English MonasteriesThompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
History
English Monasteries
Thompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
Monasteries -- England
§ 47. In all monasteries, save in those of the Carthusian order, the
walk next the church was the ordinary place where the convent spent the
hours of the day allotted to study and contemplation. For this reason
the cloister was normally planned on the south, the sunnier side of the
church, where the high walls of nave and transept checked the north and
east winds. This walk, which was omitted from the route of the Sunday
procession, was sometimes enclosed at either end by screens. In early
times the brethren seem to have sat side by side on the stone benches
which, as at Worcester, were set against the church wall between the
buttresses. But at a later date the part of the walk next the court was
divided by short partition walls into a number of small studies called
carrels (_caroli_, i.e. enclosed spaces). At Durham, where the walk was
ten bays long and was lighted by ten three-light windows, there were
thirty carrels, three to each window. The carrels remain at Gloucester,
twenty in number, two to each of the ten four-light windows. They were
roofed at the level of the window-transoms, so that the upper portions
of the windows gave plenty of light to the walk behind. Each contained
a desk for books: at Durham they were wainscoted, and entered by doors,
the tops of which were pierced, so that each monk as he worked was
under survey. As private property was forbidden, no religious was
allowed to keep books of his own in his carrel. Manuscripts in use were
kept in special cupboards or almeries (_armaria_), which at Durham were
ranged against the church wall. Such book-cupboards were placed in the
cloister where there was room for them. At Worcester there are two in
the east walk near the chapter-house door, while at Gloucester the
easternmost carrel and two small cupboards projecting into the court
from the east walk were probably used for this purpose. In Cistercian
houses a special place was set aside for the library; but in the houses
of most orders no definite part of the plan was so distinguished, and
it is not until a late date that, at Canterbury and Durham, we hear of
separate rooms assigned to the library, as distinct from the cupboards
and presses in the cloister[7].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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