Quest of Hope(107)

The baker’s son began his training with three new oblates, each slightly older than himself. The four sat in the corner of the cold novices’ chapter house atop long stone benches. The group was first taught to respect the Rule of St. Benedict. They were not to engage in conversation or activity with the monks until or unless they were admitted as novices.

“Boys,” began the master the first morning, “the brothers spend their lives in service to God and others. They live by the strict code of the Rule and most of you shall follow them in their way of life. What they do is always for a reason. They scurry about with bowed heads because the Rule says, Whether sitting, walking, or standing, our heads must be bowed and our eyes cast down. Judging ourselves always guilty on account of our sins, we should consider that we are already at the fearful Judgment, and constantly say in our hearts what the publican in the Gospel said with downcast eyes, “I am a sinner, not worthy to look up to the heavens.’””

Wil thought of his father.

Master Laurentius continued. “The Rule further reads, ‘we speak gently and without laughter … without raising our voices.’ You boys need to respect this. No feigning of bad ears just to hear a brother yell. I shall beat any who does such a thing.

“They are joyfully sworn to obedience, to chastity, to poverty, and someday you may be honored to take their vow. Do not tempt them with idle talk, with trinkets in your purses, with whispering deeds. The Rule says, ‘every exaltation is a kind of pride.’ Do not praise them for their flowers in springtime, their food, their piety… nothing! The Rule and their customaries guide them in all they do. You shall treat them with respect, I say, or you shall be beaten until you do. Have you questions?”

“Do they bathe?”

“Three times a year.”

“Where do they sleep?”

“They’ve a dormitory, like you. All must sleep in a separate bed, but the Rule calls for them to sleep in large rooms. The abbot has approved one corridor of private cells to be used for brothers who seek solitude during fasting or penance.”

“Do they sleep dressed or naked?” The boys tittered. A stern warning from the master called them to silence.

“According to the Rule they—and you—must sleep dressed, but without knives.”

The boys wondered about the knives. They looked at each other and shrugged. “I’ve heard they must eat in silence.”

“It is so, and so it shall be with you.”

“And when do they eat?”

“From Easter to Pentecost they eat at noon, with a light supper in the evening. From Pentecost and through the summer they fast until midafternoon on Wednesday and Friday. On other days they eat at noon. From the thirteenth of September to the beginning of Lent they eat in the midafternoon, and from Lent to Easter they eat in the evening.”

“What do they do beside pray and sing?”

“They read, then they work in their fields or in their workshops. Some are copyists; others work at the brewery or the mill. Look around you, lads. It is a world within the world.”

“Master, how is it you know so much of this place?”

“They are all near to the same, some larger, though none, I think, smaller. I was offered to a monastery as a young boy. Like you, I remember holding my parents’ document in my hand and my hand wrapped in an altar cloth. Then some words were said by my father and a monk, and at that moment I belonged to a cloister near Aachen.”

“But you took no vows?”

“Nay. I was weak-willed and proud of heart as a younger man. I have entered here to try again. So, in accordance with the Rule, I have endured much to be received as a novice once more, but ‘brother’ I am not… as yet. Now, that is enough questions.

“You shall learn by phonics and by repetition. You shall learn the abacus … for you, Wilhelm, a string of peas may do. We shall study the alphabet with the beginner’s reader, the Disticha Catonis, which you shall read and copy over and over on your wax tablets. I am sure your right knees shall be well-calloused by winter’s end!

“When you can read and write to my satisfaction—in about three years—you shall then study the trivium; grammar, rhetoric, and logic. Then, when these are mastered, you shall learn the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Then, little men, you shall have mastered the seven liberal arts, after which you shall then study Donatus and Priscian; you shall learn more Latin. You shall learn Cato’s Moral Sayings, at heart, and shall recite Virgil and Ovid.

“And, while you are studying these things, it is my desire to have you learn chess and backgammon and a bit of law. We want our future abbots to be able to converse with guests and pilgrims.