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.]
§ 60. Lofty chapter-houses, like those of Gloucester and Bristol,
are not found in the Cistercian plan, in which the dorter was almost
invariably continued as far as the church and was provided with an
annexe above the eastern projection of the chapter-house. Furness is a
case in which the chapter-house, as already stated, had a vestibule;
but here the vestibule is not a passage through the whole width of the
eastern range, but a porch, above which a gallery was carried from
the dorter to the night-stair. The roof of the chapter-house itself
was somewhat higher, but there was the usual room on the upper floor.
The chapter-house was usually an oblong, as at Fountains, or, as at
Furness, a nearly square building, divided into alleys, generally three
in number, by rows of columns which supported vaulting. The entrance,
in most cases, followed the customary plan of a central doorway with
a window on either side. Vaulted chapter-houses may still be seen at
Buildwas, Kirkstall and Valle Crucis. That at Buildwas is of the normal
plan, vaulted in three alleys. At Kirkstall the western part is vaulted
in four alleys and has two wide archways from the cloister, while the
eastern part beyond the range, rebuilt at the close of the thirteenth
century, is vaulted in two alleys. The Valle Crucis chapter-house is a
fourteenth-century rebuilding with the usual three alleys, but has a
thick west wall, in which, on the south side of the central entrance,
is the day-stair to the dorter, while on the north side is a vaulted
book-cupboard, entered from the interior of the building. At Ford,
where the chapter-house is now used as a private chapel, it is a
vaulted building of the twelfth century, undivided by columns.
§ 61. The monks' parlour (_auditorium juxta capitulum_) was a narrow
vaulted apartment in the ground-floor of the eastern range between the
chapter-house and the sub-vault of the dorter. It was occasionally
used, as at Beaulieu and Waverley, for a passage to the infirmary; but
a separate passage, where the infirmary stood east of the range, was
also made, as at Fountains, through the adjacent bay of the dorter
sub-vault, which was walled off from the rest. The sub-vault, a long
apartment, which at Furness extended no less than twelve bays south
of the passage, was generally divided into two vaulted alleys by a
central range of columns. It may have been partitioned off and applied
to various uses, but at Furness it seems to have been undivided. From
arrangements which are known to have existed at Clairvaux in 1517, it
is now supposed to have been used, at any rate in part, as the house
of the novices, possibly divided into a day-room, dorter and lodging
for the novice-master. In a few instances, as at Croxden, Furness and
Jervaulx, one or two of the southernmost bays originally formed an
open _loggia_, with piers and arches taking the place of the outer
walls: this space, however, in the two latter cases, was walled in
after no long time. It may be noted that in the Benedictine houses of
Peterborough and Westminster, where the common house was, according to
the ordinary plan, in the sub-vault, a chapel was built as an eastern
annexe, which was probably used at Peterborough as the chapel of the
novices. This appears to bring corroborative evidence to the prevailing
theory of the use of the Cistercian sub-vault, of which no part,
however, was employed as the common or warming-house.
§ 62. The Cistercian dorter and rere-dorter shew no important variation
from the habitual plan. The position of the rere-dorter, at the end of
the dorter or at right angles to it, or, as at Furness, in a separate
building, was dictated by convenience for drainage. The room above the
chapter-house was sometimes separate, as at Kirkstall and Valle Crucis,
but was open to the rest of the dorter at Buildwas and Fountains. It
may possibly have been appropriated to the abbot in the first instance,
and afterwards, like the second dorter at Canterbury, may have been
used by the obedientiaries or by the prior. At Valle Crucis the room
contains a fireplace and is entered by a passage on the north side,
which also leads to a small room next the church. Originally the
day-stair to the dorter was placed in the eastern range of buildings,
between the parlour and the dorter sub-vault: clear indications of
this remain at Fountains and Kirkstall, and the day-stair is still in
this position at Cleeve. But in most cases the stair was afterwards
removed and placed against the west side of the sub-vault, between the
eastern range and the range opposite the church, in the position which
in Benedictine houses is generally occupied by a passage to the outer
buildings. By a most unusual arrangement, the dorter at Waverley was
on the ground-floor of the range, raised only by a few steps above the
cloister. There was no upper floor, although a room between the dorter
and parlour was divided into two stages[11]. The chapter-house was an
undivided oblong building, vaulted in three bays; and there was, of
course, no special night-entry to the church.
