SINNERS OF ST DOGMELLS
Abbot Philip Vader together with Monks Howel Lange and David Lloid were named and shamed!
On the 7th of January 1402 Guy Mone Bishop of St Davids
ordered a visitation and inspection was carried out on the monastery and convent
of St Dogmells.
There has been disquiet in the country about some of the monasteries and
convents, their riches, their land and their conduct. Such was the disquiet that
in 1404 there was a proposal in the Commons to confiscate Church property and in
1414 the alien priories were suppressed by Henry V.
The inspection revealed that while previously there had been a full
complement of HONEST monks there were only three professed but the food and
sustenance consumed would indicate a far larger number. The Order of daily
Services was not followed and many Services not read.
The Abbot, Philip Vader, was held responsible and was ordered to find
“provision of honest persons to be clothed with you in the habit of regulars,
whose conversation in times past may afford a good presumption for the future,
so that by the feast of Pentecost next there may be conversant nine in number at
the least, in order that by the multiplication of intercessors the gifts of
spiritual grace may be increased.”
To encourage the Abbot to increase the numbers it was ordered that until
there was at least six monks the Abbot was only allowed to have the usual Abbots
portion of food but when more than six he can have twice the normal monks
portion at least twice a week.
The Visitation found that instead of spending time in contemplation and
studying the monks were indulging in idle gossip and drinking. The day and night
vigils were times of drunkenness and evil speaking. It was ordered that the
Abbot was to ensure that “no fire shall be made or kept up, or except at the
coming of frost or intolerable cold and while these reign they shall have a fire
at the middle hour, by dispensation of the abbot not for the sake of converse
together but of warmth, for a suitable time and the portion of the monks in
drink and candles shall be diminished, since all which is excessive is counted
for a vice”
The Abbot was reprimanded for allowing the lay brothers to frequent
taverns in the town but it would appear that the lay brothers were not the only
members of the monastery to frequent the taverns. No monk or lay brother was to
be allowed out of the boundary of the monastery without a special licence from
the abbot or his deputy. It appears also that there was another problem which
went against the vow of chastity and it was ordered that “No women suspected
in regard to the monks shall by any means lodge in the town itself but they
shall be removed altogether under the penalty".
[The actual order from
the Bishop just ends the instruction on the with the word penalty.
The penalties were well known and for being an whore the woman would be stripped
naked, tied to the back of a cart and whipped through the streets of the town
and then thrown out of the town as a vagrant or beggar. Many did not survive
because it was usual that before the cart started moving they should be whipped
till the blood formed a pool on the ground. Very often it was the
blacksmith who was employed to do the whipping. In the Haverfordwest Records one
man was paid for whipping six people - beggars or vagrants.
The other penalty
would be the church penalty in that they would be excommunicated and therefore
outlawed. They would be given just one garment and a hat with a staff and sent
on pilgrimage. never to return. They would have to head for the nearest port to
take ship abroad as many of the pilgrimages in cases like this would be to the
Holy Land or Rome - they would also have a price on their head. As the Bishop
had not ordered excommunication the civil penalty would probably apply.
These penalties seem harsh in a time when many Taverns were owned by the church
and had cribs at the back where the serving girls had to take customers - but
then the Church was making a profit on these transaction. Many of the girls were
bondservants whose bond had been bought by the Church and were forced to work as
whores. Remember that until very recently most of the businesses in Soho paid
ground rent to the Church of England - and probably still do!]
There was also the suspicion that lay brothers had entertained women in
the monastery consuming the sustenance of the monastery. The doors and gates on
the North side of the monastery were to be kept shut at all times except during
the Mass or unless the Abbot wished to view the work in the fields.
Howell Lange was one of the monks and it would appear that he was very
fond of wine and metheglin [a spiced mead]. In fact he was a drunkard from the
description. For a year he was not to be allowed out of the monastery bounds
unless in the company of the Abbot. Also he had to give away and distribute his
daily portion of wine to the poor in the Abbots presence.
David Lloid had “culpably lapsed into the crime of apostasy
[renunciation of faith] (we say it
with grief), going forth from the monastery itself and holding himself aloof
among secular persons, neglecting the discipline of his order and deserting the
cloister.”
The Bishop ordered that his blood may be required at the hands of the
Abbot, that they were to diligently search for him bring him back to the
cloister and chastise him according to the discipline of the order as an example
to the others until he repents.
[He could be very severely whipped and there are accounts that in some
cases offenders were walled up alive.]