There were six services every day, of one kind or another, at
which the whole convent was supposed to be present, and one service
at midnight. [Footnote: Peckham's Register, ii, Preface, p. lxviii,
et seq.] The lay brethren among the Cistercians, and the servants
engaged in field labour, were excused attendance at the nocturnal
service, and those officials of the convent whose business required
them to be absent from the precincts were also excused. Indeed, it
would have been simply impossible for the whole brotherhood to
assemble at all these services; there would have been a dead-lock in
twenty-four hours if the attempt had ever been made in any of the
large monasteries, where the inmates sometimes counted by hundreds,
who all expected their meals punctually, and for whom even the
simplest cookery necessitated that fires should be kept up, the
porridge boiled, the beer drawn, and the bread baked. Hence, they
whose hands were full and their engagements many really had no time
to put in an appearance at church seven times in twenty-four hours.
While, on the other hand, the monk out of office, with nothing
particular to do, was all the better for having his time broken up;
going to church kept him out of mischief, and singing of psalms saved
him from idle talk, and if it did him no good certainly did him very
little harm.
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