The Cambridge Manuals of Science and
Literature
ENGLISH MONASTERIES
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
London: FETTER LANE, E.C.
C. F. CLAY, Manager
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[Illustration: ST MARY'S ABBEY, YORK.
Crossing, north transept, and north aisle of nave.]
[Illustration:
ENGLISH
MONASTERIES
BY
A. HAMILTON THOMPSON,
M.A., F.S.A.
Cambridge:
at the University Press
1913
]
Cambridge:
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
_With the exception of the coat of arms at the foot, the design on
the title page is a reproduction of one used by the earliest known
Cambridge printer, John Siberch, 1521_
PREFACE
In view of the growth of interest in medieval history and art, so
conspicuous of late years, it is thought that this small volume may
meet the needs of those who desire to know something about one of the
most interesting sides of the life of the middle ages. There is no
dearth of literature relating to monasteries, and the general facts
of monastic history are accessible to the ordinary student in various
handbooks. Monographs, however, which describe the plans of monasteries
and the position and use of the principal buildings, exist for the most
part in forms which are more difficult of access. Special attention has
therefore been paid in the present case to the question of plan, and it
is hoped that visitors to the remains of our English religious houses,
who wish to gain some co-ordinate idea of their various parts, may find
some help from this manual.
The writer desires to acknowledge gratefully the assistance of his
wife, who is responsible for the plans and illustrations. The master
of Emmanuel, the general editor of the series, has kindly read through
the proofs and furnished valuable suggestions. The book has also had
the great advantage of perusal and criticism by Mr W. H. St John Hope,
Litt.D., D.C.L., to whose kindness and learning the writer is deeply
indebted. Some idea of what students of English monastic life owe to
Mr Hope may be gained from the bibliography at the end of this volume.
Thanks are also due to the editors of the _Archaeological Journal_ for
permission to found the plan of Haughmond abbey (p. 114) on that by Mr
H. Brakspear, F.S.A., in _Archaeol. Journal_, vol. LXVI.
A. H. T.
Gretton, Northants.
_12 April, 1913._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS
§ 1. The medieval monastery. 2. Growth of monachism in the east. 3.
Beginnings of western monachism: Italy, Gaul and Ireland. 4. The rule
of St Benedict. 5. The Benedictine order in England: early Saxon
monasteries. 6. The Danish invasions and the monastic revival. 7.
Monasticism after the Norman conquest. 8. Benedictine abbeys and
priories. 9. Priories of alien houses. 10. The Cluniac order. 11. The
Carthusian order. 12. The orders of Thiron, Savigny and Grandmont.
13. Foundation and growth of the Cistercian order. 14. Cistercian
monasteries. 15. Monks and _conversi_. 16. Orders of canons: secular
chapters. 17. Augustinian canons. 18. Premonstratensian canons. 19. The
order of Sempringham. 20. Nunneries. 21. Decline of the regular orders.
The friars. 22. Monastic property: parish churches. 23. Monasteries
as land-owners: financial depression. 24. Moral condition of the
monasteries. 25. Numbers of inmates of monasteries. 26. The suppression
of the monasteries. 27. Remains and ruins of monastic buildings 1-39
CHAPTER II
THE CONVENTUAL CHURCH
§ 28. Divisions of the monastery precinct: varieties of plan. 29. The
plan of church and cloister: necessities governing the church-plan.
30. General arrangement of the church. 31. Eastern arm of the church:
Anglo-Norman Benedictine and Cluniac plans. 32. The presbytery and
quire. 33. Transept-chapels. 34. Aisled enlargements of the eastern
arm. 35. The nave: processional doorways, altars and screens. 36.
Parochial use of the nave. 37. The normal Cistercian plan: presbytery
and transepts. 38. Cistercian aisled presbyteries. 39. Cistercian
transepts. 40. Arrangement of the Cistercian nave. 41. Cistercian
influence on the plan of canons' churches. 42. Aisled quires and
presbyteries in canons' churches. 43. Naves with single aisles in
canons' churches. 44. Aisleless naves. 45. Aisleless plans: churches of
nuns, Carthusian monks, friars and Gilbertine canons 39-71
CHAPTER III
THE CLOISTER AND ITS BUILDINGS
§ 46. Plan and position of the cloister. 47. The cloister-walk next
the church. 48. The eastern range: the parlour. 49. The chapter-house:
its uses. 50. Varieties of the chapter-house plan. 51. Sub-vault of
the dorter: treasury and common-house. 52. The dorter stairs. 53. The
dorter and rere-dorter. 54. Buildings opposite the church: the frater.
55. The kitchen. 56. The cloister lavatory. 57. The western range: the
cellarer's building and its upper floor. 58. Exceptional uses of the
western range: Worcester, Durham and Easby 72-95
CHAPTER IV
THE CISTERCIAN CLOISTER, ETC.
§ 59. Plan of the eastern range: the vestry and library. 60. The
Cistercian chapter-house. 61. Parlour, infirmary passage and
sub-dorter. 62. Dorter, rere-dorter and day-stair. 63. The range
opposite the church: plan of the frater. 64. Arrangements of the
warming-house and frater. 65. The kitchen: convenience of its place in
the plan. 66. The western range: cellarer's building and house of the
lay brothers. 67. Later changes in the Cistercian plan: misericords in
cloister. 68. Plans of houses of canons, friars, etc.: their kinship to
the normal Benedictine plan. 69. Carthusian houses: the plan of Mount
Grace 95-113
CHAPTER V
THE INFIRMARY AND THE OUTER COURT
§ 70. Objects of the infirmary. 71. Buildings and position of the
infirmary. 72. Plan and arrangement of the infirmary hall. 73. The
infirmary kitchen and the misericord. 74. The abbot's lodging:
Cistercian usages. 75. Abbots' and priors' lodgings in other orders.
