Francis Gasquet - English Monastic Life

This volume does not appear to call for any lengthy preface. It should introduce and explain itself, inasmuch as, beyond giving a brief account of the origin and aim of each of the Orders existing in England in pre-Reformation days, and drawing up a general list of the various houses, all I have attempted to do is to set before the reader, in as plain and popular a manner as I could, the general tenor of the life lived by the inmates in any one of those monastic establishments. In one sense the picture is ideal; that is, all the details of the daily observance could not perhaps be justified from an appeal to the annals or custumals of any one single monastery. Regular or religious life was never, it must be borne in mind, such a cast-iron system, or of so stereotyped a form, that it could not be, and for that matter frequently was, modified in this or that particular, according to the needs of places, circumstances, and times. Even in the case of establishments belonging to the same Order or religious body this is true; and it is of course all the more certainly true in regard to houses belonging to different Orders. Still, as will be explained later, the general agreement of the life led in all the monastic establishments is so marked, that it has been found possible to sketch a picture of that life which, without being perhaps actually exact in every particular for any one individual house, is sufficiently near to the truth in regard to all the houses in general. The purposes for which the various parts of the monastery were designed and were used, the duties assigned to the numerous officials, the provisions by which the well-being and order of the establishment were secured, the disposition of the hours of the day, and the regulations for carrying out the common conventual duties, etc., were similar in all religious bodies in pre-Reformation days; and, if regard be paid to the changed circumstances, are still applicable to the monastic and religious establishments now existing in England.

It remains for me to publicly record my thanks to those who have assisted me in the preparation of this volume.

In regard to the list of the ancient religious houses, which it is to be hoped may be found of use to the student of monastic archæology, I have to acknowledge the kind help of the Rev. Dr. Cox, the general editor of the series; of Mr. W. H. St. John Hope; of Mr. R. C. Fowler, of the Public Record Office; of the Rev. R. M. Serjeantson; and of the Rev. H. J. D. Astley. My readers are also indebted to Mr. St. John Hope and to Mr. H. Brakspear for permission to reproduce three plans giving the typical arrangement of different religious houses; and lastly, my thanks are due to Dom H. N. Birt for various suggestions, and for his careful reading of the proofs for me.

By the advice of the editor of this series, the present list of the principal manuscripts and books used in this volume to describe the life of an English mediæval monastery is here printed, in place of giving multitudinous references at the foot of every page. In the case of the MSS. full transcripts have been made of most of them, in order that all the available evidence bearing on the subject might be fully considered.

Consuetudinarium Monasterii B. Marie, Ebor. St. John’s Coll., Cambridge, MS. D. 27.

Consuetudinarium Abbatiæ S. Petri Westmonasteriensis (Abbot Ware’s). (4th part only, much burnt.) Cott. MS. Otho c. xi.

Constitutiones pro monasterio de Abingdon. Harl. MSS. 209, ff. 11-12, 85-87.

Ordinale S. Edmundi de Burgo. MS. Harl. 2,977.

Ordinale ecclesiæ S. Augustini Cantuariensis: de disciplina Monachorum , etc. Cott. MS. Vitellius D. xvi.

Consuetudines quædam Abbatiæ S. Edmundi Buriensis. (Stated in a Papal letter in the Marini transcripts). Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 15,358, f. 439 seqq.

Traditiones patrum O.S.B. in Liber albus of Edmundsbury. Harl. MS. 1005.

Consuetudines quædam Abbatiæ de Reading. MS. Cott. Vesp. E. v. f. 37 seqq.

Memoriale qualiter in monasterio conversare debemus. Harl. MS. 5,431, f. 114 d.

Officium Senescall. aule Hospitum ecclesie Cantuariensis faciendæ. MS. Cott. Galba E. v. f. 26 d seqq.

Consuetudines Cantuarienses. Arund. MS. 68, f. 55 seqq.

Traditio Generalis Capituli super mores et observantias monachorum Ordinis S. Benedicti. Cott. MS. Faustina C. xii. f. 181.

Consuetudines Elemosinæ ecclesiæ Sti. Petri et S. Swithune, Winton. Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 29,436, f. 72 d. seqq.

Walteri de Wykwane, Abb. de Winchcombe, perquisita spiritualia et temporalia, una cum ejusdem monasterii Constitutionibus et Ordinationibus per eundem factis. Cott. MS. Cleop. B. II. f. 1. Printed in Monasticon .

Statuta Capituli Generalis O.S.B. (Reading and Abingdon, A.D. 1388). Cott. MS. Faustina A. II. f. 93 seqq.

Westminster Chapter O.S.B. under King Henry V. Cott. MS. Vesp. D. ix. f. 193 seqq.

Acta Capitulorum Generalium O.S.A. Brit. Mus. Cotton Charter xiii. 3.

Acta Capituli Generalis Ordinis Sti. Augustini , A.D. 1506. R.O. Exchequer, Q.R. Miscell. 916⁄44.

Mortuary Rolls (Norwich). Brit. Mus. Cotton Charter II. 17 and 18.

Visitationes Abbatiæ de Hayles Ord. Cist. Brit. Mus., Royal MS. 12, E. XIV. f. 73 seqq.

Visitatio Ecclesiæ Cath. Wynton (Bp. William of Wykham, A.D. 1386). Harl. MS. 328.

Monasticon Cisterciense. Julianus, Paris. ed. nova Hugo Séjalon. 1892.

Bibliotheca Premonstratensis , 1633. Le Paige.

Customary of the Benedictine Monasteries of Saint Augustine, Canterbury, and Saint Peter, Westminster. ed. Sir E. Maunde Thompson (Henry Bradshaw Soc.). 1902.

The Ancren Riwle. ed. J. Morton (Camden Soc.). 1853.

The Observances in use at the Augustinian Priory at Barnwell, Cambridgeshire. ed. J. Willis Clark, M.A., F.S.A. 1897.

Apostolatus Benedictinorum in Anglia. Reyner, Clemens.

Antiquiores Consuetudines Cluniacensis Monasterii – Collectore Udalrico Monacho. Migne, Patr. Lat. vol. 149, col. 635 seqq.

The Lausiac History of Palladius. ed. Dom Cuthbert Butler. Part I. Introduction (Texts and Studies, vol. vi.).

De Antiquis Ecclesiæ Ritibus. Martène, III. pp. 253 seqq.

Ordinale Conventus Vallis Caulium. ed. W. de Gray Birch. 1900.

De Consuetudinibus Abbendoniæ, Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon. ed. J. Stevenson (Rolls Series), II. p. 296 seqq.

The Ancient English Version of the Rule of St. Francis – Abbreviatio Statutoram. 1451: in Monumenta Franciscana . Vol. ii. (Rolls Series). ed. R. Howlett.

Rouleaux des Morts du ixe au xve Siècle , Léopold Delisle (Soc. de l’Histoire de France). 1866.

Accounts of the Obedientiars of Abingdon Abbey. ed. R. E. G. Kirk (Camden Soc.). 1892.

Compotus Rolls of the Obedientiaries of St. Swithun’s Priory, Winchester. ed. G. W. Kitchin (Hampshire Record Soc.). 1892.

De prima Institutione Monachorum in Monasticon Anglicanum . (ed. Calley Ellis and Bandinel), I. xix. seqq.

Processus electionis Abbatum S. Albani. Mon. Angl. II. 191, note .

De Consuetudinibus et Ordinationibus officialium separalium in Abbatia de Evesham. Mon. Angl. II. 23-5.

Literæ Constitutionum Hugonis, Lincoln. Episcopi, Visitatione Monalium de Cotun. Mon. Angl. V. 677.