It is significant that in the monasteries, the position of schoolmaster does not seem to have been definitely recognised. Thus, in the list of the officers and obedientaries of Evesham in the thirteenth century, for example, there is included the prior, sub-prior, third prior, and other "custodes ordinis"; the precentor, sacrist, chamberlain, kitchener, cellarers, infirmarer, almoner, warden of the vineyard and garden, master of the fabric, guest master and pittancer; but there is no mention of a "magister scolarum." We have not been able to discover any instance of a monk, who was pensioned at the time of the dissolution, and who was described as acting in the capacity of a teacher at that time. Occasionally we come across references to the "master of the novices."[298] An account of the Novices' School at Durham has been preserved.[299] The school was held in the "weast ally" of the cloisters both in the morning and in the afternoon. The scholars attended for a period of seven years, during which time they received food and clothing. If they were "apte to lernynge ... and had a pregnant wyt withall" they were then sent to the University to study theology; otherwise they were kept at their books in the monastery until they were considered ready for ordination. The Novices' School at Durham was taught by the eldest learned monk in the monastery. At Canterbury the school was under the charge of the "Magister ordinis," and at Abingdon under the "Instructor juvenum."[300] The need for the instruction of the novices was reiterated by the General Benedictine Statutes of 1334, which provided that a secular priest was to be appointed to teach grammar when a monk was not available for the purpose. The appointment to the scholastic posts within the monastery would naturally be in the hands of the abbot or prior.[301] There exists evidence that schools for the education of the laity existed in the neighbourhood of most, even if not all, of the greater monasteries. Thus, prior to the thirteenth century, such schools may be traced at Reading, Dunstable, Huntingdon, Bedford, Christchurch (Hants.), Thetford, Derby, Gloucester, Waltham, Bury St. Edmunds, Colchester, Leicester, Cirencester, Lewes, Battle, Arundel, Lancaster, Chesterfield, Bruton, Winchcombe, Malmesbury, and other places in which a monastery is known to have existed. In many of these cases we are able to trace that the appointment of the "magister scolarum" was in the hands of the abbot. Thus the statutes of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds state that:--