76. The guest-houses: division of hospitality. 77. The outer court or
_curia_: Cistercian entrance-courts. 78. The gatehouse. 79. The almonry
and its uses 113-132
CHAPTER VI
DISCIPLINE AND THE DAILY LIFE
§ 80. Officers of the monastery: the obedientiaries. 81. The monastic
day and its divisions: the night-office. 82. Services and work of the
morning in summer. 83. The day from sext to compline. 84. Arrangement
of the day in winter: variations of daily custom. 85. The Carthusian
day 133-142
Bibliography 143
Index 149
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. PAGE
St Mary's abbey, York. Crossing, north transept, and
north aisle of nave _Frontispiece_
1. Plan of the cathedral priory, Canterbury (after Professor
Willis) 40
2. Croyland abbey: rood-screen and nave from S.E. 50
3. Plan of typical Cistercian church, shewing original form
and later eastern enlargement 56
4. Tintern abbey: north transept and presbytery, shewing
doorways to dorter and sacristy 60
5. Mount Grace priory: tower-arches and nave from N.E. 69
6. Gloucester: south walk of cloister with monks' carrels 74
7. Bristol: chapter-house, looking W. 78
8. Worcester: lavatory in west walk of cloister 88
9. Durham: ceiling of dorter (now the chapter library) 93
10. Netley abbey: south transept and south aisle of nave,
shewing doorways to sacristy and dorter, and eastern
processional doorway 96
11. Fountains abbey: plan 102
12. " " _cellarium_, looking north 106
13. Haughmond abbey: plan 114
14. Peterborough: infirmary, looking west 118
15. Kirkham priory: gatehouse 130
CHAPTER I
THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS
§ 1. A monastery is a community of men or women, devoted to the service
of God and obeying a fixed rule. Monastic rules of life varied in
strictness and in detail; while each community supplemented the rule of
its order by its own code of observances. The object, however, of these
different rules and codes was one. The general term for the monastic
life was 'religion' (_religio_): the 'religious' (_religiosus_) was
bound by three vows, to poverty against the deceits of the world, to
chastity against the lusts of the flesh, to obedience against the
snares of the devil. His chief duty was to take part with his brethren
in the recitation of the canonical hours, and in the celebration of
daily masses. A portion of his day was set apart for meditation in the
cloister; but his surplus time was devoted to labour. The business
affairs of a monastery brought some religious into touch with the
practical side of life. Others found their vocation in manual labour in
the fields or workshops; while a certain number devoted themselves to
literary work in the cloister.
§ 2. The rule of St Benedict, on which western monachism was founded,
distinguishes between four classes of religious. Of these the two
principal were cenobites, monks living in a community (_coenobium_)
under rule, and the anchorites, who have departed (ἀναχωρεῖν) from the
world to live a solitary life of prayer. These were the sources of
the two main streams of Christian monachism. Naturally, the anchorite
came first into existence. The cenobite followed, by the combination
of anchorites in monasteries. The development of the _coenobium_ was
gradual. About 305 A.D., St Anthony inaugurated the 'lauras' (λαῦραι)
of northern Egypt, monasteries in which each anchorite lived in his
separate cell and met for common services only on Saturday and Sunday.
A few years later St Pachomius founded his first _coenobium_ at
Tabennisi in southern Egypt. Here the social principle was more fully
organised: common services in church were more frequent and labour was
recognised as a factor in the monastic life; but the monks still lived
separately. A further step was taken by St Basil, who about 360 founded
a _coenobium_ near Neocaesarea. His rule introduced the idea of common
life under one roof. It became the basis of the monastic system of the
eastern Church, and its principles had a lasting effect on the monastic
life of western Europe.
§ 3. The influence of the monachism of the east naturally spread
westward. No general rule of life was followed at first. Each
collection of monks was governed by its own special observances, aiming
generally at the ascetic ideal of separation from the world pursued by
the early anchorites. Monachism, however, was a powerful agent in the
Christianising of the west. Each monastery under its abbot or father
became a training-ground for monk-bishops who ruled dioceses in new
monastic centres of missionary effort. The beginnings of organised
monachism in Ireland may be traced to the monastery of Lerins, on an
island near Cannes, where St Patrick received his training. The success
of Irish monasticism soon reacted upon Gaul and Italy, when St Columban
founded the monasteries of Luxeuil and Bobbio upon a rule derived from
Irish practice. About the same time St Columba at Iona established the
vogue of the Irish system in northern Britain.
§ 4. Meanwhile, a new development of the principle arose. St Benedict,
a native of Norcia near Spoleto, retired about the beginning of the
sixth century to a hermitage at Subiaco. Here he attracted a number of
followers, and several monasteries arose in the neighbourhood under
his direction. It was for the monastery of Monte Cassino, which he
ruled for some thirty years, that he composed the rule which became
the law of the monastic life of western Europe. The success and the
general adoption of the rule of Monte Cassino in the west were due to
the statesmanship with which its injunctions were adapted to climate
and physical capacity. The Benedictine monk entered upon a life of
work and prayer, which needed the habitual exercise of self-control;
but his bodily health ran no risk of being ruined by pious excess.
Isolated devotion was superseded by religious life in a common
church and cloister. This was the end to which Pachomius and Basil
had contributed; but the mystical temperament of the east fostered a
contemplative and ascetic tendency which modified the conception of
a common life of uniform duty. The early monasteries of Gaul, such
as that of St Martin at Tours, followed the model of the _laura_
rather than the _coenobium_; and the separate cell and the practice
of self-imposed austerities seem to have been general in early Celtic
monasteries. The voluntary hardships of St Cuthbert in his cell on
the Farne islands, the prayers and visions of the Saxon Guthlac at
Croyland, were western survivals of the ideals of St Anthony and
St Simeon Stylites. St Benedict, on the contrary, while casting no
reflexions on a life which he himself had at first adopted, recommended
to the aspirant for salvation no heroic tasks of prayer and fasting.
His aim was the growth in grace of a brotherhood, living under a common
rule in obedience to an abbot to whom considerable discretion was
given. The natural tendency of the solitary life was to produce an
emulation in religious endeavour; and monasteries which were little
more than collections of anchorites were liable to the decay consequent
upon the rivalry of their inmates. St Benedict enjoined emulation
in good works among his monks; but their emulation had its root in
humility and obedience, and its outward sign was a mutual deference far
removed from spiritual pride. There can be little wonder that a rule,
difficult but possible to follow, and allowing for individual weakness,
spread far outside the community for which it was made, and that the
Benedictine order by the end of the seventh century supplanted all
other forms of monasticism in western Europe.
