.
A homely touch occurs in the refectory custumal of the monks of St.
Swithun’s, Winchester. The convent gardener had to find apples as
a slight relief to the severe fare of Advent and Lent on Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Fridays, save when some festival intervened. The
apples were distributed in numerical accordance, with due gradation,
to the monks in official position. It is to be hoped that they were
permitted to distribute the fruit within or without the house! The
prior, if present, had fifteen of the apples, the second prior ten, the
third prior eight, and so on with the rest of the obedientiaries or
officials. In recognition of his trouble in this respect the gardener
was to receive a conventual loaf on the first and last days of each of
these festivals.
In the same house cheese was provided daily in the refectory both at
dinner and supper, from Easter until Lent began. Butter was supplied
after a very limited fashion, namely on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and
that only from May 1st to September 14th.
The three reformed congregations of Benedictines, Carthusians,
Cluniacs, and Cistercians, all made a point of more rigid observance of
the dietary rule. The Carthusians adhered to the absolute and perpetual
refusal of every kind of flesh-meat right up to the dissolution; for
them it was never lawful even in times of the gravest illness. The
Cistercians, whose abbeys were so frequent throughout England, were in
the first instance rigid in prohibiting flesh save in the infirmary.
Their strictness in this respect in England for some time after their
establishment is well illustrated by the following fact. In June
1246, the new conventual buildings of the great Hampshire monastery
of Beaulieu were dedicated by the Bishop of Winchester at a function
which was attended by the King and Queen and by a large assembly of the
magnates of the realm. At the next visitation both prior and cellarer
were deposed from their offices because, even on a supreme occasion
of this kind, they had broken the rule by serving secular visitors
with flesh in the refectory. Early in the fifteenth century power to
dispense from this rule was granted for a time to Cistercian superiors;
but this worked badly, and in 1485 those who desired it (even if well
in health) might have meat three days in the week--namely, Sundays,
Tuesdays, and Thursdays, provided they took it in a separate chamber
built for the purpose, usually termed the _misericorde_, and not in the
refectory or fratry.
By some it was pleaded that the greater coldness of England, as
compared with the rest of Christendom, demanded a better diet; but
this notion did not commend itself to Gilbert of Sempringham, the
devout and yet very practical English founder of the essentially
English order that bore his name. In the guest-houses of the Gilbertine
foundations the canons were prohibited from ever eating or drinking
with their guests, unless it was an Archbishop or Bishop; and as it was
lawful to give obedience to a Bishop, if such a guest invited a canon
to eat or drink, he might do so once or twice to avoid discourtesy.
But even in the guest-houses no flesh was on any account to be served
save for an Archbishop, Bishop, or Papal Legate, or in the case of
real sickness. Supposing a Bishop required it, Gilbert laid down that
none of his canons or lay-brothers were to prepare the meat, but the
prelate’s own attendants, “for,” he adds, “in our houses nothing of the
nature of flesh or blood ought ever to be eaten save by the sick, nor
within the walls of the granges save by the sick and hired labourers.”
The remarkable series of obedientiary rolls of every kind pertaining
to the great Benedictine priory of Durham, which have recently been
printed for the Surtees’ Society in three volumes by Canon Fowler
(1898-1901), throw remarkably full light on the dieting of monks
in a great house whose funds were never lacking. The accounts are
exceptionally complete for the year 1333-4. The cellarer’s roll
contains each week’s expenditure for food. The roll begins with
the week after Martinmas, when the following were the cellarer’s
purchases:--1000 herrings, 6_s._ 9_d._; a horse-load of whiting,
4_s._; 7 salmon, plaice, and smelts, 4_s._ 2_d._; pork and veal,
9_s._ 0½_d._; 7 sucking pigs, 14 geese and 17 fowls, 7_s._ 4½_d._;
wildfowl, 3_s._; butter and honey, 10_d._; 48 fowls, 8_s._; and 700
eggs, 42_s._ 6_d._ The following are the entries for the week that
included Christmas Day:--8 horse-loads of whiting, 26_s._ 9_d._; 2
horse-loads of plaice, smelts, and lobsters, 17_s._ 1_d._; 2 turbots
and 1 salmon, bought in the town, 6_s._ 9_d._; veal, 3_s._ 2_d._; 68
fowls for gifts, 5_s._ 4_d._; 10 ducks and wildfowl, 9_s._ 9_d._; 4
stone of cheese and 4 stone of butter, 7_s._ 6_d._; and 12 fowls,
2_s._ 2_d._ There were no eggs bought in Christmas week, but in the
