Abbot

“ The Monks (in confusion) . The Abbot! the
Abbot!
Friar Cuthbert (to the girl) . Put on your disguise!
Friar Francis. Hide the great flagon
From the eyes of the dragon!
Friar Cuthbert. Pull the brown hood over your face,
Lest you bring me into disgrace!
Abbot. What means this revel and carouse?
Is this a tavern and drinking-house?
Are you Christian monks, or heathen devils,
To pollute this convent with your revels? ”

“ His lenten fare now let me share, I pray thee, Lord Abbot, in charitie!"
—"Though Simon the Deacon hath pulse in store, To our patron Saint foul shame it were Should wayworn guest, with toil oppress'd, Meet in his Abbey such churlish fare.
"There is Peter the Prior, and Francis the Friar, And Roger the Monk shall our convives be; Small scandal I ween shall then be seen; They are a goodly companie!"
The Abbot hath donn'd his mitre and ring, His rich dalmatic, and maniple fine; And the choristers sing, as the lay-brothers bring To the board a magnificent turkey and chine. ”

“ The abbot kept in his house every day;
And fifty golde chaynes, without any doubt,
In velvet coates waited the abbot about.
How now, father abbot, I heare it of thee,
Thou keepest a farre better house than mee,
And for thy house-keeping and high renowne,
I feare thou work'st treason against my crown.
My liege, quo' the abbot, I would it were knowne,
I never spend nothing, but what is my owne;
And I trust, your grace will doe me no deere,
For spending of my owne true-gotten geere.
Yes, yes, father abbot, thy fault it is highe,
And now for the same thou needest must dye ”

“ For, painted upon the back of the man's perfectly bald head, painted with the most consummate skill, giving the startling illusion of depth and relief, and all the hideous expression that had terrified one man at least out of the world, was the face of the abbot. ”

“ Dost thou love life, Master Abbot? For if so, in spite of thy treasons just uttered, thou mayst save it; we know full well that the names of the men who supplied money and arms for the late most unnatural and parricidal rebellion in the north, [42] which men call the Pilgrimage of Grace, are known to thee, only reveal the secret, and thou art safe.”
“Get thee behind me, Satan; dost thou think I would save my life at the expense of others, and take reward to slay the innocent?” ”

“ Am I not smooth and fine enough for you great lords? You take away the dearest thing a man has--take it away as you did from me, so that he wanders alone about the fields and woods, and then do you think he will care to smarten himself up and streak himself down?"
"Woe upon you! what are you saying!" cried the Abbot. "You break in like a thief on the peace of the convent, you bribe the gatekeeper, you are guilty of such dreadful sin, and then you dare to speak like that?" ”

“ ABBEY (Lat. abbatia; from Syr. abba, father) , a monastery, or conventual establishment, under the government of an abbot or an abbess. A priory only differed from an abbey in that the superior bore the name of prior instead of abbot. This was the case in all the English conventual cathedrals, e.g. Canterbury, Ely, Norwich, &c., where the archbishop or bishop occupied the abbot’s place, the superior of the monastery being termed prior. ”

“ The abbots of the monasteries, in order to dispose of a brother abbot, whose celebrity surpassed their own, or whose circumventive genius they feared, or who had excited their suspicion, jealousy or revenge, would congregate together, and declare that the fated brother had arrived at a degree of sanctification that better qualified him for the hermit's cell than for an abbotship of a monastery, and that to protect him from the contamination of the world, and to enable him to perfect his holiness, it was necessary to wall him up in eternal seclusion. ”

“ Health to the Abbot Thorold!”
“I have won them,” thought the Abbot to himself. Strange mixture that man must have been, if all which is told of him is true; a very typical Norman, compact of cunning and ferocity, chivalry and poetry, vanity and superstition, and yet able enough to help to conquer England for the Pope. ”