§ 5. The rule of St Benedict was introduced into England by St
Augustine, prior of the monastery on the Coelian hill in Rome. At
this time the chief strength of Celtic monachism was naturally in
the north, although it had penetrated southwards to such isolated
outposts as Glastonbury. Gradually Roman customs gained ground in
the strongholds of Celtic Christianity. The grant of the monastery
of Ripon to Wilfrid was followed by the departure of the Scottish
monks. Little is definitely known of English monastic life at this
period, but it is clear that it began to approximate more closely to
the Benedictine model. Thus the nuns of Hackness, an offshoot of the
monastery of Whitby, had a common dormitory; while the monasteries
of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow differed in many respects from the local
pattern, and were certainly established upon a principle of common
life. In certain features a compromise seems to have been arrived at,
as in the survival of the custom, which had probably been introduced
by Irish missionaries, of grouping monks and nuns in one monastery
under the presidency of an abbess. The most famous instance of this
was the abbey of Whitby, but other examples are known in various parts
of England remote from each other. For a few of these models may have
been found in Gaul, where the Benedictine rule was not introduced until
a period later than the coming of Augustine. Another feature was the
establishment of bishops' sees in monasteries. In European countries
where the traditions of the Roman occupation were more or less
continuous, the cathedral within the city was a distinct foundation
from the monasteries which, as at Paris or Rouen, rose at a later date
outside the walls. But the Celtic missionaries in England broke new
ground in a country from which the traces of Roman Christianity had
almost disappeared, and their sees were founded in monasteries. This
custom was followed in the natural order of things by Augustine at
Canterbury. In the reorganisation of dioceses after the Norman conquest
it was still continued. In eight of the seventeen medieval dioceses of
England the cathedral, and in two others one of the two cathedrals, was
a monastic church.
§ 6. The Danish invasions brought extinction to the monastic life in
the greater part of England. It was not until about a hundred years
later that it was revived. Odo, archbishop of Canterbury 942-59,
prepared the way for the movement. Its success was achieved under his
successor, St Dunstan, with the co-operation of Edgar the peaceful.
Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester, and Oswald, archbishop of York,
were its most active promoters. Both were disciples of the reformed
Benedictine rule which, early in the tenth century, had begun to spread
from the abbey of Cluny. The abbey of Fleury or Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire,
which, after the sack of Monte Cassino by the Lombards in 660, had
become the resting-place of the body of St Benedict, was reformed under
Cluniac influence. Oswald studied the Benedictine rule at Fleury. Made
bishop of Worcester in 961, he was active in replacing the secular
clergy of the churches of his diocese by monks. At Evesham, Pershore,
Winchcombe, Worcester and elsewhere, Benedictine monks were introduced.
In 971 Oswald aided Aelfwine, an East Anglian nobleman, to found the
monastery of Ramsey in Huntingdonshire, and a few years later he and
Ethelwold persuaded Abbo of Fleury to visit England and help them
in extending the religious life. Ethelwold was equally active at
Winchester, and, under a charter from king Edgar, restored destroyed
monasteries throughout the country, including Ely and Peterborough.
Dunstan, the reformer of Glastonbury, gave active sympathy to the
movement, but was more cautious in his attitude to the secular clergy;
and it is noteworthy that the reform did not at once extend to his
cathedral church at Canterbury.
§ 7. This glorious period in the history of English monasticism closed
with the disasters of the early part of the eleventh century. Canute
and Edward the Confessor favoured and enriched many religious houses,
and Edward, by his foundation of the abbey of Westminster, takes a
foremost place among benefactors of the religious life in England. But,
during this disturbed epoch, few new monasteries were founded, and
the tendency to slackness in observance of the rule again appeared.
The permanent triumph of monasticism was achieved after the Norman
conquest. The Conqueror and his followers sought the salvation of
their souls by the foundation of abbeys and priories on their new
estates. The victory of Hastings was marked by the foundation of the
abbey of Battle, the first of the long series of Norman monasteries
in England. In the work of organisation ecclesiastics from the
great abbeys of Normandy took, as was natural, the chief part. Two
successive archbishops of Canterbury, Lanfranc, formerly a monk of
Bec and abbot of St Stephen's at Caen, and Anselm, formerly abbot of
Bec, were instrumental in giving the Benedictine order in England its
pre-eminence under the early Norman kings.
§ 8. The Benedictine monasteries in England were colonised, or,
where they were older than the conquest, received new blood from the
monasteries of Normandy and France. We have seen that the rule of St
Benedict was made for a special monastery: the order was a collection
of independent houses which found the rule suitable to their needs.
Thus each of the larger English Benedictine monasteries was a separate
community, under the jurisdiction of the diocesan bishop, from whose
visitations some powerful abbeys, such as St Albans, Evesham and
Westminster, eventually obtained exemption. It was also subject to the
visitation of two abbots, chosen annually by a general chapter of heads
of English houses. The ruler of the monastery was the abbot: under him
was his deputy, the prior, on whom a large part of the direct oversight
of the house devolved. Where, as at Durham, the church of the monastery
was also the cathedral of the diocese, the bishop was nominally abbot,
but the actual ruler of the house was the prior; and to such houses
the name of cathedral priory was given. The larger houses, however,
frequently founded off-shoots on distant portions of their property,
which were governed by priors appointed by the mother house, and were
known as priories or cells. Although some of them became important
houses, they were at first part and parcel of the mother house, and
many continued to be so throughout the middle ages. Thus St Martin's
at Dover was a priory of Christ Church, Canterbury, and Tynemouth in
Northumberland was a priory of St Albans.
§ 9. There were also certain priories founded in subordination to
foreign houses. Thus Bec had a priory at St Neots in Huntingdonshire;
the abbey of Mont-Ste-Cathérine at Rouen had one at Blyth in
Nottinghamshire. Both these houses contained several monks: in
the thirteenth century there were fourteen at Blyth, all probably
foreigners, and many of them sent from the parent house for a change
of air. But there were also a large number of monastic possessions
known as priories, which were not strictly conventual, but were simply
manors in the possession of alien monasteries, on which a prior or
_custos_, sent from the mother abbey with another monk as his _socius_,
resided for a portion of the year, practically as estate agent.
Sometimes he was allowed, as at Ecclesfield in Yorkshire, a priory
of Saint-Wandrille, to serve the cure of the parish church; but this
was not common. Where these small 'alien priories' are known to have
existed, we need not expect to find any trace of monastic arrangements
in the parish church. Still less need we look for traces of a cloister.
During the hundred years' war with France, the alien priories
were repeatedly confiscated by the Crown, and before their final
confiscation in 1414 many had been granted to English charterhouses,
chantry colleges, and similar foundations. Conventual priories, such
as Blyth and St Neots, were continued as independent monasteries under
English priors.
