Refectory Quotes
Never interested in impressive edifices, Irish monks preferred to spend their time in study, prayer, farming-and, of course, copying. ...a little hut for each monk... a refectory and kitchen; a scriptorium and library; a smithy, a kiln, a mill, and a couple of barns; a modest church-and they were in business.
Thomas Cahill
Even when archbishop, he confined to style himself 'frater Johannes humilis,' was assiduous in prayer and fasting, and wore only the poorest clothing. When, as provincial prior, he attended a general council at Padua, he travelled all the way on foot rather than break the rule which forbade friars to ride. When... he visited Lewes priory, he showed his affection for the monks and his own humility by sharing their simple fare in the refectory. The Franciscans styled him moon of their order, Pope Nicholas IV being the sun; both died in the same year, and the Worcester chronicler commemorates the event in verses:
Sol obscuratur, sub terra luna moratur,
Ordo turbatur, stellarum lux hebetatur.
The sun darkens, below earth moon abides judgement,
The order is disturbed, starlight dims.
John Peckham
My impressions are of a huge stainless steel kitchen and Australian expat waiters on rollerblades beaming infrared orders and wide-eyed smiles at each other from handheld computers as they skate around the refectory tables, where earnest young things in tiny rectangular spectacles discuss Derrida's influence on alcopop marketing via the next big dot-sad IPO, or whatever it is the "in” herd is obsessing about these days over their gyoza and organic buckwheat ramen.
Charles Stross
