William of Wykeham's Injunctions

"In the first place, let respect be shown in your aforementioned Monastery to our Lord God, from whom all good things come and all pure religion had its origin, in praiseworthy fashion in your divine practices. 

We order you, by firm command and under the injunctions written below, in goodness and obedience, at the prescribed canonical hours of night as well as day, that in choir at the Convent, Masses be sung to holy Mary and to God, and other customary Masses be celebrated, as is appropriate, at due times and with due devotion and at moderate intervals. 

Nor is it permissible for anyone from the Convent who is supposed to take part in these masses at these hours to be absent from them or, once they have started, to leave before their completion, except for a reason legitimate or unavoidable, approved by the man who, for the time being, is in charge of the place; in which case we place the responsibility more heavily on the consciences of them themselves, before the highest authority. 

Those behaving contrarily, by celebrating in the next Chapter without the acceptance of anybody, must undergo monastic punishment. But if anyone nevertheless, after three punishments due to him, has not corrected himself in respect of all the sins he has committed in the past, in the absence of any legitimate hindrance, we order that, for the next six holy days, this man should go hungry, with just a servant’s ration of bread and soup."

"Also, because in our aforementioned visit we clearly found that silence, to which, next to the rule of St Benedict, you are most effectively bound in due place and time, was so to speak banished and not observed at all amongst you, in breach of monastic observances; we instruct you, jointly  and individually, by strict injunction, as far as silence is concerned, that henceforth in time and place you observe the rules referred to, as behoves you, and by total abstention from silly and frivolous conversations, as is proper, and we order that those who do not observe this sort of silence in the places mentioned should be punished with an appropriate punishment. 

And anyone who, in addition to this, is legitimately found guilty a third time, should, over and above the normal monastic discipline, on the day when he did not observe the due silence, be content with a servant’s share of bread and vegetables."

" Also some monks and brothers of the Monastery, being strong and healthy and established in the priesthood, are often neglecting, as it is said, the celebration of Mass, with no due, legitimate reason and too readily; and they are omitting the souls of the founders and their other benefactors, for whom sacrifices are to be offered, wickedly cheating them of their due praise. 

By imposing an injunction on you as strongly as above, we are giving instructions about how frequently you monks and brothers established in the priesthood in your monastery, together and individually, are to confess to the confessors appointed by the Abbot; and you are to celebrate Mass devoutly as is proper as often and conveniently as you can, in the absence of any legitimate hindrance, as much for the living as for the dead, for whom you are required to pray. 

When a hindrance or warning of one has come to the notice of the Abbot or Prior of the aforementioned monastery, we want those suffering it to be named and exposed and approved within three days, as far as is just, in which case we strictly require of those same people who are doing the exposing and approving to lay their consciences before the highest authority (?God ?the Abbot?). 

As for those doing the opposite, being convicted of this for the first time they will spend the next four days on a servant’s ration of bread and vegetables; found guilty a second time they will spend the next four or six days in the same way. 

Those guilty a third time will go hungry with bread and water for the following days until in the judgement of the Abbot they have corrected themselves in respect of their sins. 

Moreover, it is resolved that the Abbot and Prior of the aforementioned monastery should closely inspect miscreants of this sort once in each month and they should take care to punish, in the way described above, those whom they find culpable."

"Also, your church entrances and doors are not guarded and bolted at the right times and in the right way, as they should be, but the guardianship of them is carried out, or even omitted very often, in a casual way, to such an extent that suspicious characters and others similar often dishonestly make their way through the church and the cloister in darkness and shadows at suspicious and illegitimate times, as is inappropriate. 

As a result, various losses and scandals have frequently happened and, in all likelihood, will be able to happen in the future.

As above, we order you, by firm injunction, that in future you see to it that the doors mentioned above are closed and, having been closed, are guarded by suitable servants at the appropriate times, as they should be. With the proviso that, before the locking of the doors in this way, a careful search should be made, by the guards of the doors themselves, in open spaces as much as in dark corners in the aforementioned church, in case they can find robbers or other suspicious characters lurking anywhere, after which they should, at the crack of dawn, firmly close with bolts the main door of the church.

Clearly, those other doors of your monastery, which are between the nave of the church and the choir, we wish and instruct, as previously expressed, to be closed from early morning until the start of the Mass of the Holy Virgin, and after the end of the great Mass until the start of Vespers, and after Vespers are over, from one day to the next, until the start of the Mass of the Holy Virgin, unless perhaps approval has been granted, by the Abbot or the Prior, for them to be opened at other times for some reason of use or necessity.

We impose the responsibility of doing these things properly on the church officer for the time being, to whose position the things mentioned above belong and indeed in whose guardianship, and nobody else’s, we wish the keys of the doors mentioned to remain, on pain of removal from his office, or to be more severely punished by us, as will seem expedient to us."