§ 10. The popularity and wealth of the Benedictine order naturally led
in many monasteries to relaxation of the rule. From time to time monks
who felt the necessity of closer communion with God and a stricter
life sought their need in the foundation of new houses under a more
severe form of their rule. The first important move in this direction
was made in the abbey of Cluny, from which, founded in 910, proceeded
the monastic reform of the tenth century. St Berno, the first abbot,
died in 927. One essential point distinguished Cluniac monasteries
from Benedictine. Each Benedictine abbot was the president of his own
republic. The Cluniac houses, on the other hand, were priories directly
under the supervision of the abbot of Cluny, the autocrat of the order.
They were exempt from episcopal visitation, and the abbot, holding
his general chapters at Cluny, was responsible to the pope alone. In
England their chief house was the priory of St Pancras at Lewes,
founded in 1077 by William de Warenne for a prior and twelve monks:
the prior of Lewes took second rank among Cluniac priors. Of some
thirty-two English houses of the order several were cells of the larger
priories, and at the general chapter would be represented by the priors
of their parent monasteries. Owing to the dependence of the order upon
Cluny, its English priories shared confiscation with the other alien
foundations. They were allowed to continue, however, as 'denizen'
houses with English priors, and the priory of St Saviour at Bermondsey
was raised to the dignity of an abbey. Of ruins of Cluniac priories
in England, the most complete are at Wenlock in Shropshire and Castle
Acre in Norfolk. The plans of Lewes and Thetford priories have been
recovered from foundations and fragments, and there are substantial
remains at Bromholm in Norfolk.
§ 11. The Carthusian order was founded by St Bruno at the
Grande-Chartreuse near Grenoble in 1086. Its members were vowed
to fasting and the solitary life. Each had his separate cell,
the monastery being composed of one or more courts, round which
these dwellings were arranged. The brethren met in church for the
night-office, mass, and vespers: the lesser hours were said, and
meals, save on certain days, were taken by each monk separately. The
order thus was a revolt against the common life, and a return to the
anchoritic ideal. In England only two houses, Witham (_c._ 1179-81)
and Hinton (_c._ 1227), both in Somerset, were founded before the
middle of the fourteenth century. The remaining seven were all founded
after 1340. The royal foundation of Shene priory in Surrey (1414)
was the latest and wealthiest of all. In England the word Chartreuse
(_Certosa_ in Italian) took the form Charterhouse. Considerable remains
of charterhouses exist at Beauvale in Nottinghamshire (founded 1343),
in London (founded 1371) and at Hinton; but the most complete idea of
a Carthusian priory may be gained from the ruins of Mount Grace in
Yorkshire (founded 1396).
§ 12. One of the many off-shoots of the Benedictine order was a
congregation of monks and lay brothers founded in 1114 in the diocese
of Chartres. The name of Thiron (_Tiro_) was given to the abbey from
the _tirones_ or apprentices whom the founder united there, to pursue
their trades in the service of God. Closely akin to this was the abbey
of Savigny in the diocese of Avranches, founded in 1112, which between
that date and 1147 planted some thirteen houses in England and Wales.
When the order of Savigny was merged about 1147 in that of Cîteaux,
its monasteries were said to belong to the Tironensian order. This,
however, was not because of any definite affiliation to Thiron, but on
account of similarity of observances between the two congregations.
English Tironensian houses, such as Humberston abbey in Lincolnshire,
became identical with the ordinary Benedictine monasteries, although a
nominal distinction was recognised. Important remains of a Tironensian
house exist at Caldey, a priory of St Dogmaels, on an island near
Tenby. Such Savigniac houses as Buildwas and Furness became famous as
Cistercian monasteries. Neither of these congregations possessed the
organising capacity which the founders of the Cistercian order brought
to their work. The same may be said of the Grandimontine order, founded
in 1046 at Grandmont in the diocese of Limoges, which during the
twelfth century founded three small priories in England.
§ 13. The Cistercian order took its name from the abbey of Cîteaux in
Burgundy, which was founded in 1098 by Robert, abbot of the Benedictine
house of Molesme. His monks aimed at a literal observance of the rule
of St Benedict on the most austere lines. Meat was banished from
their meals: their buildings followed simple laws of construction and
were free from ornament. The real founders of the order were Stephen
Harding, an Englishman, who became abbot of Cîteaux in 1109, and his
disciple St Bernard, who in 1115 became abbot of the first daughter
house, Clairvaux. Largely owing to the energy of St Bernard, the order
spread with extraordinary rapidity. When Waverley abbey, its first
English house, was founded in 1128, it possessed more than thirty
houses. In 1152 an order forbade the foundation of new abbeys; there
were then fifty houses in England and Wales out of 339. In spite of
this prohibition, the number in the thirteenth century exceeded 600. In
all, the houses of the order in England and Wales numbered 75, some of
which possessed cells.
§ 14. Cîteaux, like Cluny, stood at the head of a federation of
religious houses exempt from episcopal authority. These houses,
however, were ruled by their own abbots, not by priors dependent on
the abbot of Cîteaux; and thus the Cistercian abbeys were saved from
the difficulties which befell the Cluniac in common with other alien
houses. The Charter of Charity, drawn up in 1119, regulated the growth
of the order and the relations between its monasteries. When the
numbers of any house grew too large, it might, with the consent of the
annual chapter at Cîteaux, send out at least twelve brethren, with
a thirteenth as abbot, to found a new monastery. Thus Waverley was
colonised from the abbey of L'Aumône in Normandy. Fountains, founded in
1132 and augmented from Clairvaux in 1134 or 1135, sent out colonies to
Newminster in Northumberland (1138), Louth Park in Lincolnshire (1139),
Woburn in Bedfordshire (1145) and Lysa in Norway (1146). The right of
visitation of Cistercian houses belonged to the abbots of their parent
monasteries: the abbot of Cîteaux was visitor of Clairvaux, the abbot
of Clairvaux visitor of Fountains, and so on; while Cîteaux itself
was visited by the abbots of Clairvaux and its three other eldest
daughters. Monasteries thus founded were to be in places remote from
the conversation of men. Such names as Vaudey (_Vallis Dei_) and Valle
Crucis mark the favourite site of such abbeys in secluded valleys: it
was seldom that the rule was transgressed, as in the case of St Mary
Graces near the tower of London. The churches were dedicated in honour
of our Lady: stone bell-towers were forbidden as well as wooden towers
of excessive height, the windows were filled with plain glass, all
paintings were prohibited save painted wooden crucifixes, and vestments
and other ornaments were of the plainest kind compatible with dignity.
