Reading Abbey

The Monks at Work: Daily Discipline

It must be remembered that reading and writing were unusual in those days, most people could neither read nor write and these skills were especially nurtured in monasteries and among the clergy, a fact still remembered in our present-day term, 'clerical work'. Writing continued both summer and winter though there was no heating in the Cloister. Special writing booths Or 'cartells' with glass in the windows were built in the later years of the monastery but even so the fingers of elderly monks moved only slowly over the pages when snow covered the garden in the centre.

About 9 0' clock every morning all the monks gathered in the Chapter House, one of the largest in the country with a roof rising to some twelve metres. The Abbot had his special seat at the east end and the monks sat on stone seats built into the walls on either side. This was the daily family meeting when none but monks attended. The benefactors and saints of the day were remembered, there was a short service, a chapter was read from the rule of St. Benedict under which the monastery ran and the monks made their confessions of failure before their father Abbot and spiritual brothers. When necessary the Abbot imposed actions to be undertaken as penance; this might include undergoing scourging during the Chapter House meeting. The business for the day was gone over, orders were given for special jobs to be done or overseen around the monastery, for monks with special aptitude and interest took on manual and craftsman's tasks such as gardening or stone-carving and others had responsibilities for the smooth running of this town within a town.

It was at such meetings here that important letters were read to and considered by all the monks, and it was in the Chapter House that important men were heard when they came on affairs, usually religious but sometimes secular, that touched the whole community.

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