"Also, because some monks and brethren of your monastery are less clever, not understanding what they are reading in the literature but, as if totally ignorant, a good many put a short accent on a word instead of a long one and vice versa when they are singing or reading and, heading down dead ends, they often adulterate and pervert the proper sense of the scriptures and it happens that, as long as they don’t understand the holy scriptures, they are more inclined to do forbidden things; we require of the master, the Abbot, with a firm mandate, wherever there is reading without understanding amongst novices and others insufficiently educated, that a teacher be appointed, suitable in all respects, carefully to instruct them in basic understanding and also established rules, to the extent that they remove the scales (from their eyes) and the clouds of ignorance and, being more perfectly educated, understand and recognise what they are reading and are brought to a clearer contemplation of the mysteries of the scriptures, as happens with nimbler minds."

"Because the monks and brothers of your aforementioned monastery, pursue their own personal wishes rather than the communal benefit, they don’t regard their clothing as something necessary when the need arises, but demand a definite, fixed, pre-determined amount of money as an annual grant for these habits, every year, in contravention of the Rule of St Benedict and the canon laws of Cardinal Othobonus and other holy fathers. 

And it happens that, while their greed, with the reins of steadfastness loosened and without religious restraints, desires forbidden garments, coloured with an alien appearance, they fall into luxury and slip down the paths that lead one wretchedly to death; it is known that those wanting nothing new but following in the footsteps of the holy fathers, do not moulder with pestilential disease and produce corrupting worms, but recover more quickly. 

We wish and indeed demand of present and future monks and brothers, when considering your behaviour with regard to the communal goods and belongings of your monastery, that you regard habits and footwear as necessary when they are needed and by no means shall those who have the responsibility of supplying these things provide money for them from now on. 

We require of the chamberlain of the monks that habits that are old and unusable be given to the poor, in close adherence to the Rule of St Benedict and other inviolable laws. 

We require the punishment of suspension from duty of any chamberlain acting otherwise. 

If any other monk from the community oversteps the other expectations of penitence, he is to go without money and new clothing all year."

"Next, the fact that three quarters or a half of the Convent of your aforementioned monastery do not eat every day in the refectory, as the ordinances of the holy fathers have solemnly enacted, healthily in this respect. 

We firmly instruct you by injunction that, embracing this monastic observation more faithfully, you make sure that, in the absence of any legitimate impediment, at least two thirds of your convent are admitted each day to take the midday meal in the refectory; and you should attend to their rations of food as is proper, more firmly insisting that none of the brethren should take their meals in modest homes or other places, even with monastic or secular hosts, or with their confreres in hosted hostelries. 

The refectory and the Abbot’s hall can also be used, in the name of general mercy, for the purpose of convalescence, with the possible exception that the Abbot, using careful forethought, should invite to take food now these, now those that he knows to be in the greatest need. 

There is this proviso however: that when they take food, in this spirit of compassion, they should have with them two older men to restrain the unease of the others and who can later in the chapter house give evidence of the extent to which they were converted through this act of pity, as is more fully expounded in the Oxford Constitution [i.e. of Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, for refreshing the clergy, 1222 AD. Footnote in Liber Vitae itself]. 

Those acting in the future contrary to what has been written above should go hungry, with only servants’ portions of bread and vegetables, provided they are not restrained by adhering to the fourth or sixth holy day. We impose the responsibility for the proper carrying out of the above on the Prior and other officials of the convent or chapter, under threat of suspension from their positions."

"We have found some monks and confreres of your monastery watching huntsmen and openly attending hunts, spurning in this way the yoke of observation of the Rule, and, contrary to established regulations, owning hunting hounds. 

From this frequently arise as much damage to souls and physical dangers and loss of goods as one can imagine and we require that this often-occurring wicked practice be rooted out from your monastery. 

We order all of you, together and individually, to desist from this activity, strictly ordering that no monk from your abbey should wilfully watch or even be present at public, noisy hunting parties, or keep, for himself or for others, openly or secretly, hunting hounds within the monastery or outside in the Estate, contrary to the procedures of the Chapter and other canonical enactments. 

We impose this on the Abbot and do not intend to delegate it to anyone else who might be recognised either by his authority or by custom. 

We order that those acting in contravention to the above should, apart from other canonical disciplines and punishments, go hungry on the fourth and sixth day of rest, with just bread and a servant’s ration."

10. Monks have been inventing (i.e. lying about) the amount of time they have been spending in the choir at services, when they have actually been involved in other activities. The acts of worship are being diminished by this practice and those in authority must ensure that each monk spends the proper amount of time in choir.

11. Two monks must be appointed each year to check the affairs of the Manor and to produce a written account of the state and welfare of the Manor.

12. A worrying reduction in the number of monks, from the traditional former fifty to only thirty. Steps must be taken to recruit new members to the community.

13. The Abbot hasn’t been doing what he should to check on his monks, with the resulting curse that arises when a shepherd, through his sloth, neglects his sheep. They have fallen into the trap, with grave danger to their souls. They must be checked twice a year, with punishment doled out to those found deserving it.

14. We’ve received a lot of complaints about bad bread, as if it’s made from bad, putrid flour, and about various other items of food and drink which are unhealthy and cause those who feed on them to be ill and often rendered unable to carry out their Abbey duties. This must be rectified.