All workshops, stables, etc. were within the abbey precincts, and
precautions were taken against the growth of any colony of lay-folk
near the monastery by the order that any house built outside the
precinct wall was to be pulled down. A similar precaution regulated
the establishment of the abbey farms or granges at a specified minimum
distance from each other. Temporary guests were admitted under special
conditions; but, after the dedication of the church and its octave were
over, the presence of women within the precinct was forbidden.
§ 15. One point in the Cistercian rule, which arose from this
self-contained ideal and had an important influence upon the planning
of Cistercian buildings, was the division of the brethren of each
abbey into monks (_monachi_) and lay brothers (_conversi_)[1].
The Cistercian monk was a clerk who could read and write. Like a
Benedictine monk, he was not necessarily a priest, although it became
very general for monks to proceed to priest's orders. His duties lay
in the church and cloister, and, unless he held an office such as that
of cellarer or kitchener, he was not immediately concerned with the
business affairs of his convent. These, which in Benedictine houses
were largely transacted by tenants or hired labourers and servants,
were performed in Cistercian houses by the _conversi_. A _conversus_
was a layman who had turned from the service of the world to that of
God. He entered the convent as a novice and in due course made his
profession. He was precluded from learning to read or write and from
taking holy orders. He was taught a few prayers and psalms by heart,
but his business was manual labour in the convent workshops, or in its
fields and granges. On ordinary work-days he had to attend part of
the night-office and, if he was not stationed in a grange, had to come
to compline. He observed the other hours by the recitation of special
prayers at his work. His life was regulated by statutes which in
respect of abstinence, silence and other similar essentials resembled
those of the monks. The _conversi_ had their own separate common rooms
in the cloister buildings, their own quire in the church and their
own infirmary. They rose at an hour which was specially calculated to
allow them enough sleep before their day's work: their chapter was held
by the abbot only on Sundays and certain feast-days. Thus the convent
was provided with all the workmen whom it needed. Some _conversi_
were deputed to live upon the convent granges, each of which had a
_conversus_ as prior. The white frocks and cowls of the monks gave the
Cistercians their distinctive name of white monks as opposed to the
Benedictines or black monks: the dress of the _conversus_ was a cloak
(_cappa_), tunic, stockings (_caligae_), boots (_pedules_) and a hood
(_capucium_) covering only the shoulders and breast[2].
§ 16. The monastic movement was not in the first instance a clerical
movement, nor can the earliest founders have contemplated that their
convents would include more than a few priests for the ministration
of the Sacraments. But the ideal of the regular life as pursued in
the monasteries attracted clergy as well as laymen. As early as 391,
St Augustine established communities of regular clergy in Africa.
In the later years of the eighth century, Chrodegand, bishop of
Metz, introduced a rule of life, founded upon that of St Benedict,
among the clergy of his cathedral, which was copied by other similar
congregations of clergy. From this adoption of a rule (_canon_, κάνων)
the members of such bodies became known as canons, and the bodies
themselves, meeting in chapter-houses, where, as in monasteries,
a chapter (_capitulum_) of the rule was read daily, took the name
of chapters (_capitula_). The main object of the movement was the
daily recitation of the canonical hours: the canons had their meals
in common, and in some cases had a common dorter or dormitory. The
tendency during the ninth and tenth centuries seems to have been for
canons to establish their separate households in the neighbourhood of
the church which they served. A marked distinction arose between the
monks of cathedral priories such as Canterbury and the secular canons
who served such churches as the cathedral of York. In the secular
chapters the recitation of the hours was maintained and certain common
funds were administered; but each canon had his own separate estate,
a church or manor known as a prebend (_prebenda_), and the richer
prebends became the perquisites of clerks in constant attendance upon
the king or upon some bishop or nobleman. The number of resident canons
was very small, and the duties of absentees were taken by their vicars
(_vicarii_) or deputies. Colleges of chantry-priests, usually of late
foundation, were organised as similar associations of secular clergy,
who were bound, however, from the nature of their duties to continual
residence. The colleges of Oxford and Cambridge had a similar basis.
They were associations of clergy for teaching and study, with a common
hall and church, and are therefore derived from a source distinct from
the monastic movement.
§ 17. Bodies of canons regular, however, came into existence, distinct
from the chapters of canons secular, living in monasteries, reciting
the canonical hours, and leading the common life of monks. Their rule
was modelled on an adaptation of a letter from St Augustine of Hippo
to a congregation of religious women. It was shorter and couched in
more general terms than the rule of St Benedict; but its aim was
similar. Its followers became known as Augustinian or Austin canons.
From their hooded black cloaks with white surplices and black cassocks
beneath, they were often called black canons. The order did not
appear in England until about 1106, when the priory of St Botolph at
Colchester was founded by a Benedictine monk named Ernulf; nor did
the papacy definitely recognise the order until 1139, when its houses
were already numerous. The number of English Augustinian houses at its
highest point reached 218, and of these 138 were founded before 1175.
At the suppression of the monasteries there were about 170 Augustinian
houses, while of Benedictine houses there were from 130 to 140.
Augustinian houses varied greatly in size and wealth, and at no time
did their wealthier abbeys approach the immense revenues of the greater
Benedictine houses; while their average income was very moderate. Each
house was governed by a 'prelate,' generally known as the prior, but in
some 24 cases as the abbot. Most of their abbeys were in the midland
districts: in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Norfolk, where their
houses were numerous, the title of prior was universal. In 1133 one
of their convents, Carlisle, was raised to the dignity of a cathedral
priory. Their growth was analogous to that of the Benedictines: each
house with its cells was an independent community: their visitor was
the diocesan bishop, and very few of their houses became permanently
exempt from visitation. The order also held its general chapters, at
which two visitors were appointed yearly for each of the provinces
into which its houses were divided.