“ Me. Who was he, the abbot of the place? Og. He wears a mitre, and has the revenue of an abbot he wants nothing but the name; he is called the prior, because the archbishop is in the place of an abbot; for in old time every one that was an archbishop of that diocese was a monk.
Me. I did not matter if I was called a camel, if I had but the revenue of an abbot. Og. He seemed to me to be a godly and prudent man, and not unacquainted with the Scotch divinity. He opened us the box in which the remainder of the holy man’s body is said to rest. Me. ”

“ The abbot, who was a servant of the Popes at Avignon, laughs at my scruples; and I am obliged to yield. She will be saved, and God, I hope, will pardon our human weaknesses. Let the sin lie on the souls of those blood-hounds, who would pursue to destruction the loveliest creature that breathes upon earth. ”

“ The sway of the abbot was unlimited--they were all sworn to obey him implicitly, and he had it in his power to punish delinquents with penances, excommunication, imprisonment, and in extreme cases with corporal punishment--he ranked as a peer, was styled "My Lord Abbot," and in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries kept an equal state and lived as well as the king on the throne: some of them had the power of conferring the honor of knighthood, and the monarch himself could not enter the monastery without permission. ”

“ While abbot he appears frequently in the state papers as presenting Christmas gifts to the king, providing hawks, &c., negotiating concerning advowsons, and engaging lay clerks and organists. The property of the abbey was very large, and the abbot kept great state, bringing up nearly three hundred sons of the nobility and gentry besides other meaner folk; he entertained sometimes five hundred persons of quality at once, and every Wednesday and Friday fed the poor of the neighbourhood. ”

“ The following abbreviations have been employed throughout, to which are here added the vestments belonging to each order, as a means of distinguishing from each other different Saints who had the same emblem.
A. Abbot or Abbess, commonly dressed like an ordinary monk or nun, (see C.) but with a crosier in the right hand and a book in the left. On seals (and perhaps sometimes in paintings) Abbots have a Mitre, Chasuble, Dalmatic, and other insignia of a Bishop. Ap. Apostle, usually without any tonsure, a long beard, a close tunic and mantle. At an early period the feet are usually bare. ”

“ The abbot is to govern the monastery with full and unquestioned patriarchal authority; on important matters he must consult the whole community and hear what each one, even the youngest, thinks; on matters of less weight he should consult a few of the elder monks ”

“ And when the abbot and the provost differ mutually in their opinions, their souls, on the one hand, must be endangered by this dissension; and those who are under them, while they pay court to different sides, go to perdition. The evil of which danger is to be referred to those who have made themselves the causes of such things through the ordination. Wherefore we foresee that it is expedient, for the sake of maintaining peace and charity, that the ordering of his monastery shall rest with the will of the abbot. ”

“ Only in this way is a distinction made by Him concerning us: if we are found humble and surpassing others in good works. Therefore let him (the abbot) have equal charity for all: let the same discipline be administered in all cases according to merit. In his teaching indeed the abbot ought always to observe that form laid down by the apostle when he says: "reprove, rebuke, exhort." That is, mixing seasons with seasons, blandishments with terrors, let him display the feeling of a severe yet devoted master. ”

“ My guide then whispered to his attendant (who quickly disappeared) and carried me directly to the Abbot. Such a visit was worth paying. I entered with great solemnity; squeezing my travelling cap into a variety of forms, as I made obeisance,--on observing a venerable man, nearer fourscore than seventy, sitting, with a black cap quite at the back part of his head, and surrounded by half a dozen young monks, who were standing and waiting upon him with coffee (after dinner) which was placed upon the table before him. ”

“ In December 1615, Abbot was consecrated by his own brother to the see of Salisbury. His appointment was not made without considerable opposition. ‘Abbot,’ said King James, ‘I have had very much to do to make thee a bishop; but I know no reason for it, unless it were because thou writest against one’—alluding to the fact that Abbot's ‘Defence’ was a rejoinder to one Dr. Bishop, a jesuit (Abel Rediv. p. 545) . On quitting Oxford, Abbot delivered before the university a farewell oration in Latin, of which some fragments are still preserved. ”

