] And a quart of bread and
wine, and each monk is to have one quarter of a pound of cheese.
Item, upon Holy Thursday he is to give to the convent a pittance of
leeks and fish to the value of sixty soldi, and . . . {67} Item,
another pittance upon the first day of August; and he is to present
the convent with a good sheep and cabbages with seasoning. Item,
in infirmary time he is to provide two pittances, one of fowls and
the other of salt meat and white chestnuts, and he is to give two
pints of wine. Item, in each week he is to give one flagon [?].
{68} Item, the cellarer is to provide napkins and plates at meal
times in the refectory, and he is to find the bread for making
seasoning, and the vinegar for the mustard; and he is to do an O in
Advent, and in Lent he is to provide white chestnuts, and cicerate
all the year. From the feast of St. Luke to the octave of St.
Martin he is to provide fresh chestnuts, to wit, on feasts of
twelve lessons; and on dumpling days he is to find the oil and
flour with which to make the dumplings.
"Item, as to the office of surveyor, it is ordered that the
surveyor do pay the master builder and also the wages of the day
labourers; the lord abbot is to find all the materials requisite
for this purpose. Item, the surveyor is to make good any plank or
post or nail, and he is to repair any hole in the roofs which can
be repaired easily, and any beam or piece of boarding. Touching
the aforesaid materials it is to be understood that the lord abbot
furnish beams, boards, rafters, scantling, tiles, and anything of
this description; {69} the said surveyor is also to renew the roof
of the cloister, chapter, refectory, dormitory, and portico; and
the said surveyor is to do an O in Advent.
"Item, concerning the office of porter. The porter is to be in
charge of the gate night and day, and if he go outside the convent,
he must find a sufficient and trustworthy substitute; on every
feast day he is {70} . . . to lose none of his provender; and to
receive his clothing in spring as though he were a junior monk; and
if he is in holy orders, he is to receive clothing money; and to
have his pro rata portions in all distributions. Item, the said
porter shall enjoy the income derived from S. Michael of Canavesio;
and when a monk is received into the monastery, he shall pay to the
said porter five good sous; and the said porter shall shut the
gates of the convent at sunset, and open them at sunrise."
The rest of the document is little more than a resume of what has
been given, and common form to the effect that nothing in the
foregoing is to override any orders made by the Holy Apostolic See
which may be preserved in the monastery, and that the rights of the
Holy See are to be preserved in all respects intact. If doubts
arise concerning the interpretation of any clause they are to be
settled by the abbot and two of the senior monks.
Footnotes:
{1} Vol. iii. p. 300.
{2} "I know that my Redeemer liveth." - "Messiah."
{3} Suites de Pieces, set i., prelude to No. 8.
{4} Dettingen Te Deum.
{5} In the index that Butler prepared in view of a possible second
edition of Alps and Sanctuaries occurs the following entry under
the heading "Waitee": "All wrong; 'waitee' is 'ohe, ti.'" He was
subsequently compelled to abandon this eminently plausible
etymology, for his friend the Avvocato Negri of Casale-Monferrato
told him that the mysterious "waitee" is actually a word in the
Ticinese dialect, and, if it were written, would appear as
"vuaitee." It means "stop" or "look here," and is used to attract
attention. Butler used to couple this little mistake of his with
another that he made in The Authoress of the Odyssey, when he said,
"Scheria means Jutland - a piece of land jutting out into the sea."
Jutland, on the contrary, means the land of the Jutes, and has no
more to do with jutting than "waitee" has to do with waiting. - R.
A. S.
{6} Treatise on Painting, chap. cccxlix.
{7} See Appendix A.
{8} Curiosities of Literature, Lond. 1866, Routledge & Co., p.
272.
{9} Ivanhoe, chap. xxiii., near the beginning.
{10} Handel's third set of organ concertos, No. 6.
{11} "Storia diplomatica dell' antica abbazia di S. Michele della
Chiusa," by Gaudenzio Claretta. Turin, 1870. Pp. 8, 9.
{12} "Storia diplomatica dell' antica abbazia di S. Michele della
Chiusa," by Gaudenzio Claretta. Turin, 1870. P. 14.
{13} Handel; slow movement in the fifth grand concerto.
{14} For documents relating to the sanctuary, see Appendix B, P.
309.
{15} "Well, my dear sir, I am sorry you do not think as I do, but
in these days we cannot all of us start with the same principles."
{16} "It may be for a hundred, or for five hundred years, or for a
thousand, or even ten thousand, but it will not be eternal; for God
is a strong man - great, generous, and of large heart."
{17} "If a person has not got an appetite . . . "
{18} The waiter's nickname no doubt was Cristo, which was softened
into Cricco for the reason put forward below. - R. A. S.
{19} "Cricco is a rustic appellation, and thus religion is not
offended."
{20} "Religion and the magnificent panorama attract numerous and
merry visitors."
{21} "And the milk [in your coffee] does for you instead of soup."
{22} Butler said of this drawing that it was "the hieroglyph of a
lost soul." - R. A. S.
