RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



treat with the abbot of Melrose, his superior, 

 about the rule of his house. 1 During a 

 vacancy at Holmcultram Abbot Richard of 

 Melrose, when visiting the house by virtue of 

 his ordinary jurisdiction and presiding at the 

 election of a new pastor by virtue of the same 

 jurisdiction, delivered to the monks a code of 

 injunctions, which he caused to be read in 

 the chapter house of the monastery in pre- 

 sence of them all on the last day of Novem- 

 ber 1472. The injunctions were concerned 

 with the internal rule of the house in the 

 regulation of the services of the church and 

 the discipline of the monks. It was ordered 

 that the daily and nightly offices of the Blessed 

 Virgin and the Canonical Hours should be 

 skilfully and devoutly celebrated, and that the 

 form delivered to them by their father 

 Bernard should be observed in the reading, 

 intoning, chanting and other ceremonies. 

 The priests of the monastery were expected 

 to receive the Eucharist four times a week 

 (quater septimana) unless hindered by some 

 sufficient impediment, and those who were 

 not priests twice at least within the space of 

 fifteen days (bis saltern infra quindenam). As 

 the cloister would be a tomb without learn- 

 ing 'quia claustrum sine literatura vivi 

 hominis est sepultura ' the study of the 

 Holy Scriptures should be indefatigably pur- 

 sued, for in them they had, as Bernard 

 taught, the surest refuge in all their troubles. 

 The abbot was recommended to observe the 

 greatest circumspection that no monk should 

 visit persons or places beyond the monastic 

 bounds, unless he was attended by a com- 

 panion of honest conversation, and that no 

 woman should be allowed to pass through or 

 make a stay within the precincts lest the 

 good name of the house should be blackened 

 to the detriment of religion. In addition to 

 strict rules for the regulation of diet, fasting and 

 discipline, the abbot was ordered to procure a 

 man learned in grammar for the instruction 

 of the younger brethren in the Holy Scrip- 

 tures, to rebuild the infirmary (cellam pro fra- 

 tribus egrotantibus) as quickly as possible and 

 to refit it with the necessary utensils, and also 

 to supply the inner doors of the monastery 

 with locks to keep out unwelcome visitors. 

 Furthermore, as monks by the traditions of 

 the sacred canons and the monastic rule were 

 dead to the world and forbidden to mix them- 

 selves up with secular affairs, no one professed 

 within that monastery should be allowed to 

 exercise the office of bailiff or forester, which 

 savoured of irregularity ; and as complaints 

 were made about the occupations of Brother 



1 Pat. i Edw. III. pt. i, m. 29. 



John Ribtoun, the abbot was desired to with- 

 draw him from secular business till the next 

 visitation, unless some other order was signi- 

 fied to him in the meantime. 3 



The fame of the abbey as a religious in- 

 stitution may be gathered in some measure 

 from the frequency with which men of posi- 

 tion and influence bequeathed their bodies to 

 be buried within its precincts. Of the not- 

 able personages who were buried there, we 

 may give the most distinguished place to 

 Christian, Bishop of Candida Casa or Whithern, 

 and to the father of Robert Bruce, King of 

 Scotland. The bishop was held in such high 

 esteem by the monks that the charter, in 

 which he declared that he had given his 

 allegiance to the Cistercian Order and become 

 an inmate of that house, where he willed his 

 body to be buried, was rubricated as the ' con- 

 firmation of St. Christian the bishop.' His 

 interest in the affairs of the abbey may be 

 judged by the vigorous language of excom- 

 munication with which he invoked eterni in- 

 cendii penas on all who presumed to damage 

 the monks or their possessions. 3 The his- 

 torian of Lanercost was shocked at the 

 impiety of Bruce, because in his devastating 

 expedition of 1322 he spoiled the monastery 

 though the body of his father had been buried 

 there.* It might be expected that Hugh de 

 Morvill, the lord of Burgh, who had been in 

 such close association with the house, should 



1 Liber S. Marie de Melroi (Bannatyne Club), 

 ii. 596-9. With reference to the educational 

 equipment of the monks, it may be mentioned 

 that the abbot of Holmcultram and the prior of 

 Carlisle alone of all the religious houses in the 

 county were required to search their chronicles and 

 archives for historical matter relating to King Ed- 

 ward's dispute with Scotland, and to transmit the 

 same by the best informed member of each monas- 

 tery to the Parliament at Lincoln on zo January 

 1301 (Rymer, Fcedera, i. 923 ; Part. Writs [Rec. 

 Com.], i. 92). The valuable report from Carlisle 

 has been printed in Psdgnvc's Documents and Records 

 (Rec. Com.), 68-76, and is known as the Cronica 

 de Karleolo, and also in the Calendar of Documents 

 relating to Scotland (Scot. Rec. Pub.), ii. \ 1 5-7). 

 Some of the books and MSS. which belonged to 

 Holmcultram have found their way to the British 

 Museum. A ' bestiary ' inscribed with the words, 

 ' liber sancte Marie de Holmcultram,' will be 

 found among the Cotton MSS. Nero A. v. 1-3. 

 An early manuscript, written in a hand of the 

 twelfth century, containing an account of the 

 miracles of St. John of Beverley, which once be- 

 longed to Holmcultram, is catalogued in the same 

 collection as Faustina B. iv. 8, and has been 

 printed by Raine (Historians of the Church of York 

 [Rolls Ser.], i. 261). 



3 Reg. of Holmcultram, MS. ff. 112-3. 



4 Chron. de Lanercost (Maitland Club), 246. 



165 



