The Breath of Peace (26 page)

Compline when they retired for the night until after first Mass in the morning.

Jakes – dung pile (as ‘gong'), or compost toilet.

Morrow Mass – the first of two daily celebrations of the Mass, this one being smaller and more intimate than the later one open to the wider public.

Nave – the body of the church occupied by the public in worship.

Obedientiary – monk assigned to a specific role in his community.

Office – the set worship taking place at regular intervals through the day.

Palfrey – high-bred riding horse.

Pease – medieval form of ‘peas' that meant dried legumes in general.

Porridge – English term for oatmeal cooked with milk and/or water.

Postulant – person aspiring to join the community, living in the monastery in the stage of commitment preceding entry into the novitiate.

Pottage – a thick soup or stew made with anything available – vegetables, grains, meat, poultry, fish – added to and varied as the days went by.

Rule – the Benedictine Rule is the document in which St Benedict set out the way of life for his monks to follow. A monk would say he lives not by rules but by a Rule – a guidance for a way to live, not an inflexible set of regulations.

Runkling – the runt of the litter, the smallest animal in a birth group.

Vielle – a bowed stringed instrument similar to a violin but with five strings. One of the most popular European musical instruments through the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries.

Warming room – the place in a medieval monastery that served as a common room. It had a big fireplace.

Monastic Day

There may be slight variation from place to place and at different times from the Dark Ages through the Middle Ages and onwards – e.g., Vespers may be after supper rather than before. This gives a rough outline. Slight liberties are taken in my novels to allow human interactions to play out.

 

Winter Schedule (from Michaelmas)

2:30 a.m. Preparation for the nocturns of matins – psalms, etc.

3:00 a.m. Matins, with prayers for the royal family and for the dead.

5:00 a.m. Reading in preparation for Lauds.

6:00 a.m. Lauds at daybreak and Prime; wash and break fast (just bread and water, standing).

8:30 a.m. Terce, Morrow Mass, Chapter.

12:00 noon Sext, Sung Mass, midday meal.

2:00 p.m. None.

4:15 p.m. Vespers, Supper, Collatio.

6:15 p.m. Compline.

The Grand Silence begins.

 

Summer Schedule

1:30 a.m. Preparation for the nocturns of matins – psalms etc.

2:00 a.m. Matins.

3:30 a.m. Lauds at daybreak, wash and break fast.

6:00 a.m. Prime, Morrow Mass, Chapter.

8:00 a.m. Terce, Sung Mass.

11:30 a.m. Sext, midday meal.

2:30 p.m. None.

5:30 p.m. Vespers, Supper, Collatio.

8:00 p.m. Compline.

The Grand Silence begins.

Liturgical Calendar

I have included the main feasts and fasts in the cycle of the church's year, plus one or two other dates that are mentioned (e.g., Michaelmas and Lady Day when rents were traditionally collected) in these stories.

 

Advent – begins four Sundays before Christmas.

Christmas – December 25th.

Holy Innocents – December 28th.

Epiphany – January 6th.

Baptism of our Lord concludes Christmastide, Sunday after January 6th.

Candlemas – February 2nd (Purification of Blessed Virgin Mary,

Presentation of Christ in the temple).

Lent – Ash Wednesday to Holy Thursday – start date varies with phases of the moon.

Holy Week – last week of Lent and the Easter Triduum.

Easter Triduum (three days) of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter

Sunday.

Lady Day – March 25th – this was New Year's Day between 1155 and 1752.

Ascension – forty days after Easter.

Whitsun (Pentecost) – fifty days after Easter.

Trinity Sunday – Sunday after Pentecost.

Corpus Christi – Thursday after Trinity Sunday.

Sacred Heart of Jesus – Friday of the following week.

Feast of John the Baptist – June 24th.

Lammas (literally ‘loaf-mass'; grain harvest) – August 1st.

Michaelmas – feast of St Michael and All Angels, September 29th.

All Saints – November 1st.

All Souls – November 2nd.

Martinmas – November 11th.