following week 900 were purchased. Throughout the whole of Lent the
weekly purchases were strictly confined to fish, not even eggs being
allowed; the week before Lent 900 eggs were bought, and in Easter week
300. It may here be mentioned that the eggs purchased by the cellarer
in the whole year amounted to 44,140. The purchases made in the second
week in Lent were:--9 horse-loads of whiting, bought at the seaside
and elsewhere, 43_s._ 6½_d._; 9 fresh salmon and 3 turbot, 26_s._
10_d._; and 27 crabs, plaice, smelts, and mussels, 6_s._ 7_d._ The
third week’s purchases were:--1000 red herrings, bought at Newcastle,
9_s._; 9 horse-loads of whiting, bought at the seaside and in the town,
55_s._ 9_d._; 2 salmon, 5_s._ 2_d._; 80 salt fish bought at Newcastle,
16_s._ 6_d._; and 140 salt mackerel and mussels, for the servants,
6_s._ 7_d._ Lent was evidently rigorously kept, for twice during the
great fast the prior entertained an earl and his household without
any change in the fish diet. This monastery was certainly fortunate
in being within easy distance of the best part of England’s fishing
coast. The Durham monks and their retainers and guests could always
procure a considerable variety of fish diet. During this particular
year, in addition to the varieties already named, the cellarer was able
to supply for the tables, whelks, kippers, cod, codling, trout, skate,
sturgeon, eels, lamprey, fresh herrings, and porpoise.
There must have been a very moderate and occasional use of both cheese
and butter; the year’s purchase of the former only amounted to 32 stone
2 lbs., and of the latter to 25 stone. Rice, which was imported in
large quantities from the East, has been mentioned as a pittance at
Winchester; on two occasions in the whole year it seems to have served
as a delicacy for a few at Durham, for there are two entries of the
purchase of 12 lbs. of rice.
When the number of mouths to be filled at this great monastery are
considered, it is obvious that the weekly purchases of the cellarer,
which averaged about £5 a week, must have been wholly inadequate
for the bare support of life. It is therefore a relief to find that
he had a well-stocked larder of salt flesh and fish to fall back
upon. In this year William Hexham, the cellarer, had in the larder
202 “Marts” or Martinmas cattle, killed and salted for winter and
subsequent consumption, some from their own manors, and others bought
at Darlington and elsewhere. A large stock of mutton, and occasionally
lamb, beef, and pork, was also received at intervals from the manors,
and now and again purchased, which was also salted down for larder
purposes. Moreover, upwards of sixty barrels of herrings, and 1000 cod
fish were bought to be salted as larder storage, as well as 205 dried
fish (probably large cod) for the servants.
This seems a mighty store; but how many were there to support? The
ideal number of monks for a large Benedictine establishment was
seventy, but it was seldom realised. We know the exact numbers at
Durham on various occasions; probably at this date it was sixty. Then
there were the chaplains, the lay-brothers, the singing boys, the
almonry boys, and a considerable number of paid servants of the house,
as well as those of the priors’ lodgings, and of the great and roomy
guest-house, and the monks’ infirmary. The cellarer had to provide food
for all these, as well as for the large infirmary outside the gates,
and to a considerable extent for a hospital in the town. Altogether,
the mouths that had to be provided for (inclusive of guests of all
ranks) may be safely estimated as averaging at least 250 a day. The
great guest-house, with its courtly sets of apartments (the principal
of which were termed the King’s chambers, the knights’ chambers, and
the clerks’ chambers) were frequently filled, and this irrespective
of humbler lodgings for middle-class folk and the poorer wayfarers.
Moreover, “the releefe and almesse of the hole Convent was alwaies open
and free, not onely to the poore of the citie of Durham, but to all the
poore people of the countrie besides.”--(_Rites of Durham._) During
1333-4, the King paid three visits to the priory, once accompanied by
the Queen. The King’s justices tarried with the prior when visiting
Durham; on one of these three occasions during this year they stayed at
the monastery for four days, and on another for a whole week. During
another whole week the prior entertained the members of his council;
visits were also paid by bishops and earls, on one occasion by two
bishops at the same time. The retinue of these distinguished visitors
was always considerable. It may also be remembered, when thinking
of the two hundred salted “marts” that found their way into the
larder during the year, and the carcases of sheep bought for salting
or occasionally for fresh use, that the cattle of those days were
decidedly smaller than what are now seen in butchers’ shops, whilst the
sheep resembled the small Welsh mutton.
