Lastly, there were a number of persons of all ranks and conditions who were admitted to "fraternity." Among the Hospitallers (and probably it was the same with the other orders) they took oath to love the house and brethren, to defend the house from ill-doers, to enter that house if they did enter any, and to make an annual present to the house. In return, they were enrolled in the register of the house, they received the prayers of the brethren, and at death were buried in the cemetery. Chaucer's Dominican friar (p. 48), writes the names of those who gave him donations in his "tables." In the following extract from Piers Ploughman's Creed, an Austin friar promises more definitely to have his donors enrolled in the fraternity of his house:--
"And gyf thou hast any good, And will thyself helpen, Help us herblich therewith. And here I undertake, Thou shalt ben brother of oure hous, And a book habben, At the next chapetre, Clerliche enseled. And then our provincial Hath power to assoylen Alle sustren and brethren That beth of our ordre." _Piers Ploughman's Creed_, p. 645.
In the book of St. Alban's, which we have before quoted, there is a list of many persons, knights and merchants, ladies and children, vicars and rectors, received _ad fraternitatem hujus monasterii_. In many cases portraits of them are given: they are in the ordinary costume of their time and class, without any badge of their monastic fraternisation.
Chaucer gives several sketches which enable us to fill out our realisation of the monks, as they appeared outside the cloister associating with their fellow-men. He includes one among the merry company of his Canterbury pilgrims; and first in the Monk's Prologue, makes the Host address the monk thus:--
"'My lord, the monk,' quod he ... 'By my trothe I can not tell youre name. Whether shall I call you my Lord Dan John, Or Dan Thomas, or elles Dan Albon? Of what house be ye by your father kin? I vow to God thou hast a full fair skin; It is a gentle pasture ther thou goest, Thou art not like a penaunt[62] or a ghost. Upon my faith thou art some officer, Some worthy sextern or some celerer. For by my father's soul, as to my dome, Thou art a maister when thou art at home; No poure cloisterer, ne non novice, But a governor both ware and wise.'"