§ 70.

Of the extra-claustral buildings of a monastery, the most important was the infirmary (domus infirmaria, infirmitorium). This was not merely used for the accommodation of the sick, but was the dwelling-place of those who were too infirm to take part in the regular routine of the cloister, known in most orders as stagiarii or stationarii, and of the sempectae who, in the Cistercian order, had been professed for fifty years. It was also generally used by the minuti or religious who were undergoing their periodical bleeding (minutio) for the sake of their health. Each of the Augustinian canons of Barnwell was allowed to be bled once every seven weeks, if he so desired: he might even be bled once a month, if his health demanded it, but in this latter case he was not allowed to take his furlough in the infirmary. The leave allowed at Barnwell lasted [114]
[115]three days, and canons were permitted during such periods to talk to each other and take walks within a limited area[13]. Thus there were usually a few minuti on leave, whose absence made little difference to the number of those in quire; and in the larger houses it is clear that opportunities of bleeding took place once a week. In the Cistercian and Carthusian orders the rules were stricter: the monks were bled in batches appointed by the prior at fixed seasons in the year—four seasons in Cistercian, five in Carthusian monasteries. According to the statutes, Cistercian minuti were obliged to take their meals in the frater, but this rule appears to have been gradually relaxed, and monks probably went into the infirmary, as in other orders, and were allowed a flesh-diet[14]. In Cluniac houses the actual operation of bleeding took place in the common house. Several Benedictine houses—e.g. Bardney and Croyland—sent their minuti to small houses or granges at a little distance from the monastery, under the supervision of a prior.