It is no guess-work that the Durham cellarer provided all the necessary
food for the hostelries and for the prior’s table, or even an assertion
based upon the usual custom of Benedictine houses. It is testified to
in extant rolls. For this year, 1333-4, Brother Robert de Middleham
was hosteler, and his expenses show that he found--in addition to
wine, of which more anon--nothing save diverse special pittances
for guests and for prior, sub-prior and their companions, at diverse
special occasions, at the small cost of 21_s._ 3_d._; a pittance made
to the convent in the refectory on the first Rogation Day at the price
of 26_s._; and a pittance of 11_s._ 6_d._ provided for the chaplain
who heard the confessions in Lent of the parishioners of St. Oswald’s.
Everything else, even for kings, bishops, or earls, was provided by the
cellarer; and we find at the end of his roll, under the heading _Empcio
specierum_, various small purchases of almonds, pepper, saffron, mace,
cinnamon, sugar, rice, honey, figs, and raisins, of much of which it
is expressly stated that it was for the prior’s table. In later days
delicacies of confectionery were occasionally provided by the priory
cooks or purchased, such as anise comfit, madryan, gobett reall,
pinyonade, sugar-in-plate, chardecoyne, or geloffors, but always for
the guests.
So far as the Durham rolls are concerned, a close study of them proves
beyond doubt that the fare of these monks was (for the times in which
they lived, when meat was plentifully enjoyed by the poorest) simple
in quality, and moderate in quantity, and further, that the fasts were
most carefully observed. Neither in amount nor in variety of food did
the monks of Durham fare so well as the inmates of an average English
work-house of the present day.
A recent most capable historical writer (Miss Bateson) has said:
“At St. Albans the diet seems to have been very severe; it was an
innovation there in the thirteenth century to allow the sick in the
infirmary to have meat. It is clear from the detailed custumals of
Abingdon and Evesham that mutton and beef were not eaten in their
refectories, but bacon was generally consumed, and all kinds of fat.”
The pittance was an occasional relief to the usual strict dietary
in the way of some exceptional or extra food or delicacy. In some
monasteries, as at Durham, it was customary for the chief officials or
obedientiaries to give a pittance to the whole convent on some special
festival. In not a few monasteries there were special endowments
for certain pittances, usually of early origin. This is a matter of
decided interest in connexion with monastic fare; for it shows that
early benefactors were so impressed with the usual ascetic fare of
the religious that they desired to secure for them an occasional
alleviation. The word “pittance” has been by some, rather absurdly,
derived from _picta_, a small coin of Poitiers, imagining that it was
originally a dole of that value; but almost every monastic roll with
which we are acquainted spells it _pietancia_, and the true derivation
comes from _pietas_ and implies pity or commiseration. There are
lists of provisions made for pittances both on flesh days and fish
days at St. Albans in the second volume of the annals of that house
in the Rolls Series. In some houses it happened that a fashion set
in of giving lands or rents for pittances, and their very frequency,
as lands increased in value, and the sternness of rules of dietary
relaxed, became an embarrassment. In these circumstances the whole
question of the pittances required rearrangement, for it would have
been extravagant and luxurious to continue to use such funds according
to the primary intention of the pious founders. In such cases the whole
funds of this kind were sometimes put in the custody of a particular
obedientiary who expended them in accordance with the decision of the
chapter and visitor, and was himself termed the pittancer.
A good instance of this occurs in the later rolls of the abbey of St.
Benet’s, Holme, many of which are at the Bodleian, and have never been
published or printed. John Takylston was both prior and pittancer of
this abbey at the beginning of Henry VIII.’s reign. His accounts for
1511-12 show that his total receipts as pittancer for that year were £9
17_s._ 1½_d._, which would have been a monstrous sum to spend on extra
fare. In genuine food-pittance the only expenditure was in providing
figs and other fruit for the convent at a cost of 3_s._ 4_d._, and in
a sum of 12_d._ spent on peas and beans and butter, probably for some
tasty dish of vegetables specially cooked, for peas and beans had for
some time been considered only fit for cattle. The seven principal
feasts of the year were brightened by a very moderate expenditure on
wine; the total cost for the whole seven occasions was but 16_s._, and
as the monks of St. Benet’s then numbered twenty-three, the individual
consumption on each occasion, even if the wine was strictly confined
to the professed monks, must have been diminutive. Three definite
pittances, of early bequest, intended to provide an extra dish for
each inmate, were at this time commuted for money payments, each monk
receiving at different periods of the year the respective sums of
6_d._, 10_d._, and 12_d._, the abbot and prior both receiving double
the amount. Small sums of money for each religious to provide personal
necessaries, or to serve as pocket-money when on exterior service,
were not unusually allowed in the later days of English monasticism.
