English Monastic Life. Gasquet Francis Aidan

in what manner and with what reverence it behoveth us to be in the sight of God and of the Angels, and so let us sing in choir, that mind and voice may accord together.”

      So far as the religious life was concerned, the most important part of the church was of course the presbytery with the High Altar and the choir. Here all, or nearly all, public services were performed. The choir frequently, if not generally, stretched beyond the transepts and took up one, if not two, bays of the nave; being enclosed and divided off from that more public part by the great screen. Other gates of ironwork, across the aisle above the presbytery and in a line with the choir screen, kept the public from the south transept. Privacy was thus secured for the monks, whilst by this arrangement the people had full access to all parts of the sacred building except the choir and the transept nearest to the monastery.

      The choir was entered, when the buildings were in the normal English position, from a door in the southern wall of the church at the juncture of the northern and eastern walks of the cloister. At the western end of the same northern cloister there was generally another door into the church reserved for the more solemn processions. The first, however, was the ordinary entrance used by the monks, and passing through it they found themselves in the area reserved for them within the screens which stretched across the choir and aisle.

      In the centre of the choir stood the great raised lectern or reading-desk, from which the lessons were chanted, and from which, also, the singing was directed by the cantor and his assistant. The stalls were arranged in two or more rows slightly raised one above the other. The superior and the second in command usually occupied the two stalls on each side of the main entrance furthest from the altar, the juniors being ranged nearest to the presbytery. This was the common practice except at the time of the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass, or during such portion of the Office which preceded the Mass. On these occasions the elders took their places nearest to the altar, for the purpose of making the necessary oblations at the Holy Sacrifice. In many monastic choirs, for this reason, the abbot and prior had each two places reserved for their special use, one on either side near the altar, and the others at the entrance of the choir. Besides the great lectern of the choir there was likewise a second standing-desk for the reading of the Gospel at Matins, usually placed near to the steps of the presbytery. In some cases, apparently, this was always in its place, but more frequently it was brought into the choir for the occasion, and removed afterwards by the servers of the church.

      There were in every church, besides the High Altar, several, and frequently numerous, smaller altars. The Rites of Durham describes minutely the nine altars arranged along the eastern wall of the church and facing the shrine of St. Cuthbert.

      “They,” says the author, “each had their several shrines and covers of wainscot over-head, in very decent and comely form, having likewise betwixt every altar a very fair and large partition of wainscot, all varnished over, with very fine branches and flowers and other imagery work most finely and artificially pictured and gilded, containing the several lockers or ambers for the safe keeping of the vestments and ornaments belonging to every altar; with three or four aumbries in the wall pertaining to some of the said altars.”

      It would be now quite impossible to describe the rich adornments of an English mediæval monastic church. The Rites of Durham give some idea of the wealth of plate, vestments and hangings, and the art treasures, mural paintings and stained windows, with which generations of benefactors had enriched that great northern sanctuary. What we know of other monastic houses shows that Durham was not an exception in any way; but that almost any one, at any rate of the greater houses, could challenge comparison with it. A foreign traveller almost on the eve of their destruction speaks of the artistic wealth of the monastic churches of England as unrivalled by that of any other religious establishments in the whole of Europe.

      2. THE CLOISTERS

      In every monastery next in public importance to the church came the cloisters. The very name has become a synonym for the monastery itself. The four walks of the cloister formed the dwelling-place of the community. With the progress of time there came into existence certain private rooms in which the officials transacted their business, and later still the use of private cells or cubicles became common, but these were the exception; and, at any rate, in England till the dissolution of the religious houses, the common life of the cloister was in full vigour.

      In the normal position of the church on the north side of the monastic buildings, the north cloister with its openings looking south was the warmest of the four divisions. Here, in the first place, next the door of the church, was the prior’s seat, and the rest of the seniors in their order sat after him, not necessarily in order of seniority, but in the positions that best suited their work. The abbot’s place, “since his dignity demands,” as the Westminster Custumal puts it, was somewhat apart from the rest. He had his fixed seat at the end of the eastern cloister nearest to the church door. In the same cloister, but more towards the other, or southern end, the novice-master taught his novices, and the walk immediately opposite, namely, the western side of the cloister, was devoted to the junior monks, who were, as the Rule of St. Benedict says, “adhuc in custodia”: still under stricter discipline. The southern walk, which would have been in ordinary circumstances the sunless, cold side of the quadrangle, was not usually occupied in the daily life of the community. This was the common position for the refectory, with the lavatory close at hand, and the aumbries or cupboards for the towels, etc. It was here also that the door from the outside world into the monastic precincts was usually to be found. At Durham, for example, we are told that —

      “there was on the south side of the cloister door, a stool, or seat with four feet, and a back of wood joined to the said stool, which was made fast in the wall for the porter to sit on, which did keep the cloister door. And before the said stool it was boarded in under foot, for warmness. And he that was the last porter there was called Edward Pattinson.”

      The same account describes the cupboards near to the refectory door in which the monks kept their towels —

      “All the forepart of the aumbry was thorough carved work, to give air to the towels.” There were “three doors in the forepart of either aumbry and a lock on every door, and every monk had a key for the said aumbries, wherein did hang in every one clean towels for the monks to dry their hands on, when they washed and went to dinner.”

      We who see the cold damp-stained cloisters of the old monastic buildings as they are to-day, as at Westminster for example, may well feel a difficulty in realising what they were in the time of their glory. Day after day for centuries the cloister was the centre of the activity of the religious establishment. The quadrangle was the place where the monks lived and studied and wrote. In the three sides – the northern, eastern, and western walks – were transacted the chief business of the house, other than what was merely external. Here the older monks laboured at the tasks appointed them by obedience, or discussed questions relating to ecclesiastical learning or regular observance, or at permitted times joined in recreative conversation. Here, too, in the parts set aside for the purpose, the younger members toiled at their studies under the eye of their teacher, learnt the monastic observance from the lips of the novice-master, or practised the chants and melodies of the Divine Office with the cantor or his assistant. How the work was done in the winter time, even supposing that the great windows looking out on to the cloister-garth were glazed or closed with wooden shutters, must ever remain a mystery. In some places, it is true, certain screenwork divisions appear to have been devised, so as to afford some shelter and protection to the elder members and scribes of the monastery from the sharper draughts inevitable in an open cloister. The account given in the Rites of Durham on this point is worth quoting at length: —

      “In the cloister,” says the writer – and he is speaking of the northern walk, set apart for the seniors – “in the cloister there were carrels finely wainscotted and very close, all but the forepart, which had carved work to give light in at their carrel doors. And in every carrel was a desk to lie their books on, and the carrel was no greater than from one stanchell (centre-bar) of the window to another. And over against the carrels, against the church wall, did stand certain great aumbries of wainscot all full of books, with great store of ancient manuscripts to help them in their study.” In these cupboards, “did lie as well the