WESTMINSTER ABBEY THE LAST DAYS OF THE MONASTERY
_Works by the same Author_
ST. MARGARET’S, WESTMINSTER
THE PARISH GILDS OF MEDIÆVAL ENGLAND
WESTMINSTER, AN HISTORICAL SKETCH
ETC.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
THE LAST DAYS OF THE
MONASTERY
AS SHOWN BY THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
ABBOT JOHN ISLIP
1464-1532
BY
H. F. WESTLAKE, M.A., F.S.A.
_Custodian and Minor Canon of Westminster Abbey_
[Illustration: colophon]
LONDON
PHILIP ALLAN & CO.
QUALITY COURT, CHANCERY LANE
First Published in April, 1921
Printed by Whitehead Brothers, Wolverhampton
FOREWORD
The story of the last forty years of the monastery of Westminster
centres round two persons. In the thirty-two years of John Islip’s rule
as Abbot he raised its glory to a height which it had never before
attained. In the eight years that followed Abbot Boston reduced it to a
level which made its dissolution easy. To plead that Boston was merely
Cromwell’s tool is to offer but little excuse, for it was a position
Islip would have disdained to occupy. Had Islip lived to witness an end
which perhaps was inevitable he might well have been involved in a
tragedy such as that of Abbot Whiting of Glastonbury. As a man on the
fringe of public life some accusation would not have been difficult to
fabricate.
The history of these days therefore is best told in a biographical form,
for Islip’s activities and Boston’s slack rule touched every department
of monastic life. There are few subjects about which greater
misconceptions still prevail than the dissolution of the monastic
houses, and while this little book cannot hope to clear these away it
may at least provide the true story of one such dissolution. The tale of
the revival of the monastery under Feckenham in the reign of Queen Mary
has not been told. It is a detached episode of very great interest but
of very little importance save in one respect quite unconcerned with the
after history of Westminster Abbey, namely that one of Feckenham’s monks
lived to pass on the lighted torch of the Benedictine succession.
H. F. WESTLAKE.
_The Cloisters,
Westminster Abbey._
CONTENTS
FOREWORD _Page_ v.
CHAPTER I. The Management of the Monastery 1
” II. Early Years of Brother John Islip 26
” III. From 1492 to 1498 37
” IV. Islip as Prior 53
” V. Islip as Abbot 67
” VI. Islip in Public Life 84
” VII. Islip as a Builder 98
” VIII. The Last Days of the Monastery 112
CHAPTER I.
THE MANAGEMENT OF THE MONASTERY.
The Rule of St. Benedict, made about the year 540, contemplated only
some four officials as in the main responsible for the management of the
monastery. These were the Abbot, Prior, Cellarer and Porter. St.
Benedict indeed makes mention of a class of officers called Deans, each
of whom would be responsible for a group of ten monks engaged in the
work of the field which formed an essential part of his scheme of life,
but in actual practice no record exists, in England at least, of the
subsequent existence of such officers. In the monastic government also
some further distinction was made as between the few monks who were
priests and the majority who in the earlier years of monastic history
were commonly laymen.
By the time of Lanfranc, in the course of a quite natural development,
additional officers had come to be necessary, and besides those of the
Rule there is mention in his _Constitutions_ of the Cantor, Sacrist,
Guestmaster, Almoner and Infirmarer. In the _Customary_ of St. Peter’s,
Westminster, compiled by Abbot Ware about the year 1266, the number of
Obedientiaries or principal officers had risen to at least fourteen,
while to these must be added the many junior officers who worked
directly under them either as deputies or assistants.
The gift or purchase of outlying estates and churches necessitated the
appointment of officers to superintend their management and to be
responsible for the due collection from them of rents and _pensions_.
Moreover any particular extensions of the monastic buildings or church
involved the appointment of a temporary _Warden of the New Work_ to
account for the necessary receipts and expenditure. It was customary to
assign particular estates to the support of particular departments or
else to arrange for the equitable division of profits among them all.
Thus each official had definite sources of income for his office and
definite objects upon which that income was to be expended. Year by year
he was required to submit for audit a roll or balance-sheet accounting
for the monies of his department, and to many of these rolls were
attached bills or subsidiary rolls of which the chief roll might contain
but a summary. It is from the survival of such rolls that a knowledge
of the internal economy of the monastery can be obtained, the duties of
the various officials outlined, and the progress and cost of new
buildings or repairs duly marked. At Westminster the number of such
surviving rolls is over three thousand, and in addition there are many
account-books exhibiting in the utmost detail the expenditure in certain
of the departments.
