"Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits."

The re-clothed brethren of the abbey, and their new brothers, off to matins. Black's a tricky colour to highlight, I find. Either you go too light and the highlights look like stripes, or too dark and you can't really see them. I think I've erred a little to the latter here, I might tinker with them later on, but the Gripping Beast figures are so grotty I can't see the effort really paying off much of a dividend. In fact, two of them are so crummy they may be sent to join the leper monks of St. Scrofulus.

Properly Benedictine now.

Unclean! The two on the left are destined for the leper colony.

I've recently learned from the Regia Anglorum living history group that the rope belt is probably inauthentic for the C11th, as this is an innovation of the Franciscan order. Such, I'm afraid, is the life of compromise typical of a miniatures gamer who doesn't want to spend his life converting whatever figures are available to fit his narrow period of interest.

The rule of St Benedict does not actually specify a colour for the habit, only that it is made of cheap and readily available material, but it seems that wool from black sheep had become the custom by the time of the Norman Conquest.

Be happy in both work and prayer, brothers.

My disappointment with the Gripping Beast monks has led me to order some fine looking figures from 1st Corps in order to help fill the abbey with more contemplatives. They arrived this morning and look really nice; I especially like the poses who are at work, busying themselves for the good of their holy community - ora et labora, indeed.

"A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit."

When I painted these monks originally I gave then brown habits without really thinking about it. I know now that this was wrong, that brown habits are worn by Franciscan monks whose order wasn't founded until the C13th, and that the monks of St Gurnard's would almost certainly have been Benedictines.

Franciscan in brown, Benedictine in black.
As has been famously claimed about shoes, brown habits don't make it.

Originally, Benedictines wore grey, later black, and I've been unable to discover when the change occurred. Therefore I've decided to go for a faded black which could be dark grey if necessary.

Bad habits, soon to be replaced by good habits.

Since monks are easy to paint, I'll ordain these disappointingly lumpen Gripping Beast figures I've had knocking around at the same time.

Not Gripping Beast's finest figures

God save you, noble Sir!

"...At the Abbey we are engaged in many works designed to glorify the name of God, but such are costly and our funds are slim. If only some lord, being both wealthy and pious, and seeking to gain the favour of God with his generosity, might act as our patron! Know you of any such, my lord...?"

Welcome to the abbey of St. Gurnard, a saint greatly venerated in C11th England but having fallen somewhat into obscurity in the centuries since. The abbey which housed his relics was once a great centre of pilgrimage, but this popularity, and rumours of its consequent riches, ensured it became a target for raiders of many persuasions – jealous Anglo-Saxon lords, pagan Northmen, untrustworthy Irish and sly Welsh – not to mention the odious Scotch. 

The exact location of the abbey, prey to attacks from over the Irish and the North seas both, the mountains of Cymru and the heathlands of Alba, is a subject which vexes historians and archaeologists of the present day, and many candidates have been proposed in the academic literature without firm conclusion. Perhaps, like Camelot, it more properly belongs to the world of legend....