The duties of the Abbot’s chaplain in these later years of the monastery of Westminster are nowhere defined. In the fourteenth-century Customary of Canterbury it is written that such chaplains should be polite, discreet and pleasant, especially to all strangers. They form as it were a link between the Abbot and his Convent and are bidden to foster the love of the Abbot to the Convent and that of the Convent to the Abbot. Their other duties relate mainly to the due performance of masses in the private chapel and the general regulation of the Abbot’s household. At Durham it was the custom for the chaplain to be summoned to the bedside of a dying monk “who staied w^{th} him till he yealded y^{e} ghoste,” but no such duty seems to have been required at Westminster, the Prior being deemed responsible for the last offices. It can, however, hardly be wrong to assume that the position was one of tact and confidence as well as of invaluable experience to a man who within a comparatively few years was himself to occupy the Abbot’s place. As Sub-almoner Islip’s duties were of a very practical character. His primary responsibility was for the children of the almonry and of the song school. These had their meals in common and were clothed and educated at the expense of the monastery. In due course the Sub-almoner took them to London to be apprenticed to masters of different trades, and would use the opportunity to purchase russet-coloured fustian for the coats of the “syngyng children,” with white cotton to line them, black velvet to bind them, and “sylkyn poyntts” for further decoration. His interest in the children did not end with their passing from his immediate control, for visits were paid from time to time to their masters and presents made in time of sickness. Apparently the purchase of music books came into his department--if we may judge from a payment of five shillings made on one occasion for a “pryksong booke of masses, antems and other songis.” Year by year on St. Nicholas’ Eve and Day the festival of the Boy-Bishop was kept by the singing children, and it was the Sub-almoner’s duty to provide the necessary costumes as well as provisions for the festivity, such as milk-bread, “cowmfetts,” and the like. New shoes and hosen were bought as well as gloves, and eight pence had to be provided for the Boy-Bishop’s offering at the shrine of St. Edward and the altar of Our Lady of the Pew. The singing children assisted at the high mass and evensong on all the principal feasts, and doubtless some of them developed a vocation for the monastic life.