The monks were proverbially _bon vivants_ both in eating and drinking, as is shown by the records and illuminated manuscripts. One of the latter of the fourteenth century, which is to be found in the Arundel collection in the British Museum, depicts a monk cramming himself with pasties supplied to him by a naked imp, and another of about the same date represents a cellarer drawing wine or ale into a large jug with one hand, and carrying a cup to his mouth with the other.[252] Several of the illuminations and carvings of the period prove also that drunkenness was not the only vice practised by the monks; and in one of them a monk and a lady are seen together suffering the penalty of their sins in the stocks, whilst the public is represented by a small boy jeering at them and enjoying their shame. As might naturally be supposed, the higher officers of the convents took better care of the morals of their inferiors than they did of their own. We have already given instances of lavish extravagance in the abbots, and amongst many similar cases, “Thomas Pennant, Abbot of Basingstoke, is said to have given twice the treasure of a king in wine.”[253] But the best pictures of monastic life have been handed down to us in the satires written by the monks and clerics themselves, in which is shown the difference of treatment experienced by the various degrees in a convent. The following is an extract from one of these satires:— “The abbot and prior of Gloucester and suite, Were lately invited to share a good treat; The first seat took the abbot, the prior hard by; With the rag, tag, and bobtail below was poor I. For wine for the abbot and prior they call; To us poor devils nothing, but to the rich all. The blustering abbot drinks health to the prior; Give wine to my lordship, who am of rank higher; If people below us but wisely behave, They are sure from so doing advantage to have; We’ll have all, and leave nought for our brothers to take, For which shocking complaints in the chapter they’ll make. Says the prior, ‘My lord, let’s be jogging away, And to keep up appearances, now go and pray.’ ‘You’re a man of good habits, and give good advice.’ The abbot replies;— they returned in a trice, And then without flinching stuck to it amain, Till out of their eyes ran the liquor again.”[254] Another brief extract from a satirical song composed by a monk at a somewhat later date illustrates the situation admirably:— “One law for our rulers, another for us. To us wretches the smell ev’n of wine is unknown; The vinegar’s ours—the wine all their own. Not a peg from the cloister must we dare to roam, While the lords of a dwelling withdraw to their home, To a smoking good fire, then set themselves down, And with nectar of heaven their best moments crown.”