ABSTRACT
It was the duty of the abbot to ensure that in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, his abbey acted as a charitable institution. In the ‘Tools of Good Works’ that Benedict set out in Chapter Four of his Rule,1 the monks were instructed ‘to relieve the poor, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick, to bury the dead, to help the afflicted [and] to console the sorrowing’.2 Advice on the best and most appropriate means of fulfilling these commands was not however provided by St Benedict. In practice, this meant that a wide variety of people seeking assistance at the monastery necessarily interrupted the enclosure of the monastery, not only within ‘the workshop’ where these tasks were to be executed but also in those places where the brethren were expected strictly to observe the daily hours. The ways in which this double duty created problems and difficulties for the fourteenthcentury abbots of St Albans are the subject of this chapter. The abbey’s provision of charity divided clearly into two distinct areas. First, there were those who received assistance within the monastery itself. These corrodians or pensioners received financial and possibly other support as a form of reward for service, gift or patronage. The second area includes all those who received help at the abbey’s hospital of St Julian’s which was situated on Watling Street near to the southern edge of the town.