The considerable balance still left in the hands of this pittancer was
used in a variety of ways towards the relief of the needs of the house.
Thus the pittancer that year found his own clothes and the wages and
clothes of his servant; made payments for collection of rents, for
felling trees and making faggots for fuel, for mowing the grass of the
cloister-garth; discharged the abbey’s share of 33_s._ due to the King
as voted by Convocation, and the sum of 4_s._ as the abbey’s subsidy
to the general chapter of the Benedictines; paid for the repairing
of the glass windows of his own apartments, and the re-thatching it
with reed; and had withal 3_s._ left to distribute in alms during
Lent. Those who know the dreary swamps and general surroundings of St.
Benet’s will not be surprised that early benefactors desired to fortify
the inmates against damp and chills by the relief of a more generous
diet; and we cannot but admire the self-restraint and wise economy
that directed the superfluity of these pittances into other channels.
The Benedictines, in their practical dealings with the benefactions of
the piety or pity of former centuries, set an example which might with
profit be followed by modern Charity Commissioners.
This brings us to the consideration of what the religious drank. It
is scarcely necessary to say that the solace of tea, coffee, or cocoa
was utterly unknown to the monks and nuns of Old England. Water as
a regular beverage was almost equally unknown; home-brewed beer was
the usual drink that accompanied every meal. Most of the religious
formed no exception in this respect to the general rule. Beer-drinking
was accepted in England as a matter of course, and when we learn
occasionally of the limit allowed, it does not seem to err on the side
of niggardliness. Number 40 of the old Benedictine rule laid down
that an _emina_ of wine was to suffice for the day, save when extra
labour or the heat of summer made more desirable, in which case it was
left to the judgment of the Superior. Much discussion used to arise
on the continent as to the true interpretation of an _emina_, and it
was generally agreed that it meant about two-thirds of a pint of our
liquid measure. But so rarely was wine used in England that this rule
was but seldom required. Among the mitigations of the rule sanctioned
by the Pope for the English province, as cited in the customary of St.
Augustine’s, Canterbury, was the permission to drink “beer, which, as
the rule mentions no particular measure, may be had daily as commons
without any precise limit (_in communi sine taxacione aliqua_).” This
does not, of course, mean unlimited beer, but that it was left to each
house to regulate the quantity. The brewhouse was a general adjunct of
the outer conventual buildings; in the larger houses beer was brewed
in two qualities. The ordinary beer was very light. Pious Gilbert
of Sempringham, in his minute regulations, could scarcely imagine a
grosser or more awkward piece of carelessness on the part of the canons
who supplied the temporal needs of the nuns than a failure in beer.
In that portion of the Gilbertine rule that concerns itself with the
provision of beer it is laid down that: “For the avoiding of scandal,
if the nuns, having no beer, are obliged to drink water, it is only
just that the masters of the house who provide the supplies shall share
in their deprivation. Whenever the nuns, through the negligence or
carelessness of the proctors, have to drink water, the four proctors
are to associate themselves with them in their water-drinking, even if
on a journey or absent from the house, unless across the seas.”
[Illustration: BUILDWAS ABBEY (Cistercian)]
With regard to wine, irrespective of the much stricter dieted reformed
congregations, the ordinary Benedictine monk or the regular canon but
rarely tasted it, and only on special festivals or at times of illness.
Gilbert of Sempringham enjoined on his canons never to take wine unless
it was well watered. The higher class guests were responsible for
the lion’s share in the consumption of wine at the larger monasteries.
These houses served, _inter alia_, as inns, _minus_ the bills, for
the magnates of the land, including royalty, when on their travels.
For such visits they were usually well prepared. Those who study the
itineraries of our kings as gained from the date places of public
documents know how frequent was the entertainment of royalty within
monastic precincts. Even in Northamptonshire, where there were several
royal residences, kings sojourned with the Cistercians of Pipewell and
the White Canons of Sulby, as well as with the lordly Benedictines of
Peterborough.