[Illustration: Fig. 11. Fountains abbey: plan.]
§ 63. The buildings connecting the east and west ranges of the
Cistercian cloister were divided into three parts, with the
warming-house on the east, the frater in the middle and the kitchen
on the west, all entered from the cloister. It is probable that in
the first instance the Cistercian frater was built in the usual way,
with its major axis from east to west. This was always the plan of the
frater at Sibton in Suffolk: there are clear traces of it at Kirkstall,
and evidences of foundations at Fountains. In the Savigniac houses,
afterwards Cistercian, the frater seems to have been built from east
to west, and at Buckfast this position was apparently never altered.
But such fraters were cramped in size by their position between the
warming-house and kitchen, and, before the end of the twelfth century
they were built or, as at Fountains and Kirkstall, rebuilt at right
angles to the cloister with their major axes from north to south.
This gave more room for the kitchen on the west: it also permitted a
readjustment of the warming-house, and left room at the east end for
the insertion of a wide and convenient day-stair to the dorter, with a
landing at the head, from which, as at Fountains, access was given to a
room, possibly the treasury or muniment-room, above the warming-house.
We have no definite reason for the change of plan; but that it was
due to the uncontemplated growth of numbers in Cistercian houses is
at least probable. At Furness, where the dorter was of remarkable
length, the frater, built in place of the old frater of the Savigniac
monastery, had to be lengthened during the thirteenth century, the only
reason for which can have been that, even on the new plan, it afforded
insufficient room for all the brethren.
§ 64. The warming-house was a rectangular building, which at Fountains
is vaulted in four compartments from a middle pillar. The fireplace
was usually in a side-wall or, as at Waverley, in the further wall
from the cloister. Two huge fireplaces remain in the east wall at
Fountains, one of which has been blocked. At Tintern the fireplace was
a middle hearth, surrounded by open arches and connected by smaller
arches with the end walls. The outer wall was generally pierced by
a window and a doorway which led into a yard at the back. Here at
Fountains, against the west wall of the dorter sub-vault, was the
wood-house from which the fire was replenished. The west wall of the
warming-house was part of the east wall of the frater, and two openings
in it at Fountains may have been intended to give the frater some of
the benefit of the fire. The arrangements of the frater, of which
a perfect example, now used as a church, remains at Beaulieu, were
similar, allowing for the difference in plan, to those of Benedictine
and other houses, but were less elaborate. It was raised a step or two
above the cloister, and on one or both sides of the entrance were the
lavatory arches. The magnificent frater at Rievaulx had a sub-vault,
entered from the foot of the stair to the pulpit; but this is a rare
instance of a feature often found in Benedictine houses. At Fountains
the frater was divided by a row of columns into two alleys, each with
its separate wooden roof; but the undivided plan, as at Beaulieu, was
general.
§ 65. The position of the kitchen was so planned as to communicate
readily on one side with the monks' frater, which was served from it
through a turn-table in the wall, and the frater of the lay brothers
on the other, which was served at Fountains through a hatch in the
west wall. It had a doorway from the cloister, which brought it into
close connexion with the cellar and buttery in the western range; while
at the back a door opened into a yard, where fuel could be kept. The
fireplaces at Fountains and Kirkstall, where the kitchens were vaulted,
were placed back to back in the middle of the room. Kitchens of the
size of those at Durham or Glastonbury were unknown in Cistercian
houses, where, even after the relaxation of the ordinary simple diet,
meat was never cooked in the frater kitchen. The plan, which provided
for the simultaneous supply of two fraters when necessary, was more
compact and less secular in some of its features than the Benedictine
plan; while the actual admission of the kitchen into the cloister
buildings was made possible by the fact that the monks themselves
did their own work, instead of using hired servants under the
superintendence of the kitchener.
