Such, in its essential aspects, was the "ambulatorium angelorum." How did its occupants live? What was the rule observed within those walls? The rule, as kept in those early days, was stern and exacting. The first of the regulations was silence, except at stated intervals. In the church, in the dormitory, in the refectory, in the kitchen, absolute silence, broken only by the summoning bell or by the chanting of prayers. Like ghosts, the sandalled monks glided about the echoing corridors; deaf mutes speaking by signs. The times for speech were the mornings, after chapter, and evenings after sexte. A parlour was reserved for the talkers, where, seated, book in hand, they might converse on spiritual and other topics. Yet they were recommended rather to remain in the cloister, and there meditate, read, pray, or copy manuscripts. This was the hour, too, for drying their clothes in the sun, for visiting the sick in the infirmary, for washing their cups, or for sharpening their knives on the grindstone in the cloister. Their daily food was limited to bread, vegetables, and fruits--meat was given only to the sick--eggs, cheese, and fish were allowed only occasionally, and nothing whatever might be eaten after complines. At certain seasons, the use of fat for flavouring vegetables was forbidden. If wine were permitted, on days of great solemnity, and during exhausting fasts, it must be free from spirituous seasoning, and from the spice that flatters the palates of the worldly. Still less was it permitted to drink hypocras, or oriental or Italian liqueurs--the "little wine" of the apostle was to suffice them. Only two repasts a day were allowed, except to the young, or to those engaged in specially hard work. The monks might shave one another once in three weeks, chanting psalms the while, and not until the days of decadence were they shaved by a secular barber. "In bygone times," says the chronicler, "they were not shaved, they were skinned."[85] They might not bathe often, lest the habit should engender softness, and they did not usually indulge in full ablution more than twice a year--before Christmas and Easter. Sick monks, however, might bathe as often as they pleased.