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CHAPTER III
THE DAILY LIFE OF THE MONKS
The completed monastery had a stout stone wall about it, for security and peace. It enclosed an area of about four hundred yards in width, and more than twice that space in length. The longer reaches of the wall ran through high fields and woods on either side of the valley. At each end it crossed the river: at the west end was the main gate.
Beside this gate stood the gate-house. Abbot Huby, in the sixteenth century, built a house here and established in it Robert Dawson and Ellen his wife; Robert to be porter and Ellen to be laundress. Robert was to keep the gate; and Ellen was to wash or cause to be washed (lavabit vel lavari faciet) the linen sheets (linthiamina) of the abbot
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