Exceptions to the general scheme must, however, be noted. At Westminster
the precentor’s office had some small property in land attached to it
and received some few pensions from churches, but the precentor himself
kept no rolls, for his income and expenditure were small, and his duties
were not such as to call for much outlay of money. The adult portion of
his Secular Choir, the forerunners of the lay-vicars of the present day,
were paid by contributions from the Sacrist and others, while the
Subalmoner had the care of the Singing-children.
The archdeacon’s duties were those of a legal rather than monastic
character, and in consequence the history of his office is not to be
found in monastic rolls. Similarly in the case of officers such as the
prior and others, whose work was mainly that of supervision and
discipline, little record survives, with the result that these are for
the most part far more shadowy figures than the administrative
officials. The latter seem oftentimes to live again by the human
touches which creep unawares into what at first glance might seem to be
dull and stereotyped records of receipts and expenditure, and to leave
small room for the record of personality. When we have read through some
pages of Brother Thomas Browne’s ill-written account-book, which in due
course he must submit for the Abbot’s inspection, how shall we translate
the homely hexameter which quite suddenly appears: _Si mea pena valet,
melior mea litera fiet_? Brother Thomas becomes no such remote figure
after all!
St. Benedict had with keen foresight anticipated the possibility of a
certain rivalry as between the Prior and Convent on the one side and the
Abbot on the other, and he would seem to have regarded the prior’s
office as a necessary evil with which he would rather have dispensed.
Could he have foreseen such a development as took place at Westminster
it can hardly be doubted that he would have devised some special
statutes to meet a situation which could never have been consistent with
his ideals or with that half-departure from them which he may in his
broad-mindedness have contemplated. For Westminster’s Abbot was a feudal
lord with the additional dignity of a mitre.
In that later history with which we are most concerned he dwelt apart
from his flock. He was no longer the parent at the head of the table,
with his children gathered round him at the common meal. Affairs of
state or of his own manorial business were among the lesser calls which
might take him away from the family of which he was nominally the
father.
The mere fact that he so dwelt apart was for more than two centuries a
fruitful source of dissension. Two households had to be maintained from
a common income: what was the proper division of it? New estates were
bequeathed: what was their proper allocation? Anniversaries had to be
performed: how should the proceeds be distributed? Innumerable and
inevitable expenses had to be met: what share ought the Abbot to
undertake?
Such were some of the questions which from time to time disturbed the
peace of the family. Here and there a question could be solved by
special legislation. It was easy when a vacancy occurred in the Abbacy
for the Prior and Convent before they proceeded to election to lay down
that the next Abbot should be solely responsible for the maintenance of
the walls which protected their buildings from the periodical threat of
inundation from the Thames. It was easy at such a time to adopt the
general principle that of future bequests the Abbot should take four
parts, the Prior two, and each professed member of the Convent one; but
there came times when the ordinary provision for the Convent table was a
matter of anxious thought while the Abbot might seem to have no such
cares. It is no wonder that, until some working arrangement was arrived
at, each ensuing vacancy in the Abbacy should be the occasion for the
formulation of conditions to which the new Abbot was bound to subscribe.
It is much to the spiritual credit of the Westminster community that in
general such problems were met by the spontaneous generosity of the one
side or the other. In all but one or two clearly defined cases it may be
said that these problems ultimately made for goodwill rather than
disruption, as giving occasion for the exercise of the primary virtue of
the Christian life. They form indeed no part of the actual story, but
some account of their nature is a necessary preliminary to an
understanding of the economy of the monastery at any period of its
history.
It is interesting to make a survey of the life and duties of the various
conventual officials in these latter days.
