“Out of the precincts of their cloyster they go not but to work; neither there nor anywhere do they discourse with any but the abbot or prior. They unweariedly continue their canonical hours, not piecing any service to another, except the _vigils_ for the deceased. Their manual labour was as follows: In summer, after Chapter, which followed Prime, they worked till Tierce; and, after Nones, till Vespers. In winter, from after Mass till Nones, and even to Vespers, during Lent. In harvest, when they went to work in the farms, they said Tierce and the conventual Mass immediately after Prime, that nothing might hinder their work for the rest of the morning; and often they said divine service in their places where they were at work, and at the same hours as those at home celebrated in the church.[45] “They observe the office of <g>St. Ambrose</g>, so far as they can have perfect knowledge thereof from Millain; and, taking care of strangers and sick people, do devise extraordinary afflictions for their own bodies, to the intent their souls may be advantaged.” Of the same Order-- Hospinian says--“They allowed to candidates a year’s probation, but no reception to fugitives after the third time. All fasts were observed according to the rule: to visitors prostration was enjoined, with washing of feet. At the Abbot’s table sat the guests and pilgrims: they laboured more than the rule required: delicate habits were exploded: obsolete and primitive fervour was diligently revived and practised. But of this powerful order, avarice was the besetting vice: they were great dealers in wool, generally very ignorant, and, in fact, farmers rather than monks.”[46] The best account of this brotherhood, as Fosbroke has told us, is to be found in the _Usus Cisterciensium_; but of their habits and ceremonies further notice will be found when we come to treat of the more opulent houses. Guyot le Provins, first a minstrel, then a monk, has thus satirized them in a poem, which he called a _bible_, or, more properly, libel. The Cistercian “abbots and cellarers have ready money, eat large fish, drink good wine, and send to the refectory, for those who do the work, the very worst. I have seen these monks,” he affirms, “put pig-sties in churchyards, and stables for asses in chapels. They seize the cottages of the poor, and reduce them to beggary.”--With this brief account of the Order, we return to the subjects selected for illustration. In a historical sketch, by the late Archdeacon Coxe, the ruins of Tinterne Abbey are thus described, and his description is at once accurate and graphic:--