§ 18. The order of Premonstratensians, known from their white habit
as white canons, was founded by St Norbert at Prémontré, to the west
of Laon, about 1120. The canons followed the Augustinian rule in the
main, but their constitution shewed a tendency to follow Cistercian
models. The order was centralised under the abbot of Prémontré, where
the general chapters were held, and was extended by the Cistercian
process of colonisation, each house sending out its body of canons as
the nucleus of a new abbey. Lisques, a daughter of Prémontré, colonised
Newhouse abbey in north Lincolnshire in 1143. In 1147 Newhouse founded
a daughter house at Alnwick, and between that time and 1212 founded
ten other abbeys. Of these Welbeck (1153) was responsible for seven
more between 1175 and 1218. In all there were thirty-one abbeys of the
order in England, not counting two cells. Cistercian influence can be
seen in the constitution of each new house as an abbey, in the choice
of secluded sites for the houses of the order, and in the principal
dedication of most of its churches to our Lady. Like other centralised
orders, the Premonstratensians were exempt from the jurisdiction of the
diocesan bishop; but the allegiance of the English canons to Prémontré
gradually slackened, and the administration of their order in England
was delegated in course of time to a commissary. In 1512 Julius II
exempted the English houses from obedience to Prémontré and placed them
under the control of the abbot of Welbeck.
§ 19. The order of Prémontré originally made some provision for
houses of nuns side by side with those of canons. The experiment
languished, and although a body of nuns or canonesses followed the
Premonstratensian rule, they had few houses. Only two are known
in England, and neither of these was connected with any house of
canons. But in the second quarter of the twelfth century Gilbert,
rector of Sempringham in Lincolnshire, with the advice of the abbot
of Rievaulx, founded a house of seven nuns following the Cistercian
rule. The Cistercian order refused to take charge of the community,
and Gilbert, possibly following the example of Prémontré, provided
for its spiritual needs by associating with the nuns a body of canons
under the rule of St Augustine. Gilbertine houses were thus at first
regarded as nunneries in which the Sacraments were administered by
an auxiliary community of at least seven canons. Minutely composed
statutes provided for the seclusion of the two bodies from each other
in two adjacent cloisters. In such double houses the maximum number of
nuns ordained by statute was generally double that of canons: thus at
Watton in Yorkshire, the largest house of the order, nominal provision
was made for 140 nuns and 70 canons. The order, which was exempt from
episcopal control, was placed under a general, known as the master of
Sempringham. Sempringham was the mother house of a number of priories:
new houses were founded on the Cistercian plan of the migration of
twelve canons and a prior from one of the existing houses. _Conversi_
and _conversae_ formed a part of each establishment. The total number
of Gilbertine houses was some 27, of which eleven were in Lincolnshire:
with the exception of two houses in Wiltshire, one in Devonshire and
one in Durham, the monasteries of the order were all within the four
eastern dioceses of Lincoln, York, Ely and Norwich. The order never
spread beyond England.
§ 20. Houses of Benedictine nuns were numerous in England. The most
important of these lay within the dioceses of Salisbury and Winchester.
In the midlands, the east and north, where they were numerous, they
were with a few exceptions small foundations of which scanty traces
are left. A few priories of nuns, chiefly in the dioceses of York and
Lincoln, followed the Cistercian rule. In the sixteenth century the
wealthiest of the Cistercian nunneries, which as a rule were small
and poor, was at Tarrant in Dorset; and it was for the three nuns who
originally settled here in the thirteenth century that the famous
_Ancren Riwle_ or _Regulae inclusarum_ were composed. Cistercian
nunneries were not subject to Cîteaux, but were visited by their
diocesan bishop. Houses of nuns or canonesses following the rule of
St Augustine were few; but of their two abbeys, Burnham and Lacock,
there are substantial remains. The richest nunnery at the suppression
was Sion abbey in Middlesex, founded by Henry V in 1414 for Bridgetine
nuns, whose rule was modelled on that of St Augustine. The Bridgetine
order, as well as that of Fontevrault, to which Nuneaton priory
in Warwickshire originally belonged, attempted to provide regular
chaplains for its members by uniting a convent of men to one of women.
In connexion with some of the older Benedictine nunneries there were
from an early date secular chaplains who had their own prebends in
the monastic estates and their stalls in quire. In process of time
such prebendal stalls in the churches of Romsey, Shaftesbury, Wilton,
Wherwell and St Mary's, Winchester, became perquisites of clerks in the
royal service, whose duties in the nunneries were performed by vicars.
§ 21. After the beginning of the fourteenth century the foundation
of monasteries practically ceased, although the Carthusian order at
a later date enjoyed some popularity, which was enhanced by royal
patronage. Religious houses no longer afforded the only career possible
to those who were unfitted for the limited professions open to the
medieval layman. With the growth of a well-to-do middle class came the
tendency to devote benefactions which at an earlier date would have
been given to monasteries to parish churches. From the reign of Edward
II onwards chantries and colleges of chantry-priests in parish churches
were founded in great numbers. In one respect, however, the regular
life kept in touch with national progress. The orders of friars found
their way to England in the thirteenth century. In 1221 Dominicans
(Friars preachers or black friars) settled at Oxford: about 1224
houses of Franciscans (Friars minor or grey friars) were established
at Canterbury and London: Hulne priory in Northumberland and Aylesford
priory in Kent were founded for Carmelites (white friars) about 1240:
Clare priory in Suffolk was founded for the order known later as
Austin friars in 1248. Of the lesser orders the most important was the
Trinitarian, whose most famous house was St Robert's at Knaresborough.
Although the general plan of a friary was similar to that of a
monastery, the lives of monks and friars were totally different. The
friar was a wanderer who lived on alms: his circuit was bounded by a
special province, and he was not confined to the limits of a single
house. The favourite places for friaries were thus the larger towns.
No less than seven houses of friars were founded in Cambridge: there
were six each in London and Oxford: Bristol, Lincoln, Lynn, Newcastle,
Northampton, Norwich, Stamford, Winchester and York contained
houses of all the four chief orders. An order of nuns, known as the
Poor Clares from their foundress St Clare, was an off-shoot of the
Franciscan order, and had five houses in England. The influence gained
by these new bodies served to turn popular attention from the older
orders. Not merely were the friars the revivalist preachers of the
age, in antagonism to the conservative spirit of the monks and secular
clergy[3]; but the great learning of many of their leading members
earned them distinction and no little weight in the universities
of Europe. The moral dangers of their life, their independence of
episcopal control and their unchecked influence among the common people
brought about an early decline from the ideals of their founders; but
their achievements during the first century of their existence are one
of the most remarkable episodes in religious history.
