4 - THE PRIOR'S HOUSEHOLD AND COUNSELLORS

Summary

Do all things with counsel, and thy deeds shall not bring thee repentance.

The separation of abbot and convent has been described as the first and most important division’ in the medieval English monastery, a division whose seeds can be detected in the Rule of St Benedict himself. The church of Durham during Wessington's priorate obviously presents no exception to this general rule, but it would be unfortunate if the effects of this inevitable cleavage between the shepherd and his flock were to be exaggerated. At Durham, as elsewhere, a rudimentary household and an informal group of counsellors had begun to serve the prior long before the end of the twelfth century. Yet there never developed in the northern monastery that sharp separation between the two rival establishments of prelate and convent so characteristic of many other late medieval Benedictine houses. Wessington's household officials and counsellors contributed to the general interests of the community and were not merely the appurtenances of a solitary splendour. A prime concern of Wessington's servants was the well-being of the convent as a whole: and when, for example, Durham obedientiaries used the term scaccarium prioris, they were referring to the bursary or central financial organ of the house. A close relationship between the superior and his monks was of course characteristic of all English cathedral monasteries. But there were several of the latter, like Christ Church, Canterbury, and Worcester, where the prior did in fact develop a very separate establishment.