The wine for entertaining guests was in the joint charge of the abbot
or prior and the hosteler. In the already cited Durham hosteler’s
account for 1333-4 there occurs an expenditure of 35_s._ 10_d._ for
sixty-five gallons of wine, bought for the prior’s lodgings, for the
solar, and for the guests who attended at the time of audit. The
practice of giving wine at the time of drawing up the accounts, when
the bailiffs of different manors and other external officials attended,
was usual. Even the pittancer of St. Benet’s expended 8_d._ in wine
when his accounts were made. At Durham there were occasional large
purchases of wine, intended to last for some considerable time, and
there always appears to have been a good store. In 1299 nine casks
of wine were bought at Hull and seven at Hartlepool and Newcastle at
a cost, including carriage, of £36 7_s._ Just a century later the
bursar bought fifty-two gallons of red wine for the prior for filling
up a cask. When the Justices were entertained by the prior, certain
special and more costly wines were generally set upon the guest table;
thus in 1528-9, although £9 had been spent that year on ordinary red
wine, the bursar bought malmsey and claret in the town, at a cost of
20_s._, on an occasion when the Justices and the Bishop happened to be
among the prior’s guests. Wine was also offered to the confraters, or
well-to-do lay associates of the house, when they were admitted to the
confraternity, or when they visited the house. The _Rites of Durham_
expressly says of the prior that “for ther better intertaynement he had
evermore a hogsheade or two of wynes lying in a seller appertayninge to
the halle to serve his geists withall.”
Wine was probably always on the prior’s board, and would be set before
him when he dined in the refectory. Its use by the Durham monks at
large was rare in occurrence, and then in most moderate quantities.
A curious custom prevailed on St. Aidan’s Day (August 31st), when
wine and pears were provided for the whole establishment; the usual
amount was 900 pears and nine gallons of wine. The wine was of a cheap
light character, for on one occasion, when the separate price of this
pittance is given, the pears cost 2_s._ 9_d._ and the nine gallons of
wine only 6_s._ 6_d._ In 1413 four gallons and a pint of wine were
given to the convent on the feast of the Purification, at a charge of
4_s._ 1½_d._, entered in the almoner’s accounts. A small quantity of
wine was usually given to the novices in the common room on the day of
their profession.
The master of the conventual infirmary gave a pittance of spices and
wine to those in his department of the monastery on St. Andrew’s Day;
but he also regularly provided it for the sick and weakly in special
cases. The quantity used for this purpose was but small; for several
years in succession in the fifteenth century the infirmarian’s charge
for wine only amounted to 5_s._ or 6_s._; but perhaps this was the wine
for the altar of the infirmary chapel, that for the sick coming from
the cellarer’s stores.
The constant round of Masses in a religious house required a
considerable supply of wine. Though sometimes a succession of sacrist
rolls are found wherein there is no wine entry--in which cases the
church wine would come from the common store--it is usual to find
that the sacrist purchased specially for this purpose. At Durham, in
the fifteenth century, this officer’s roll for many years contains
the annual entry of a pipe of red wine for altar use. A pipe was 126
gallons, so that this works out at about three pints a day; from such
a quantity as this, when the great number of altars and Celebrations
are remembered, there could have been but little, if any, surplus.
Henry III. granted charters to the great Cistercian Abbey of Beaulieu,
and four of the other large monasteries of the south of England,
bestowing on each of them a yearly tun of wine, out of the prisage
wine of Southampton, for sacramental purposes. The sacristan of St.
Benet’s spent 26_s._ 8_d._ on wine for the church in the very year that
preceded the Dissolution.
About the most interesting wine entry in the whole of the voluminous
accounts of Durham priory is one on the roll of Adam of Darlington,
bursar, for the years 1355-6. Edward III. returned hastily from the
north of France in November, 1355; for whilst he was invading France,
the Scots invaded English territory and surprised Berwick. In January
Edward, in his turn, invaded and ravaged Scotland and recovered
Berwick. On his march to the north the priory sent forth one of their
monks, William de Masham, to join the King, in charge of the sacred
banner of St. Cuthbert, and with him he also took a pipe of wine. May
we not conclude that this was intended for the relief of the wounded on
the expected battle-fields?
The last monastic record relative to wine that shall be here named
tells of the self-denial of the monks of St. Albans. At a time when
funds were sorely needed for the rebuilding of the refectory and
dormitory, the monks agreed to forego their allowance of wine on
festivals altogether for fifteen years, the value to be added to the
building fund.