§ 22. Although monks and canons were bound to individual poverty
and all who attempted to accumulate a private store of money were
liable to punishment, the greater monasteries were large landowning
corporations. Their early benefactors bestowed gifts of manors and
churches upon them for which they were bound in return to the sole
service of praying for the souls of the donors. Such alienations were
regulated by the statute of mortmain (1279). Benefactions continued
under the procedure established by this act, and the monasteries thus
became owners of a very large number of parish churches. The custom of
appropriation and its effects on the fabrics of parish churches has
been stated in another volume of this series[4]. The constant plea
for appropriation was founded on the insufficiency of the funds of a
monastery to fulfil its duty of hospitality to wayfarers and of relief
to the poor. In churches of which monks were proprietors, the vicar
was a resident secular priest. Monks were not allowed, save in very
exceptional cases, to serve the cures of parishes, which would have
interfered with their duties in quire and cloister. Wherever we find it
stated in print that an incumbent of a parish church or chantry was a
monk, we should hesitate to believe it without consulting the original
record of his institution. Canons, on the other hand, whose orders
began in the association of secular priests under a rule, were given
more licence in this respect. Premonstratensian canons were generally
allowed to serve the parish churches belonging to their houses; and
bishops granted similar licences, though not without demur, to Austin
canons. It is sometimes stated that the object of the Augustinian order
was to supply parochial clergy to churches on their estates. If this
was so, the custom was severely checked in the thirteenth century;
and, when in the later middle ages the number of appropriated churches
served by Austin canons considerably increased, the quire services
in their monastic churches suffered to an extent which was never
contemplated by their founders.
§ 23. The position of monasteries as landowners naturally led to
some slackening of the rule. Abbots and priors of the larger houses
took their place among the spiritual barons of the realm. From the
fourteenth century to the suppression twenty-four Benedictine and
three Augustinian abbots, with the prior of Coventry and the English
prior of the knights hospitallers, had a prescriptive right to seats
in parliament. These are sometimes confounded with 'mitred' abbots:
the right, however, of an abbot or prior to wear episcopal insignia
depended, not upon a parliamentary summons, but upon a privilege
granted by the pope. In addition to the extra-monastic duties thus
incumbent upon certain heads of houses, the care of large estates took
many of the brethren away from constant attendance in their house.
When bishop Alnwick of Lincoln visited Peterborough abbey in 1437,
he found that out of 44 monks there were seldom on ordinary days more
than ten or twelve at any service in church. The obedientiaries or
officers who looked after the chief departments of the convent came
to church only on great festivals: some monks lived upon the abbey
granges: every week at least seven were on furlough for blood-letting:
two were at their studies at Oxford: several were old and infirm and
could not attend service regularly. The somewhat trite remark of the
cellarer at Leicester in 1440 that 'abundance of money is the cause
of many evils' is justified over and over again in the records of
episcopal visitations. In spite, however, of their wealth, even the
richest houses, as a rule, were beset by money difficulties. Their
expenses were great: hospitality and the daily alms were a serious
drain on income: pensions and corrodies or shares in the common revenue
were too liberally granted to outsiders: there was much necessary
outlay on property: young monks had sometimes to be maintained in
hostels belonging to monasteries at the universities: an ambitious
abbot might run his house into extravagant expense on buildings:
episcopal visitations meant a large fee to the bishop and expense
upon his entertainment. The improvidence of officers, joined with the
damage caused to property by pestilence and storm, constantly reduced
monasteries to a state of bankruptcy. The heavy debts of monasteries,
their insufficient assets, the irregularity with which accounts were
rendered, and the consequent decay of discipline are abundantly
illustrated in the registers of fourteenth and fifteenth-century
bishops and in the patent rolls of the reigns of Henry V and Henry VI.
§ 24. '_Decem sunt abusiones claustralium_,' runs an inscription
upon the quire-stalls of St Agatha's abbey, now in Richmond church,
'The abuses of those in cloister are ten: costly living, choice
food, noise in cloister, strife in chapter, disorder in quire, a
neglectful disciple, a disobedient youth, a lazy old man, a headstrong
monk, a worldly religious.' The actual evidence of documents, when
compared with the counsels of perfection in the rules of orders and
the custom-books of monasteries, supplies a commentary on this text
which applies to every century from the thirteenth to the sixteenth.
It must also be owned that grave moral offences were not uncommon.
Where slackness of rule was prevalent, temptations of this kind must
have abounded, and convents which had the misfortune to possess an
unworthy or lazy head were liable to succumb to them. Such weaknesses,
however, are just those on which satirists lay excessive emphasis and
to which scandal lends a too ready ear. The evidence of episcopal
visitations, while it discloses much that is repellent to our ideal
of the religious life, seldom proves that moral corruption was
general in any given monastery, or that individual backslidings went
without punishment. Cases of immorality, though not few, are generally
treated with an individual prominence which would be impossible, if
a whole monastery were implicated in them. This fact must be laid
against the credence which is still sometimes given to the so-called
_comperta_ of Henry VIII's commissioners, the trustworthiness of which
is now rightly discredited. Bishops like Alnwick would spend months
of hard work in visitations and several days, if necessary, on the
impartial examination of the evidence for a single crime, while such
commissioners as Dr Layton rushed at full speed through the monasteries
committed to their inquiry, with prejudices already formed and with the
most casual examination of witnesses, enforcing resignations of abbots
and extorting confessions and bribes from frightened monks and nuns,
with the closely allied objects of bringing the revenues of the houses
to the royal exchequer and of earning grants of prebends and deaneries
for themselves.
§ 25. There can be no doubt, however, that during the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries the life of monks and canons regular became
generally more lax and easy, while the numbers of those who embraced
the monastic life decreased. In the twelfth century the monasteries had
been full to overflowing: each newly-founded house was a sign that the
parent monastery had no more room. In the middle of the thirteenth
century the numbers were still large but not unwieldy. Such numbers as
we have indicate that the monasteries were kept up to the complement
of inmates required by their statutes, but that there was no general
increase. In Cistercian abbeys the number of _conversi_ swelled the
total of inmates: at Louth Park during the same period there were 66
monks, while the _conversi_ numbered 150[5]. Such numbers, however,
decreased greatly within the next hundred years. In 1349, the year of
the great pestilence, there were 42 monks at Meaux, but only seven
_conversi_: 32 monks and all the _conversi_ died. The pestilence worked
similar havoc in other houses. In the small nunnery of Wothorpe, near
Stamford, only one nun was left: Greenfield priory in Lincolnshire
remained without a head for three months. There can be little doubt
that the religious houses as a whole never recovered from the
pestilence: there were not enough recruits from outside to compensate
for the sudden decrease in numbers. Alnwick's visitations in the middle
of the fifteenth century shew that the monasteries of his diocese were
far from full. Later visitations in the diocese of Norwich strengthen
the conclusion that even in important houses like the cathedral priory
of Norwich a number of from 40 to 50 monks was exceptionally large. In
1492 there were only 17 canons in the wealthy priory of Walsingham.
