It would be incorrect to suppose that the interior of a monastery in the seventh century presented the same appearance of asceticism and penance that were afterwards characteristic of certain communities subject to the most austere regulations. In the country districts the monasteries possessed vast domains which yielded wheat, rye, oats, hay, vegetables, and fruits; and on which were produced wine, beer, cider, and hydromel; they were tilled by numerous labourers in bands of tens and hundreds, who while at work sang hymns and prayers--a veritable religious militia, grouped beneath the banner of faith in the populous centres and in the neighbourhood of the towns. These monasteries were generally schools in which the monks gave gratuitous education, vast workshops in which they followed and taught every branch of trade--carving in wood, ivory, bronze, silver, and gold; painting on vellum, glass, wood, and metal; weaving tapestry, embroidering church ornaments and vestments; damask work, and enamelling of shrines, tabernacles, diptychs and triptychs, church furniture, and book-covers; the cutting of precious stones to prepare them for setting; the making of arms and instruments of music, illuminating, copying of manuscripts, &c. The whole life of a monk or nun was passed in the exercise of one description of art, or perhaps even in executing a single work which required miraculous patience. [Illustration: Fig. 241.--The Abbey of St. Riquier, near Abbeville, founded in 799 by St. Angilbert, who gave it its triangular shape in honour of the Trinity.--From a Drawing in a very old Manuscript engraved in the Dissertation of Paul Petau, “De Nithardo” (4to, 1612).] As the regular associations became permanently settled in the towns, they began to construct for their use dormitories, cells, workshops, granaries or sheds for their provisions, and built handsome churches with long cloisters and vast chapter-rooms. Each community made a point of having within its own boundary a library, a study, a lecture-room, schools, a cemetery, some shady walks for meditation, as well as a fruit and kitchen garden, the cultivation of which was a healthy and agreeable recreation. In this vast aggregation of monastic buildings and appurtenances (Fig. 244), we have a holy city in the heart of the secular town, a retreat for the peaceful, the devout, and the abstinent, amidst the troubles and vanities of the world. [Illustration: Fig. 242.--Abbatial Ring and Cross (front and back) of St. Waudru, patroness of Mons, who died in 670. The cross is in silver, with gold relief, and studded with precious stones.--Relics preserved in the Church of St. Waudru, at Mons.] [Illustration: Fig. 243.--The Offering of a Child to an Abbot.--From a Miniature in a Manuscript published at the Close of the Thirteenth Century (Burgundian Library, Brussels).]