ABSTRACT
Most o f the forms o f the religious life we have described persisted in the later Middle Ages and beyond. But when we enter the fourteenth cen tury we see signs that the traditional version o f the cenobitic life, as it was represented by the Benedictine abbeys and priories, was being eroded by a process o f general decay. The most obvious symptom of this malaise was a decline in the number of monks. A gradual reduction in numbers had been in evidence since the early years o f the thirteenth century. In part, this was a consequence o f the phasing-out o f child-oblates and a general trend to raise the age o f admission. Also a proportion o f those who would in the past have entered the cloister were attracted instead to the Mendicant Orders. But in many cases falling numbers were not so much the result o f dwindling applications as o f a restrictive policy pursued by the monks themselves.
