Glossary

Porter

1. See Ecclesiastica Officia, 336, and The Account Book of Beaulieu Abbey ed. S.F. Hockey, Camden Soc., 4th series no.16 (London, 1975), pp.174-5. The almoner’s role is briefly discussed by Brooke, William Morton, xxv-xxxi, who remarks that the almoner awaits an historian, ibid., xxv. However Brooke does not mention if there were ever Cistercian almoners or whether this was a peculiarity of the Benedictine houses. Mr. Peter King informs me he has not come across any references to Cistercian almoners. There were, however, almonesses in Cistercian nunneries, see Nichols, ‘Internal organization’, 31. See above, p. 128, fn. 31, for the importance of the almoner ’s office in post-Conquest houses.