“ The abbot who is ordained, moreover, shall reflect always what a burden he is undertaking, and to whom he is to render account of his stewardship. He shall know that he ought rather to be of help than to command. ”

“ The abbot said, “Give him a book to read, and put him in an empty cell.” About the ninth hour the brother looked out, to see if he would be called to eat, and at last came to the abbot, and asked, “Do not the brethren eat to-day, abbot?” “Yes.” “Then why was not I called?” Then quoth Abbot Silvanus: “Thou art a spiritual man: and needest not their food. We are carnal, and must eat, because we work: but thou hast chosen the better part.” ”

“ And if possible let all the affairs of the monastery, as we have already arranged, be administered by deans according to the Abbot’s directions. Thus, with the duties being shared by several, no one person will become proud.
But if the circumstances of the place require it, or if the community asks for it with reason and with humility, and the Abbot judges it to be expedient, let the Abbot himself constitute as his Prior whomsoever he shall choose with the counsel of God-fearing brethren. ”

“ But in abbeys the chief of the obedientiaries was styled prior; and we cannot, perhaps, give a better idea of his functions than by borrowing a naval analogy, and calling him the abbot’s first lieutenant; for, like that officer in a ship, the prior at all times carried on the internal discipline of the convent, and in the abbot’s absence he was his vicegerent; wielding all the abbot’s powers, except those of making or deposing obedientiaries and consecrating novices. He had a suite of apartments of his own, called the prior’s chamber, or the prior’s lodging ”

“ Tell me, my dear abbot, how was it you became a monk, and did not follow arms, like myself and the rest of us?"
"It is the will of God," replied the abbot, hastening to give his feelings utterance. "Many and divers are the paths he points out for us by which to arrive at his city; some walk it with the sword—some with pastoral staff. Nature makes the inclination different, and therefore there are different ways for us to take: enough if we all arrive safely at one and the same place, the last as well as the first. We are all pilgrims through many kingdoms. We all wish to go to Rome, Orlando ”

“ The doors are opened, and the Abbot appears first: a blush overspreads his aged cheeks, as the indignity thus palpably presents itself, but uttering, “And this, too, I offer to Thee,” he lies down upon the hurdle, and they bind his hands and feet to the crossbars, carefully, that they may not touch the ground, for those in charge of the execution would not willingly offer additional pain—some of them are sick at heart as they fulfil the will of the tyrant Tudor. ”

“ Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, held at this time a supreme influence both in Church and in State affairs. His great learning, his eloquence, his moderation, and his indefatigable exertions for the public welfare procured him at once the confidence of the country and the goodwill of his sovereign. By his conciliatory deportment, Abbot, when he held the appointment of chaplain to the Earl of Dunbar, Treasurer of Scotland, effected such an understanding, as to ensure the establishment of the Episcopal order in that country. ”

“ He blasphemed, reviled his kinsmen, swore oaths that set the whole brotherhood in speechless terror, and finally wrote a letter to his old guardian, so crammed with fierce and unclean epithets, that the abbot refused permission to have it forwarded. ”

“ His piety, moreover, must have been well known to the Abbot who sent him for ordination, and to the Bishop, who hesitated not to admit him so prematurely to that holy rite. It is moreover said of him that, in his ardour for study, he declined to be raised to the dignity of an Abbot, lest the distraction to which the care of such an establishment, or family, as the Historian expresses it, would subject him, might allow him less time and leisure for his favourite pursuits. "Officium quippe curam requirit, cura mentem distrahit, distractio studium literarum impedit." ”

“ And the abbot said unto her, ‘If thou wishest we will fetch food from the monastery, and we will partake of it with thee.’ And she said unto him, ‘O my father, command [thy servants] to bring hither a priest with the Offering, so that we may partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ the Vivifier; but since thou wilt have gone forth thou wilt not partake of the Offering with us.’ And the abbot commanded his servants to bring a priest with the Offering, and she and her handmaidens partook of the Holy Mysteries. ”