In theory the Abbot still slept in the dormitory and a chamber was kept
there for his use. In practice the only person who had access to it was
the Receiver of his household, and Brother John Islip records that when
he himself held that office he had two hundred pounds in money belonging
to the Abbot which he kept in a chest in this chamber. In theory the
Abbot dined in the refectory. In practice this may have occasionally
happened, but these occasions were evidently few. The ordinary
arrangement was for a fixed allowance of bread, generally six convent
loaves, to be sent to the Abbot when he was actually in residence at
Cheyneygates--the house now occupied by the Dean--or at his Manor of Eye
hard by. This allowance was not sent if he were absent at any other of
his manors. Otherwise he was expected to maintain his household and
entertain his private guests out of his official income. As it would not
always be easy to distinguish between personal and official visitors it
was provided that the Abbot might bring four guests to the refectory
without charge, but should he bring more than this number he was to be
responsible for the additional costs.
The Abbot’s income was derived from a considerable number of sources,
and in spite of the many existent documents which record them it is not
easy to make any exact estimate of its total, but at the close of the
fifteenth century it would seem to have amounted to not less than six
hundred pounds a year, no mean sum when the relative value of money is
considered. From this of course there were many necessary outgoings.
Estates had to be kept up and wages paid to local bailiffs and workmen,
and at the end of the financial year but a small balance remained to be
carried forward--and this sometimes was on the wrong side of the
account. In one casually selected year the actual household expenses of
the Abbot averaged more than forty pounds a month.
The income and expenditure of the Prior were of course on a more modest
scale. Oysters, plaice, sturgeon, salmon, whelks--all these and many
other articles of food appeared on his table as on the Abbot’s, but his
position did not require the same amount of entertaining of guests as
fell to the latter. Moreover these were frequently of a lower degree in
the social scale. For instance we note his breakfasts to the singing-men
and dinners to those who had just made their profession in the
monastery. Visits to his estate of Belsize formed his customary means of
relaxation from the many cares of the monastery.
It may be well to say that neither in the case of Abbot or Prior does
there appear to have been any ostentation in their manner of life or any
extravagance in expenditure. Each played the part that the standard of
the time expected of him. If the Abbot seems rather the feudal lord than
the father of his flock at this period of monastic history, he was the
victim of a development which he had done nothing to create and saw no
adequate reason to alter. The Abbot of Westminster in the sixteenth
century was no more deserving of censure for his mode of life than is a
Dean of Westminster in the twentieth.
Of the administrative officials the Sacrist is in many ways the most
interesting. He was responsible not only for the general survey of the
fabric of the church and the necessary repairs thereto, but also for the
provision of most of the accessories of worship. The main items of the
income of his office were derived from properties within easy reach of
the monastery, so that business was not apt to arise which would take
him far afield from what must have been rather exacting duties. Taking a
typical roll of the early sixteenth century, a long list of houses in
the Sanctuary and King Street, Westminster, brought him rents amounting
to about £137 out of a total income of just over £208. Some little
property in London and elsewhere, with pensions from half a dozen
churches such as Sawbridgeworth and Bloxham, the “farm” of St.
Margaret’s, Westminster, and the offerings in various of the Abbey
chapels, accounted in the main for the balance. Among some curious items
of receipt there is the yearly sum of thirty shillings and five pence
paid to him by the Sheriffs of London for the maintenance of the lamp of
Queen Matilda.
Apart from some few entries for the repair of houses his expenditure
fell under four main heads. First, more than fifty-five pounds was spent
under the title “purchase of stores.” This included every kind of light,
whether wax or oil, for both church and monastery, incense, grease for
the bells and charcoal for the sacristy.
The next heading is the familiar “church expenses.” No less than
twenty-four thousand breads were bought for the Celebrations. A long
list includes the costs of the setting up of the great Paschal candle;
repairs to vestments, thuribles, candlesticks, bells and other
accessories; clearing away snow from the church roof and scattering the
crows and pigeons that strove to nest there; mending the Abbot’s
pastoral staff and buying seven imitation pearls at two pence each to
adorn his mitre. In similar lists in other of the Sacrist’s rolls we
find record of the periodical lending of copes for service in the King’s
palaces at Westminster and London, and in the year 1520 of the purchase
of canvas and a chest in which to pack the copes for despatch across the
sea, doubtless for Wolsey’s use on the occasion of the historic meeting
between Henry VIII. and Francis I. on the Field of Cloth of Gold where a
chapel had been erected, “the last and most gorgeous display of the
departing spirit of chivalry.”
The two other main heads of expenses are repairs of the church and wages
of the various workmen and servants, among whom are the clock-keeper,
the rent-collector, the washerwoman and butler.
