English MonasteriesThompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
History
English Monasteries
Thompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
Monasteries -- England
CHAPTER IV
THE CISTERCIAN CLOISTER
§ 59. Having thus traced the position of the various buildings in
the normal cloister-plan, we may consider the features peculiar to
cloisters of the Cistercian order—features for which the internal
arrangement of their churches have in some degree prepared us. It has
been pointed out by Mr Micklethwaite that the plan of the Cistercian
cloister is indicated by the order in which the buildings are directed
to be visited in the Sunday procession—viz. chapter-house, parlour,
dorter, rere-dorter, warming-house, frater, kitchen, cellarer's
building. It will be observed that the parlour in this list comes
between the chapter-house and dorter, and was therefore on the
further side of the chapter-house from the church. On the other hand,
although at Furness and Waverley the chapter-house directly joins the
south transept of the church, there was in most Cistercian houses
an intervening building. The ground-floor of this, however, was not
a passage—for the way to the graveyard was through the doorway in
the opposite transept—but was divided into two parts by a transverse
wall. The eastern division, entered from the transept, was a vestry
(_vestiarium_): the western, entered from the cloister, was probably
the library (_librarium_), outside which, in the west wall of the
transept, was the book-cupboard (_armarium commune_), a wainscoted
recess in which the books wanted for constant use in cloister were
kept. At Furness, where the chapter-house was entered by a short
vestibule, the entrance-arch was flanked by two similar arches, each of
which opened into a rectangular apartment: these rooms probably formed
the library. In the later middle ages the partition-wall between the
library and vestry was taken down at Fountains, and the double chamber
was converted into a passage. The books appear to have been removed
into closets formed by enclosing the western bays of the north and
south alleys of the chapter-house.
[Illustration: Fig. 10. Netley abbey: south transept and south aisle of
nave, shewing doorways to sacristy and dorter, and eastern processional
doorway.]
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