Page:Fountains Abbey.djvu/108

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be a monk but a secular person, employed by the Abbey but not a member of the family. The school-house has not been identified. The building which once stood across the river at the south end of the cellarium would have been conveniently placed for this purpose. A glimpse of the discipline of such a school is had in the fact that, in the sixteenth century, a schoolmaster, receiving his degree of bachelor of arts, was presented with a birch as a symbol of his office, and was required forthwith, in the presence of his examiners, to flog a boy hired for that exercise.

Over the roof of the east walk, a line of windows opened out of the dormitory. This was a long room, with two rows of beds from end to end, like a ward in a hospital. The beds were provided with sheets of linsey-woolsey, and the monks lay on straw which was emptied out of its blue ticking and renewed once every year. At Durham, the custom was to

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