The references to Monks and Monkery in London are, on the whole, good-humoured, from which we may infer that there was little in the way of serious scandal as regards their lives. The easy-going citizens did not expect the most ascetic life in the world from the monks and nuns, who were their own cousins, brothers, or sisters; they recognised it, however, when they found it: for instance, they held the Carthusians in the highest possible reverence, as a body of Religious who adhered strictly to an austere Rule: never ate meat, and never went outside the walls of the House. As regards the other monks, those of Holy Trinity, those of St. Bartholomew’s, those of Westminster, those of St. Mary Overies, it seems certain that they were latterly all of good family; that the austerity of the Rule had been very much relaxed; that the life of the Monastery was, as a rule, decent and dull; that it was very far from being conducive to the development of genius or learning; that it offered place and encouragement to piety of the gentler as well as the more austere kind; that it formed a home for younger sons; that it did not provoke animosity or indignation among the citizens. The well-known case of St. Alban’s, quoted by Froude,[18] had it happened in London, would surely have become known by the people. Chaucer, who reflects the general feeling, has no bitterness at all towards the monk. He depicts him as fond of hunting; he is an “out-rider,” one who can go abroad on the business of the House; he rides a good horse— “And whan he rood, men might his brydel here Ginglen in a whistling wind as clere And eek as loude as doth the Chapel belle.” He kept hounds; all his “lust” was in “priking and in hunting of the hare”; he was dressed as a layman; he was fat and in good point; “he was not pale as a for-pyned ghost,”—a picture of a man whose thoughts, indeed, were not wholly set on things spiritual. Chaucer certainly compared the man with the austere monk designed by the Rule he professed, but without bitterness. He grants the old proverb, “That a monk when he is cloistreless Is lykened til a fish that is waterless” (a proverb also quoted by William of Langland), but in order to show that the contemporary monk was not of that opinion he adds:— “Thilke texte held he not worth an oistre.” The rich clothing and unclerical garb of the monks outside the cloister, and their fondness for hunting, are the principal charges brought against them in the fourteenth century. [Illustration: SAVOY CHAPEL AND PALACE Drawn by Schnebbelie and engraved by Warren for Dr. Hughson’s _Description of London_.]