Another point to bear in mind with regard to, at all events, the spirit of monastic charity, as shown in statutes and custumals, was the endeavour that all the professed religious should cultivate a special sympathy with the poor, as God’s poor, and that such ideals should not be the exclusive privilege of the almoner and sub-almoner, or to some extent of the hosteler. Hence came about the maundy, or washing of the feet of the poor. This was under the superintendence of the almoner. At Abingdon monastery there was a daily maundy, when every morning, after the Gospel of the morrow or early Mass, the almoner went to the door of the abbey, and selected three from the poor waiting for an alms, whose feet were washed by the abbot, or by some monk deputed by him; the chosen almsmen were afterwards fed and given a small present of money. On the great maundy of Thursday in Holy Week it was the custom in most Benedictine houses to call in as many very poor men as there were monks. They were placed opposite each other in two rows, the poor men on one side, the monks on the other. Then, after certain appropriate antiphons, psalms, and collects, each brother crossed over to his poor man, knelt before him, endeavouring to see in him Christ Himself, and washed his feet; then rising he kissed him on the mouth and eyes, sat him down to meat and ministered to him. At the great monastery at Evesham the rule provided for the continuous support of thirteen poor persons, who were fed from the surplusage of the abbot’s table; and this in addition to the twelve “maundy” poor who were clothed as well as fed, and fifty sick persons who were also supported at the abbey’s expense. The one only claim to monastic alms and monastic charity was to be poor and needy. Modern “Charity Organization” methods of subjecting every claimant to strict interrogatories as to the cause of poverty were as unknown to England’s mediæval monks as they were to the Christian Fathers of the sub-apostolic age.