A somewhat full collection of Obedientiary Rolls, or official accounts of St. Swithun’s Priory, still exists, and much valuable and interesting information has been rendered accessible to the general public by Dean Kitchen, who has edited them, and from these we can learn full details of the daily life, dietary, and operations of the monks of St. Swithun. They had two main meals a day, with certain other opportunities for minor refreshment. Bread, cheese, meat, fish, and eggs appear to have been freely provided, though it must be remembered that there were always guests as well as the monks to be catered for. On fast days ‘drylinge,’ or salt fish, and mustard figured largely, the mustard serving as a corrective to the unpalatable fare, and doubtless, too, a useful tonic to bodies which had to endure so many hours in a stone church or in an open cloister entirely unprovided with artificial means of warming. Beer was the general, and wine a rarer beverage. Relishes and extra dishes were granted from time to time, as, for instance, on festival occasions, or as a reward for special duties. To guard against chills furs were largely worn, and were indeed a heavy item of expenditure. Spices were largely used as comforts in the same way as the mustard already referred to, and to keep the monks in health the gardener was required to supply each monk with a regulation number of apples daily from Advent to Lent, doubtless, again, a wise provision at a period when vegetables were [Illustration: CLOISTERS AND FROMOND’S CHANTRY, WINCHESTER COLLEGE “But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloister’s pale.” Cloisters, with Fromond’s Chantry in the centre (for College has two chapels), forms one of the most poetic spots of Winchester College. In earlier days school was held in Cloisters during the summer months. In Cloisters the College dead lie buried. Many former scholars have cut or carved their names on the stone-work of Cloisters, among them the famous Ken, afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells, who wrote his _Manual of Prayers_ for the use of Winchester College Boys. His morning hymn “Awake, my soul, and with the sun,” and evening hymn “Glory to Thee, my God, this night,” first appeared in this _Manual_. The inscription in Cloisters is “Thos. Ken, 1665.”] nowhere readily obtainable as at present. As an additional corrective, blood-letting, five times a year, was an habitual practice, and as this involved three days in hospital, _i.e._ practically three days’ holiday, it was rather looked forward to than otherwise. ‘Shaving day’ was an important event. On Maunday Thursday the monks washed each other’s feet, and once a year they had a bath. The straw for the pallets, on which they slept in the ‘dortour,’ was changed once a year. The meals were taken in silence in the refectory, while, to transpose the poet’s words,