Life in the Medieval Cloister by Julie Kerr

Author:Julie Kerr [Kerr, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2009-05-14T00:00:00+00:00

EXTERNAL CONTROL

Discipline is never pleasant, at the time it seems painful but later, for those trained by it, it yields a harvest of peace and goodness. (Hebrews 12.11)46

While the abbot or abbess had supreme authority within the monastery, external checks were periodically conducted to assess the state of monastic observance. Delegates or ‘visitors’ were sent from the diocese or Order to carry out routine inspections, correcting abuses but also offering support and advice. Most houses would expect a visitation from their archbishop, bishop, archdeacon or his deputy, who would leave a set of statutes or injunctions to be implemented following his stay. Some houses were exempt from diocesan authority and were either visited by a representative of the Order or a papal delegate. All Cistercian abbeys were exempt from episcopal visitation and inspections were carried out internally by the Father Immediate of the house, namely the abbot of the house from which the monastery had been founded. He was expected to visit each daughter-house once a year and reprimand the community if necessary but, importantly, offer advice and encouragement. The survival of a number of statutes issued following the visitation of the religious houses, particularly from the later Middle Ages, sheds light on monastic discipline and the nature of wrongs committed by communities. However, it is important to remember that these were reforming documents intended to record abuses and as such give a one-sided perspective of monastic observance.

The register of Hailes Abbey (Gloucestershire), compiled in the fifteenth century, includes a list of questions that the Cistercian reformer should ask when conducting his visitation and offers an indication of the kinds of abuses they were intent to correct. The visitor was to check for evidence of backbiting and conspiracies against the abbot, incidents of disruption to claustral life and crimes committed by the brethren, especially sodomy but also sorcery or other ‘superstitious arts’. Offences of this nature were not exceptional and a monk of Fountains Abbey who was sentenced to do penance for soothsaying had to wear a paper scroll on his head with the words ‘Behold the soothsayer’ (Ecce sortilegus); papers inscribed with the words ‘Invoker of spirits’ and ‘Soothsayer’ were fastened to his chest and back so that his guilt would be known to everyone.47 The Hailes register stipulates that the visitor should check that no promotions or ordinations had been secured unjustly and assess the general state of monastic observance and the efficient running of the house. He was to make sure, for example, that the Divine Office was celebrated day and night in both the church and infirmary, that the brethren observed religious customs regarding dress, silence and the exclusion of women from the cloister, and that no monk hunted or kept hawks or falcons in the cloister. The visitor was also to ensure that the brethren were fulfilling their obligations to the poor and distributing the customary alms, and, importantly, that they sent the required payments to the mother-house of Cîteaux in Burgundy.48

These visitations were also

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