It rudely represents the chapter-house, with the chief-justice and a group of lawyers on one side, the abbot and convent on the other, and a monk reading the grant from the desk in the middle. [Illustration: _Monks and Lawyers in Chapter-house._] Lydgate's "Life of St. Edmund" (Harl. 2,278) was written A.D. 1433, by command of his abbot--he was a monk of St. Edmund's Bury--on the occasion of King Henry VI. being received-- "Of their chapter a brother for to be;" that is, to the fraternity of the house. An illumination on f. 6 seems to represent the king sitting in the abbot's place in the chapter-house, with royal officers behind him, monks in their places on each side of the chapter-house, the lectern in the middle, and a group of clerks at the west end. It is probably intended as a picture of the scene of the king's being received to fraternity. Adjoining the south transept is usually a narrow apartment; the description of Durham, drawn up soon after the Dissolution, says that it was the "Locutory." Another conjecture is that it may have been the vestry. At Netley it has a door at the west, with a trefoil light over it, a two-light window at the east, two niches, like monumental niches, in its north and south walls, and a piscina at the east end of its south wall. Again, between this and the chapter-house is often found a small apartment, which some have conjectured to be the penitential cell. In other cases it seems to be merely a passage from the cloister-court to the space beyond; in which space the abbot's lodging is often situated, so that it may have been the abbot's entrance to the church and chapter. In Cistercian houses there is usually another long building south of the chapter-house, its axis running north and south. This was perhaps in its lower story the Frater-house, a room to which the monks retired after refection to converse, and to take their allowance of wine, or other indulgences in diet which were allowed to them; and some quotations in Fosbroke would lead us to imagine that the monks dined here on feast days. It would answer to the great chamber of mediæval houses, and in some respects to the Combination-room[79] of modern colleges. The upper story of this building was probably the Dormitory. This was a long room, with a vaulted or open timber roof, in which the pallets were arranged in rows on each side against the wall. The prior or sub-prior usually slept in the dormitory, with a light burning near him, in order to maintain order. The monks slept in the same habits[80] which they wore in the day-time.