Walter Besant

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,

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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

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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

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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

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ENTRANCE TO CHAPTER HOUSE.

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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.

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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]

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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!

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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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

“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.’”