The few remaining rolls of the Subsacrist contain in detail matters
which are only summarised in the account of his superior. He was
responsible for the distribution to the various chapels of their proper
allotment of candles prior to the celebration of their special feasts.
It is from him that we learn the dedications of forgotten altars, with
here and there hints of old customs and lost usages.
Take for example the roll for the year ending at Michaelmas 1524. It is
thirty-three feet in length and accounts in the utmost detail for the
consumption of nearly five thousand pounds of wax, of which only some
five hundred were for what may be called lighting purposes as distinct
from “lights.” From the notes which he supplies it is not hard to
picture the refectory at Christmas time with the _corona_ above St.
Edward’s statue ablaze with candles, the windows all lit up and the
flaming torches that accompany the carrying-in of the boar’s head. Or
pass to the infirmary towards the end of that year where Brother Richard
Charyng lay on his deathbed. He was thought to be dying on August 30th,
but on September 3rd he was still alive. The Subsacrist knows it for he
has had to supply pound tapers for his “Aneyleng.” He reminds us that
Abbots Berkyng, Bircheston, and Colchester were still remembered in the
monastery though the first died as early as 1246, for he has supplied
candles for the celebration of their “obits.” When he writes of the
“brassen chappell w^{t.}in the new chappell” we know what we had long
suspected--that there was an altar within the _grille_ which surrounds
the tomb of Henry VII. A few hints more and we could identify the
dedications of the chapels in the apse of that King’s building. When
somewhere near St. George’s day he issues a two-pound taper for the
dragon, does he refer to some pageantry within the Abbey church or was
it a gift to its appanage St. Margaret’s, where we know a dragon to have
been kept?
Perhaps the solution is to be found in a mandate addressed by Henry III.
to Edward, son of Odo the goldsmith, requiring him to cause a dragon to
be made in the fashion of a standard, of red silk sparkling all over
with gold, the tongue of which should be made to resemble burning fire
and appear to be continually moving, and the eyes of sapphires or other
suitable stones. This standard was to be placed in the Church of St.
Peter, Westminster.
The Chamberlain, like the Sacrist, derived most of his income from the
rents of properties within easy reach. Bequests in the past had been
specifically made for the provision of clothing for the monks, which was
the Chamberlain’s main duty. Nine London churches and two country ones,
those of Ashwell and Uppingham, made contributions to an income of about
ninety pounds a year. The Chamberlain was responsible neither for the
clothing of the Abbot nor the outfit of the novices. The former was
required to provide all things for himself while the Treasurer paid for
the somewhat elaborate list of articles required for the latter. Islip
as Treasurer wrote down the full catalogue of these:--
In primis payede for ij peyre Straylys. [Stragulæ = bed blankets]
Item pro uno materes cum j bolster.
Item for a payre Blankettis.
Item for ij Coverleddis.
Item for a pylow w^{t.} ij pylowe Berys [cases].
Item for a Nyghte Cappe w^{t.} ij kerchrys.
Item for a Coembe [? comb].
Item for a peyre Corkys.
Item for Cersey for ij peyre hoson w^{t.} the makyng.
Item for the makyng of ij peyre Shockys.
Item for ij peyre Botis.
Item for ij ffemorallis [drawers] w^{t.} the makyng.
Item for a Brygerdell.
Item for viij erdis of stamyn [linen] for ij stamyns [shirts] price
the erde iiij d.
Item for a petycote.
Item for ij erdes and a quarter of Blake for on Cote price the erde
ij s. viij d.
Item for ij erdis di of Blacke Cloth for an other Cote price the
erde iij s.
Item for ij erdis and quarter of Blacke Coton for a Nygth Cote
price the erde xij d.
Item for lynyng to the same iij Cotis to eche of them iiij erdis
and a quarter price the erde Vd. ob. q^{a.}
Item for the makyng of ij hames Whodis.
Item for a pec. of Say to make ij Cowlys and a frocke.
Item for a Gerdell ij d. A purse viij d. A peyre of knyves viij d.
Item for viij lambes skynys for to ffur a hode and ij Cotis Slevys
at the hande.
Item for ffurryng of the same.
The total for this bill came to £2 6s. 5d. exclusive of the first six
items which have no charge entered and so were presumably drawn from
stock.
