Although the monastic rule enjoins strict moderation and silence at table, yet we know that, from an early period, the monks’ refectory was no less a scene of mirth and festivity than the baronial hall. The Cistercian monks in England appear to have been especially noted for their attachment to good living. The satirists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries recount the number and delicacy of their dishes, and the goodness of their wines. One of these writers, whose work (which commonly goes under the name of Walter Mapes, the great enemy of the Cistercian order) enjoyed a vast popularity in the thirteenth century, describes thus their greediness in eating:-- “Quibus prandentibus voto præcipiti Fauces celerrimæ, dentes solliciti, Sepulcrum patens est guttur, par gurgiti Spumoso stomachus, et rastris digiti.” [Illustration] And he thus describes their evening potations-- “Sed ne potandi sit illa conditio, Qui tenet, teneat, donec de medio Fiat, hinc esset lis et contradictio,-- Ad plenum bibitur sine litigio. Tunc legem statuunt pactumque mutuum, Ne sit in calice quicquam residuum: Sic, sine requie ventris et manuum, Vas plenum vacuant, et replent vacuum.” Another well-known writer, who was no friend of the Cistercians, Giraldus Cambrensis, has left a glowing description of their jovial mode of living. The silence enjoined by their statutes had given place to boisterous jests; and the solemn reading of the bible or saints’ legends, commanded by the founder of the order, had been replaced by the clang of minstrelsy and the feats and grimaces of the jongleurs. Giraldus, among innumerable anecdotes of the private life of the Cistercian monks, has preserved one which is curious not only on this account, but because it is the groundwork of a numerous class of ballads which were popular at a later period.[232]