In some penitential canons which Mr. Johnson assigns to Archbishop Dunstan, with the date A.D. 963, occur in canon vi. the words, “I confess Intemperance in eating and drinking, early and late.” The following injunctions occur in Elfric’s canons:-- (29) ‘Let no Priest sottishly drink to Intemperance, nor force others so to do, for he should be always in readiness if a child is to be baptized, or a man to be houseled. And if nothing of this should happen, yet he ought not to be drunk, for our Lord hath forbidden drunkenness to His ministers.’ (30) ‘Let no Priest drink _at taverns_ as secular men do.’ (35) ‘Nor ought men to drink or eat intemperately in God’s house, which is hallowed to this purpose, that the Body of God may be there eaten with faith. Yet men often act so absurdly as to sit up by night, and drink to madness within God’s house.’ But for them ‘twere better that they In their beds lay, Than that they God angered, In that ghostly house. Let him who will watch, And honour God’s saints, With stillness watch, And make no noise, But sing his prayers, As he best can; And let him who will drink, And idly make noise, Drink at his home, Not in the Lord’s house, That he God dishonour not, To his own punishment.[28] Other enactments may be discovered by the curious, scattered about the pages of early synods, _e.g._ nunneries were not to be houses of gossiping and drunkenness, and beds of luxury, but of sober and pious livers. An injunction this, evidently necessary, for Fosbroke (_British Monachism_, p. 22) speaks of the nuns of Coldingham as using oratories for feasting, drinking, and gossiping. The same author introduces us to the austere rule, as followed by the Britons, of Pachomius, that singular institutor of the cenobitic life in Upper Egypt in the fourth century. Abstinence seems to have been in force; at any rate there was a clause forbidding wine and _liquamen_ (probably cider or perry) out of the infirmary. The inmates were also prohibited _taverns_[29] when necessity called them abroad. On such occasions they were restricted to ‘consecrated’ places. We have already seen that taverns at this time were anything but respectable, so ordinary travellers rarely used them; hence the propriety of this inhibition.