The Chamberlain was accustomed to renew only some seven articles, those
for actual day and night-wear. Directly responsible to him were the
tailor, skinner and barber, the last of whom beside shaving the brethren
had probably to bleed them periodically.
The Treasurer’s income in the early sixteenth century was no less than
three hundred and seventy-six pounds a year, of which two hundred and
forty-one pounds were derived from twenty-four manors. Of these the
Manor of Battersea was worth about sixty pounds. Hendon was even more
profitable with eighty-eight, while Aldenham produced fifty-seven. It
will be well, however, to mention some of the items of his expenditure
before noting the sources of the remainder of his income.
First in the demands on his purse was the purchase of grain. Four
hundred quarters of wheat and a rather larger quantity of barley were
bought for the Convent’s consumption either in the form of bread or
beer. Not all of this was purchased from outside. It will be obvious
that since many of the offices were endowed with land each might have
grain at its disposal, and it was clearly advantageous to have one’s
market so close at hand. Hence there arose a system of what may be
termed interdepartmental dealing, the Treasurer purchasing the produce
of other offices in wheat and at the same time perhaps selling his own
surplus goods to others of his brother-officials.
The Treasurer’s main purpose was the sustenance of the brethren.
Accordingly in addition to his own purchases of food in the form of
grain he made an allowance of ten shillings a day to the _Coquinarius_,
whose office is not adequately described if his title be translated
simply as “cook,” while the ordinary rendering of “kitchener” entails
the same objection. The _Coquinarius_ would seem to have been a steward
of the kitchen, combining the duties of an overseer and caterer. We
shall take some further notice of him later.
Payments of the bailiffs of his manors, law expenses, and sundry items
of no general interest added to the Treasurer’s expenditure; and at
this period of history he found it, like his brethren in other
monasteries, impossible to make both ends meet, and indeed his
expenditure exceeded his assigned income by some hundreds of pounds.
That portion of his income, about one hundred and thirty pounds, of
which no source has yet been indicated was drawn from the merging into
the Treasurer’s office of other offices which in former times had been
held separately. The love for the Abbey felt by Queen Eleanor, wife of
Edward I., had been marked by large monetary gifts during her lifetime.
Her burial by the shrine of St. Edward prompted her husband to make
proper provision for the maintenance of her anniversary, and five manors
were almost immediately assigned to the monastery for that purpose,
those of Birdbrook, Edenbridge, Westerham, Turweston and Knowle. Two
other foundations of a similar character in connection with Richard II.
and Henry V. succeeded in due course, and Wardens were appointed to
administer the three.
By the time with which we are concerned these offices had been
practically merged with the Treasurership. Consequently the Treasurer
must account for the receipts and expenditure connected with them. The
income therefrom swelled his total but gave him no surplus for his own
purposes, since he must purchase the wax, pay for the masses said and
distribute what remained among the brethren in the usual proportion.
The office of Cellarer in the later history of the monastery of
Westminster was one of dignity and importance, but its duties were
probably of a considerably less exacting character than at the
beginning. The tendency had been to divide the work formerly assigned
and with the growth of buildings to create new offices, such as that of
the Granator, rather than merely to provide assistants. Thus in the year
ending Michaelmas 1527 the income of the office was only some eighty
pounds a year, of which fourteen were spent in mending wagons, shoeing
of horses, repairs of the water-mill and all the various expenses
commonly associated with the life of the farmer.
The Cellarer had the oversight of the brewery, bakery and stables; paid
the wages of the various labourers connected with them; bought shovels,
coal-baskets and scoops; was responsible for repairs to the aqueduct
which brought the Convent water--a frequent source of trouble,--and
indeed performed a variety of small tasks the recital of which would
only be tedious. In fact he was an altogether different person from what
the popular imagination of to-day conceives him to have been.
The Granator’s account was rendered yearly like that of other officers,
but it was an account in kind and not in money. He dealt solely with
wheat, malt and oats, and the account was balanced in terms of these.
So much had come from Wheathampstead; so much had he received at the
hands of the Treasurer; so much had he delivered to the baker, and so
on. His office demanded honesty on the part of its holder but made
little demand on intelligence or business capacity.
