On Saturdays they had to prepare hot and cold water, with towels, in the cloister, for the weekly feet-washing; to clean out the lavatory and scour the pot used for boiling water in the kitchen; to help to sweep up and tidy the kitchen, and to prepare wood for the fire next day. In the evening, as the last day of their weekly service, they performed the _mandatum_, or feet-washing: the first server washed the feet of the brethren, beginning with those of the abbot, and the second wiped them with the towels he had already dried and warmed. As a last act they returned and accounted for all the vessels and other things they had received when entering upon their duties on the previous Sunday. CHAPTER V THE OBEDIENTIARIES (_continued_) 7. THE INFIRMARIAN AND HIS WORK The official appointed to have the care of the infirm and sick should have the virtue of patience in a pre-eminent degree. “He must be gentle,” says one Custumal, “and good-tempered, kind, compassionate to the sick, and willing as far as possible to gratify their needs with affectionate sympathy.” When one of the brethren was seized with any sickness and came to the infirmary, it was the infirmarian’s first duty to bring thither the sick man’s plate, his spoon, and his bed, and to inform the cellarer and kitchener, so that the sick man’s portion might be assigned to him in the infirmary refectory. Whenever there were sick under his charge the infirmarian was to be excused, as far as was necessary, from regular duties. He said Mass for the sick, if he were a priest, or got some priest to do so, if he were not. If the sick were able to recite their Office, he said it with them, provided lights, if necessary, and procured the required books from the church. Whatever volumes they needed for reading he borrowed from the aumbry in the cloister; but he was warned always to take them back again before the cantor locked up the cupboard for the night. If there were more than one monk sick at the same time and they could help themselves, the infirmarian was then to go to the regular meals in the refectory; but he was to return to his charges as soon as possible and see that they had been properly served. He always slept in the infirmary, even when there were no sick actually there, and this because he had always to be ready for any emergency. Out of the revenue assigned to his office he had to find whatever might be necessary in the way of medicine and comforts for the sick. He was charged to keep the rooms in the infirmary clean, the floors sparsely covered with fresh rushes, and to have a fire always burning in the common-room when it was needed. According to one set of English directions, the infirmarian was advised always to keep in his cupboard a good supply of ginger, cinnamon, peony, etc., so as to be able at once to minister some soothing mixture or cordial when it was required, and to remember how much always depended in sickness on some such slight