A Mediaeval Monastery
Clemens, J. R.
June 5, 1929 THE COMMONWEAL 129 A MEDIAEVAL MONASTERY By J. R. CLEMENS D. XII Nomina Monachoram vivorum et mortuorum Ecclesie Xri. Cant, a tempore exilii eorum 1207 ad annum...
...The stacionarius was a brother, who in consequence of his advanced years, was absolved from all the duties which were incumbent on the younger monks, and to whom a chamber in the infirmary was assigned, where he lived unrestricted by the ordinary rules of monastic austerity, but cheered by the conversation of the younger men, upon whom was laid the duty of entertaining him...
...Thus we learn that the average age at profession was 15.5 years...
...the average age at death was therefore 50 years...
...The youngest novice made his profession at twelve years old...
...The first section was compiled by Robert Cawston, a Canterbury monk, in 1468, and hence the book, which gives both the date of admission and of death, has been cited as "Cawston's Duplex...
...the shortest career was that of Gregory Winchelsey, who died of consumption, after having worn the Benedictine habit for the space of less than a year...
...2 from empematis (i...
...An obituary occupying twenty folios follows the list of initiations and extends from 1286 to 1517...
...29 from chronic diseases of old age...
...1 by suicide ("Submergebat seipsum in fonte novo orto...
...3 from paralysis...
...Two or three Lives and Miracles of Saint Thomas, Bryto (and some others) Super Bibliam, Logica Vetus and Nova, comprise about all the literary contents of the list, the large balance being made up of service books...
...e., Tussis et le Murra") ; 1 from atrophy...
...10 from phthisis (consumption...
...Cawston's portion is a bare catalogue of dates, but the part written by several hands after his day gives fuller information as to the preliminary reception of the tonsure, followed by the solemn profession which was tendered by the novice to the abbot or the monk who acted as his deputy...
...It appears that he was bound by precedent to give the invitation, which was not unlikely to give rise to spiteful talebearing ; but a clause at the end cautioning the brethren against "malicious revelations" is calculated to mitigate the harm...
...3 from Passio Asthmatica (all occurring in October, 1420...
...Out 130 THE COMMONWEAL June 5, 1929 of 100 cases taken without selection from the record, 33 died from pestilence...
...2 from pleurisy...
...In the Abbey of Meaux, a community of fifty monks and ten novices, forty of the monks and all of the novices perished in this epidemic...
...The oldest candidate was one who, having filled high offices around the royal court, retired hither to spend the last three years of his life in monastic seclusion...
...The ceremony being strange to the monk who wrote the obituary notice of Prior Chillenden, perhaps thinking that the statement of so unusual a circumstance required confirmation, he adds, "qui vidit ista et interfuit testimonium perhibet de his, et scripsit hec...
...1 by accident (a fall from the unfinished vaults of the nave...
...3 from sudden seizure...
...5 from dropsy...
...One monk of Christ Church was blind for twenty years before his death, and another for four years...
...3 from strangury...
...Cant, a tempore exilii eorum 1207 ad annum XS33Obituarium Monachorum Ecclesie Xri...
...The longest liver was Simon Sandwich, who died in 1488, aged 98 years...
...3 from abscess...
...All the books absent from the shelves are recorded, and in every case the name of the person, monk or secular, who had borrowed the volume is subjoined so that the "defectus" does not indicate the loss of any one book...
...There is a report of an annual inspection of the library of the monastery...
...There is a notice of Prior Oxenden to the monks, calling on them to attend in the chapter house and each one to contribute what he can for the reformation of errors and abuses...
...A considerable number of the elder monks are described as having been "stacionarii" during the last years of their lives...
...Employing such data as are here found, we obtain considerable information bearing upon the vital statistics of a mediaeval monastery...
...beginning with those who returned from exile in France, and ending with three novices received by Abbot Cranmer...
...By the great pestilence of 13 48-13 49, the community, about eighty in number, lost only four of its members, a number proportionately so small that it instantly calls to our mind that the monastery was supplied with pure water, brought by closed pipes from the hills on the northeast side of the city...
...ab anno 1449THIS is a parchment book of thirty-six folios of octavo size, in which, written in double column, are contained the names of all the monks admitted to Christ Church between the years named...
...In one instance the writer expressly claims to have such a personal knowledge, thus: When Roger Walden was removed from the archiepiscopal throne of Canterbury to make room for Abbot Arundel, returning from exile, he was transferred to the bishopric of London, and his installation by Prior Chillenden of Canterbury took place on the day of the Conversion of Saint Paul, upon which festival it was the custom for the bishop and all his canons to walk in procession wearing garlands of red roses...
...ab anno 1286 ad 1507...
...The personal character of the defunct, his knowledge of worldly business, his venerable age, his skill in art, even in one case his stammering speech, arc so carefully noted that it is clear that in these short notices the writers' personal knowledge enabled them to fill up with lively colors the ordinary scanty outline of an obituary...
...the average duration of monastic life was 33.5 years...
...Nomina 161 Ma jorum Civitatis Cantuar...
...Up to the year 1354 nothing, in most cases, beyond a name and a date are set down, but after that time the record seems to have been posted by successive custodians of the register, who whenever a death occurred among the brethren added the name of the defunct to the roll, accompanied by some description of his good qualities, and a full statement of the ceremonies by which the moribund monk was surrounded, and the services—more or less protracted in proportion to his rank—which were performed in his honor after his decease...
Vol. 10 • June 1929 • No. 5