The Almoner’s rolls bring into view an entirely different aspect of
monastic life. For any proper understanding of his office it is
necessary to remember that the distribution of alms was an inevitable
accompaniment of requiem masses. Did the Abbot or other benefactor of
the monastery desire to be remembered in prayer after his death, then he
not only bequeathed property to endow masses but assigned that portion
of its yield which was to be distributed amongst the poor. Among the
poor he would rightly reckon the brethren of his own monastery as well
as those who came to its gates for alms. With some such endowments,
though not with all, the Almoner was associated as administrator.
For example, on the anniversary of the death of Richard Berkyng, who had
been Abbot from 1222 to 1246, we find the Almoner of the sixteenth
century distributing twenty pence to each of the monks as well as paying
one shilling to the celebrants of the mass which was still said weekly
for the Abbot’s soul.
Moreover the provision of some small amenities and comforts for the
brethren was reasonably regarded as a legitimate charge upon the
Almoner’s resources. Thus he was accustomed to pay for mats for the
cloister, dormitory and refectory. When the novice first arrived at the
monastery it was the Almoner who saw that his _camera_ or chamber in the
dormitory was first properly cleansed, paid the penny for his tonsure
and bought two pennyworth of straw with which to stuff his mattress. He
made some public distribution of alms on rogation days to an amount
varying from three to five pounds.
But the foregoing duties are incidental and the Almoner’s first duty was
to preside, with the Subalmoner’s aid, over the almonry itself--which
lay to the south of Tothill Street outside the ancient boundary-wall of
the precinct. Here was an almshouse and its chapel of St. Anne, but
little can be discovered as to either. Prior to the foundation of the
time of Henry VII., of which something will be said later, we read of
payments to the “six poor men of St. Edward” who in the year 1492 begin
to be called the “six soldiers of St. Edward.” Then there are the
lay-brothers of the almonry, also six in number, who received one mark a
year for their clothing and for whom sixteen pence a week was paid for
food. These latter come first into view in the rolls about the year
1390, when each was receiving a loaf daily from the Cellarer. Provision
was made for them to attend a weekly mass on Saturdays, but their other
duties and manner of life generally in later days do not seem to be
anywhere defined.
The Almoner’s income was not large, amounting in an average year to
about seventy pounds. Some further account of his cares will appear in
the narrative of Abbot Islip’s earlier years.
* * * * *
Just as the Almonry had its chapel of St. Anne so the Infirmary placed
itself under the protection of St. Katharine, but while the Almonry has
long disappeared the ruins still remain to hint the beauties of the
Infirmary chapel, and the Infirmarer’s own refectory is still intact.
About thirty-three pounds represents the average income attached to the
office. The two rectories of Wandsworth and Battersea provided more than
a third of this, and the Church of St. Andrew at Pershore a little over
eight pounds. A few rents of houses and a portion of the Manor of Parham
in Sussex made up the remainder.
The Infirmarer kept a careful record of the names of his patients and
the number of days which each spent under his charge. This was necessary
in order that he might render a faithful account of his stewardship, for
it was considered that the cost of a sick monk was three pence on a meat
day and two pence on a fish day. The allowance for his own expenses was
reckoned at twenty-three pence a week. On St. Katharine’s day he was
accustomed to send twenty shillings for the entertainment of the Abbot
and Convent, and the balance of his income might be charged with
necessary repairs either to the Infirmary buildings or to the houses of
which the Infirmarer was the landlord.
In addition to the Treasurer of whom some account has been given there
was an official known as the Domestic or Inner Treasurer, whose rolls
are of interest as shewing in part the manner by which the monks
obtained their slender individual incomes.
So far as this department was concerned these arose from the endowments
of various chantries within the church. In some cases only the
celebrants of the masses received any payment, but in others all the
brethren participated. In the case of the anniversary of Abbot Kyrton
the Prior received two shillings and each brother one, while the
reigning Abbot did not benefit. In that of one John Blokley the Abbot
took eight pence, the Prior, the President of the Refectory, and the
Refectorer four pence each, and the brethren two pence each.
The Domestic Treasurer dealt also with the receipts from properties
which belonged in common to the Prior and Convent as distinct from the
Abbatial lands and manors. Each officer taxed his own income at the rate
of one penny in the mark towards the general fund, but it does not
appear that the Domestic Treasurer administered the proceeds.
