musicians of old

Chapter 791 The Monastery

Fanning had a very tiring sleep.

It must have been because he had done a lot of high-intensity work before, and then fell into a deep sleep due to lack of sleep and extreme fatigue.

But he didn't know where all these high-density mumblings and images came from in the sleeping group portrait. Scenes one after another, thoughts one after another were crowded together, almost overloading his entire subconscious mind.

He first dreamed that he seemed to be back in the college entrance examination room, answering questions about some subject.

But those questions were repeated over and over again, and I had no idea how to answer them.

"From ancient language to modern language, the meaning of '午' has undergone a long and rich change"

"From ancient to modern language, the meaning of '午'"

"The meaning of '午'"

I have prepared so well, why don’t I do it when the critical moment comes?
Fanning, extremely anxious, repeatedly looked up at the classroom clock, and wrote down the word "午" one after another on the answer sheet, arranging them like an infinitely extended crystal lattice.
So well prepared.
Yes, as if facing a formidable enemy, preparing for a battle in a dangerous place, Fanning dreamed that he was holding a torch, fully armed, and observing everywhere with great caution.
But in the end, no fighting took place at all, nothing happened.

There was dead silence all around, and the group had dispersed. I was left alone, walking up through the circles of ruins.
Later, he dreamed of sending messages to Fan Chenxun, paragraph after paragraph, sentence after sentence, thousands of messages, and in the end, it seemed like it wasn't a message, but a voice call, one question after another, questions after questions, questions after questions.
"Why can't I find you, why can't I find you guys"

"It's pointless. There's no point looking for me."

“Isn’t it the point to find out the truth about everything?”

"'Noon' is the truth of everything."

"I need to know exactly what happened! Specific people and specific things!"

"For Wu, specific people and specific things are meaningless. Since I got involved in all this, I have lost the meaning of being 'me'."

"Why? Why!? I don't understand!"

"I am nothing more than a collection, an array, a battlefield, a group of multifaceted and polysemous words. No need to look for me, no need to look for me, no need to look for me!!"

Fan Chenxun's voice echoed in the dream.

A pungent smell of ink suddenly hit my nose, followed by the tangy smell of aged parchment and the sweet, burnt smell of apple wood burning in a charcoal basin.

Fanning suddenly looked up from the stone table.

"Scribe Fanning, may the Lord bless you with this rest."

Outside the door, a nun in a black and white dress with sleeves was bowing to him, holding a stack of parchment on a cloth pad in her hands.

There were large beads of sweat on Fan Ning's forehead, and he stared at a pile of objects in front of the stone platform for a long time in a daze.

Raven quill pen, swan quill pen, parchment, iron gall ink, knife, silver scriber, and a tortoise shell box containing iron gall ink and gold powder glue.

The independent scriptorium is a closed and quiet environment, with furniture limited to a wooden bed, a desk and a prayer table, but there are windows on two walls to ensure sufficient natural light.

Just now, when I was taking a nap at my desk, I had one exhausting dream after another.
Fanning's remaining messy thoughts finally returned to clarity bit by bit.

In the Middle Ages in 1050, in the Monastery of Guida da Lezzo, I was the chief copyist of the "Sacred Music Examination Room".

Wait, medieval times!?

Who defined this term, and why do I describe the current year in this way?
It seems that there are still some messy thoughts left. Fanning walked to the window and took a deep breath of the cool spring air. Below is the square herb garden in the courtyard of the monastery cloister, where gardeners are hunched over picking sage and mandrake. Opposite is a row of arched windows in the monks' dormitory on the north side, where white cloth swells in the wind, and the gilded cross on the spire of the east tower pierces the clouds, with flocks of ravens flying around.

"Master Scribe Fanning, Abbot Bogre asks you to meet him after lunch," the nun said respectfully.

"Got it." Fanning calmly placed the "March and Hymns in A Minor" he was composing on the stone table under the parchment scroll, and then motioned the nun to enter the room.

She brought to Fanning the manuscripts that the apprentices and other monks had completed in that morning's class.

"The syntax copied here is contrary to the translation of St. Jerome." Fanning proofread their handwriting line by line, including the notes and the prayers.

He circled errors with red ink, and sometimes included annotations in small print - this was a kind of "gentle authority" to avoid denying colleagues in person, but it was actually quite effective, and the error rate would directly affect the evaluation of apprentices and monks during the probation period.

After finishing the annotation, Fanning signaled the nun to leave. He looked out the window at the scenery again and was distracted for a moment.

When sitting, one tends to look up at the outside world. Outside the wall, the uncultivated wild oak forest is steaming in the spring mist. Further away, the snow at the foothills of the Alps is glowing with a hazy and light blue light.

"In a blink of an eye, it has been three years since my coming-of-age ceremony, and three years since I entered the monastery's walls."

Fanning was not born into the common people.

Looking at the entire Motraun area, the Nisemi family is one of the core prominent families that are directly loyal to the lord, but he is just a side branch of the family.

The status and paths taken by the direct and collateral branches are completely different, but Fanning is relatively an outlier.

When he came of age, his family sent him to the Guido da Lezzo Monastery to dedicate himself to the Lord's work, and the family used this opportunity to further gain religious and political support - this certainly involved an element of exchange of interests, but how many people in the world would be eager to "walk the path of righteousness."

Fanning was the only one selected from more than 30 eligible collateral descendants based on his hard work and talent.

And three years later, the situation is different.

At the age of 17, Fanning has been promoted to the chief copyist of the Sacred Music Review Room with his outstanding talent and hard work!
The literacy rate was extremely low in that era, but Fanning not only mastered Latin, but was also proficient in hymn writing and mass rituals. As a medium of communication between divine revelation and secular society, his work and himself were revered by everyone.

Including the people, the nobles, and even other clergy.

In a sense, Fanning was now a member of the "privileged intellectual class" - he had his own independent scriptorium, managed more than thirty apprentices and monks, and was directly under the jurisdiction of several senior clergymen of the monastery.

Naturally, their status in this generation of the family is increasing day by day, and is no different from that of direct members.

But living under this high wall, pressure and boredom are always there.

As soon as the daily morning prayer is over, Fanning needs to get down to work, reviewing and screening the music scores and prayers submitted by believers from all over the world. This process does not allow any mistakes. Even with the assistance of apprentices, he still needs to concentrate on checking.

If during the Mass a chant inspired by the devil is sung or a verse containing blasphemous words is heard, it is a sin.

Anyone implicated will have their future ruined.

At noon, Fanning usually reports the preliminary results of the review to several senior clergymen of the "Monk's Tribunal".

The work in the afternoon was more varied: continuing to review, teaching apprentices, composing hymn harmonies or small mass works, and sometimes dealing with high-priced custom requests from clients such as nobles or bishops, such as intricately decorated painted scriptures. In the past, when the deadline was tight, they often worked until late at night for weeks on end.

Before dark, Fanning would receive feedback on the review results from the monks' joint review team. Every half a month or so, when the number accumulated to a certain level, the monks' joint review team would take Fanning with them to report the final review to Dean Bogre.

Therefore, Fanning's position can be understood as an "advisory staff member responsible to the dean and the friars' panel."

"But Dean Bogre summoned me directly at noon today, and it was just two days ago that he finished the final review of a batch. Is there something else?" Fan Ning murmured to himself.