In the largest Premonstratensian houses, during the last quarter of
the fifteenth century the numbers seldom exceeded 25. The distinction
between the various orders was no longer clearly marked. After 1349
_conversi_ ceased to form a part of most Cistercian monasteries. Within
the next fifty years they disappeared altogether, and the monks, like
the Benedictines, administered their estates by hired labour. At the
suppression of the monasteries the number of monks at Furness, where
the accommodation was unusually large, was only 30. In Bury St Edmunds,
one of the largest Benedictine abbeys, there were about 60.
§ 26. The decline in numbers after 1349 would inevitably tend to
the extinction of small and poor houses. A few nunneries, such as
Wothorpe, were amalgamated with larger foundations. Various causes
also led to the suppression of small monasteries. An example had been
set as early as 1312 by the extermination of the military order of
knights Templars, whose rule was founded upon the Cistercian _Carta
Caritatis_. Their lands in great part went to enrich the order of
knights of St John of Jerusalem, whose property at the general
suppression was very large. During the French wars, as we have seen,
the smaller possessions of foreign abbeys were gradually appropriated
to other religious foundations. Alien priories also formed a large
portion of the possessions of Eton and King's college, Cambridge. For
the purposes of later colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, this example
was followed in the suppression of small English houses: Jesus college
at Cambridge in 1497 entered upon the buildings and possessions of
the nunnery of St Radegund. Wolsey founded Christ Church at Oxford in
place of the priory of St Frideswide, and obtained the suppression of
several small monasteries for the endowment of his colleges at Oxford
and Ipswich. To Wolsey indeed the beginning of the general suppression
may be fairly attributed. His measures, however, had reform for their
end. Later acts of suppression were prompted by far different causes.
Yet not even the financial advantages of the step could lead to the
destruction of the monasteries at one blow. The act of 1536 put in
the king's hands only those houses whose revenues were under £200 a
year, and of these thirty-two, against which even the commissioners
could find no evidence, were refounded. Such an act naturally produced
serious economic changes: the ringleaders of the subsequent northern
rebellion complained of the damage incurred by the poor from the loss
of convent alms. The Pilgrimage of Grace brought disaster to the
abbeys which had lent it support. Other houses made terms with the
king by surrendering their possessions: the rest fell in consequence
of the act of 1539, which extended the provisions of 1536 to all the
surviving foundations. It may be granted that the dissolution of the
monasteries was inevitable. But for their arbitrary seizure by the
state there was only the shadow of a legitimate reason, and the motives
of the suppression are exposed by the traffic in their property which
followed. Pensions were granted to monks and canons from the exchequer;
but the bulk of monastic property went to enrich private owners for the
temporary relief of the extravagance of the Crown.
§ 27. Many monasteries were entirely ruined after the suppression,
and of about a third of the number no vestige is left. Of rather less
than a third there are substantial remains. In many cases, these are
confined to the church, which, if it served the needs of a parish, was
granted to the parishioners and partially used by them, the monastic
quire being generally allowed to go into decay. More rarely, as at
Christchurch priory, the whole church was retained. Secular chapters
were founded in the cathedral priories, and six abbey and priory
churches, including Westminster, were raised to the rank of cathedrals.
Thus, allowing for the inevitable change of use to which the monastic
buildings were put, at Canterbury, Chester, Durham, Ely, Gloucester,
Norwich, Peterborough, Rochester, Westminster, Winchester and
Worcester, the arrangements of a Benedictine monastery can be studied
more or less satisfactorily, and at Bristol, Carlisle and Christ
Church, Oxford, those of a house of Austin canons may be fairly well
seen. Of ruined houses by far the most complete series of remains are
those of the Cistercian abbeys, which, generally in remote situations,
have been allowed to go to decay with little removal of material.
Benedictine, Cluniac and Augustinian houses have suffered more: the
remains of Benedictine houses like Reading or St Mary's, York, are
not complete; while of Cluniac houses Wenlock, and of Augustinian,
Haughmond and Lilleshall are some of the few exceptions to the general
rule of destruction. Only three Cistercian churches remain partly in
use as parish churches, viz. Dore, Holme Cultram and Margam: they were
converted to this use at periods later than the suppression. On the
other hand, the remains of nearly half the monasteries enable us to
reconstruct the life which was led in them with great completeness.
Pre-eminent among these is the magnificent ruin of Fountains.
Kirkstall and Tintern are hardly less complete. Beaulieu, Buildwas,
Cleeve, Croxden, Ford, Furness, Jervaulx, Neath, Netley, Valle Crucis
and Rievaulx have singularly perfect remains of large portions of
the cloister buildings, and to these may be added several other
instances where churches or other buildings remain or may be traced by
foundations. Traces of most of the Premonstratensian houses are left.
The most perfect is the splendid abbey of St Agatha at Easby near
Richmond. Part of one Premonstratensian church, that of Blanchland in
Northumberland, has been converted into a parish church. Of Carthusian
plans, as already said, much is known, and for completeness Mount
Grace priory is not far behind Fountains. One Gilbertine plan, that of
Watton in Yorkshire, has been recovered by excavation. Of houses of
nuns the remains are somewhat scanty, but of Benedictine foundations
St Radegund's priory at Cambridge, and of Augustinian houses Lacock
abbey in Wiltshire deserve special mention; while the great Benedictine
church of Romsey abbey remains entire. Fragments of friaries are left
in many of our large towns: of their general arrangements much can be
seen at the Dominican friary in Bristol and in the ruins of the Austin
friary at Clare and the Carmelite friary at Hulne. The church of the
Austin friars in London is still a place of worship: the quire of the
Dominican friary at Brecon is the chapel of Christ college. Fragments
of churches may be seen at Lynn (black friars) and Richmond (grey
friars), while the church of the Dominicans at Norwich and that of the
Franciscans at Chichester have been converted to secular uses. At
Cambridge the colleges of Emmanuel and Sidney Sussex were founded on
the sites of Dominican and Franciscan friaries. The Dominican buildings
at Emmanuel were cleverly adapted to the plan of the new college, the
hall of which, in spite of transformation, is substantially the church
of the friary.