” IV. Islip as Prior 53 ” V. Islip as Abbot 67 ” VI. Islip in Public Life 84 ” VII. Islip as a Builder 98 ” VIII. The Last Days of the Monastery 112 CHAPTER I. THE MANAGEMENT OF THE MONASTERY. The Rule of St. Benedict, made about the year 540, contemplated only some four officials as in the main responsible for the management of the monastery. These were the Abbot, Prior, Cellarer and Porter. St. Benedict indeed makes mention of a class of officers called Deans, each of whom would be responsible for a group of ten monks engaged in the work of the field which formed an essential part of his scheme of life, but in actual practice no record exists, in England at least, of the subsequent existence of such officers. In the monastic government also some further distinction was made as between the few monks who were priests and the majority who in the earlier years of monastic history were commonly laymen. By the time of Lanfranc, in the course of a quite natural development, additional officers had come to be necessary, and besides those of the Rule there is mention in his _Constitutions_ of the Cantor, Sacrist, Guestmaster, Almoner and Infirmarer. In the _Customary_ of St. Peter’s, Westminster, compiled by Abbot Ware about the year 1266, the number of Obedientiaries or principal officers had risen to at least fourteen, while to these must be added the many junior officers who worked directly under them either as deputies or assistants.