The Refectorer’s office was not one of great importance. It might be
supposed that he was concerned with the provision of meals for the
brethren, but the only article of food which it was his duty to provide
was cheese, which cost between three and four pounds a year out of an
income of little more than ten. He was responsible for the general
upkeep of the refectory, whether for the repair of its walls and windows
or the renewal when necessary of the cloths and other appurtenances of
the table. He provided the wax for such candles as the Subsacrist was
not required to supply, and cushions for the seats of the President and
seniors.
Some slight information can be gleaned from his rolls as to the general
arrangements of the refectory. There was the table of the President with
the _skilla_ or bell beside it, the sounding of which marked the various
incidents of the meal; the two tables of the senior monks, the two
tables appropriated to the undistinguished among the brethren, the table
of the novices, and finally that set for the poor--the _mensa pauperum_.
Somewhere in the refectory stood a statue of St. Edward with a crown of
lights above him, which must be in order for the Feasts of the
Translation and Deposition of the Convent’s tutelary saint. We note the
homely designation of the larger cups as the _Long Robin_ and the
_Charity Bowl_.
The Monk Bailiff is perhaps the most perplexing of any of the monastic
officers. It is not possible as in the case of others to obtain any
adequate conception of his duties from the rolls which he kept, for he
records merely the payment of fees without specifying the various
services rendered. It must be supposed that he was responsible for
general matters of law in which the monastery might be involved, for he
notes year by year a payment of twenty shillings to the monastery’s
attorney in the royal exchequer, of another twenty shillings to an
attorney in the King’s Bench and of double that sum to an attorney in
the Common Bench, with other smaller payments to legal officials. Fees
to the bailiffs of the liberties in various counties also occur with
regularity. He had his own apartments and staff of servants, his own
stables, grooms and horses.
Some few of the Kitchener’s notebooks have survived, shewing in the
utmost detail all the items of his expenditure on the food of the
brethren. Wednesday, Friday and Saturday were ordinarily kept as days of
abstinence from meat. It seems probable from the form of certain entries
that meat was served in the Refectory only on Sundays. In the
Misericorde where the brethren who had been bled took their meals, as
well as those monks who for any reason had been ordered a more generous
diet, meat was served on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, both at dinner
and supper--unless of course some fast-day fell on one of these, while
eggs might be served for supper there on Wednesdays.
The ordinary dinner in the Refectory consisted of two fish courses with
the Convent loaf in addition. On Sundays it was not uncommon to provide
nine pieces of beef, two sheep and two fat pigs, with “smalle
poddynges.” Forgotten terms are recalled in _scroffe_ or Shrove Sunday
and Shrove Monday as well as Shrove Tuesday. On the two latter days a
breakfast was provided, in addition to the ordinary fare, of red
herrings and red sprats. Throughout Lent neither meat nor eggs was
provided either in the Refectory or Misericorde, but leeks, onions, and
peas for pottage occur frequently, with now and then a pittance of salt
eels. The Sunday dinner was varied by the provision of figs and almonds.
One red herring each was served on Good Friday with some almonds and
rice, but white herrings were bought for guests. On _Schere_ or Maundy
Thursday it was the custom for the Abbot to supplement the Convent meal.
Easter Day of course saw a considerable relaxation. Eggs for breakfast
and supper, veal and beef at dinner with currant puddings to follow, not
to mention two gallons of wine, marked the joyous character of the
festival. The Kitchener’s expenses varied between three and six pounds a
week.
One other important officer remains to be noted, the Warden of the Lady
Chapel. He had his own property and consequently was obliged to submit
his accounts for yearly audit, but it is sufficient to say of him that
he did for the Lady Chapel in all respects what the Sacrist did for the
rest of the church.
A number of minor officials receive occasional mention. We read of the
Wardens of other Chapels in the monastery, of the Keeper of St. Edward’s
Shrine, the Keeper of the relics and so on, but curiously enough only
here and there is there any actual record of a Guestmaster and that only
in the reign of Henry III. It seems probable that every professed monk
in the monastery was provided with some specific task or charge.
It would be easier to write a volume than a single chapter on monastic
life at Westminster. What has been here set down is no more than what
the surviving rolls and documents of the later times actually tell as to
the surroundings and life of the last sixty years of the monastery’s
history.