[Illustration: Fig. 12. Fountains abbey: _cellarium_, looking north.]
§ 66. The western range of a Cistercian cloister was sometimes
separated from the west walk by an intervening passage or yard, as at
Kirkstall, Pipewell and a few other houses, probably more in number
than has been supposed. At the end of this yard was the western
processional doorway of the church, the position of which depended on
convenience for the Sunday procession, which always passed outside the
west cloister, through the ground-floor of the western range. If the
church extended west of the range, the doorway, as at Fountains, was
in the building itself, or, as at Jervaulx, where the building did not
directly join the church, in the bay west of it. If the range was to
the west of a short nave, as at Hayles and Tintern, and there was no
intermediate yard, the doorway was cut obliquely through the corner
of the building which touched, or was near the church. The whole of
the first floor was given up to the dorter of the lay brothers, to
which was attached a rere-dorter, the arrangements of which are still
remarkably perfect at Fountains. A night-stair descended into the
church, as at Fountains, or, as at Jervaulx, just outside the western
processional doorway: in houses where there was an intervening yard,
the night-stair was placed against the east wall of the range. The
ground-floor was divided by a passage, which was the outer parlour and
main entrance of the cloister and entered the west walk close to the
kitchen, into a long apartment on the side furthest from the church,
and into a series of smaller rooms adjoining the church and cloister.
The large room was the frater of the lay brothers: the rooms on the
other side of the outer parlour were the buttery and cellars, and could
be entered by doorways from the outer court and cloister-walk, while
there were doors in the partition-walls between them. The building
varied much in length. The splendid example at Fountains is twenty-two
bays long, divided by columns into two alleys. The marks of the
original partitions and doorways shew that two bays next the church
were possibly the earlier outer parlour. The cellar was in the four
bays following. Two bays were occupied by the buttery, two by the main
entrance-passage; while the remaining twelve were the lay brothers'
frater, two bays at the north end of which were screened off and had an
outer doorway to the cellarer's checker. The western face was covered
by one of those wooden pentises which were a very general feature in
medieval buildings to cover doorways from a court or yard and form a
sheltered means of access from one building to another. The day-stair
to the dorter was naturally on this side of the building, and mounted
against the north wall of the cellarer's checker, the upper floor of
which was a lobby to the dorter. The arrangements at Furness were very
similar, but there were only fifteen bays, of which the cellar seems to
have occupied only two, the cloister-entry one, and the lay-brothers'
frater eight, the buttery and the two bays next the church remaining as
at Fountains. The division into alleys, although it occasionally was
employed, as at Furness and Waverley, was not general, and the building
was frequently narrow in proportion to its length. When the cloister
of Waverley was enlarged in the thirteenth century, the cellarer's
building was taken down to make way for the west walk, but its southern
part, containing the lay brothers' frater and dorter, was rebuilt and
extended southward.
§ 67. In the later middle ages the Cistercian plan underwent some
modification. The disappearance of lay brothers from the convents
caused the disuse of a large part of the western range, which at
Hayles was converted into the abbot's lodging. In some instances,
as at Furness and Hayles, new processional doorways were made into
the church from the west walk of the cloister, so that the course
of the Sunday procession no longer differed from the Benedictine
usage. At Waverley, on the other hand, after the destruction of the
old cellarer's building, the procession still returned to the church
outside the cloister, through a narrow passage between the cloister
and an outer wall on the west. A further approximation to Benedictine
use is seen in the fifteenth-century rebuilding of the frater at
Cleeve upon a plan parallel to the church and adjacent cloister walk.
Relaxation of discipline and the diminished number of monks allowed for
more individual privacy: thus at Jervaulx some bays of the sub-dorter
were cut off to form small rooms, each with its own fireplace. An
important change was introduced in some houses owing to the removal of
restrictions upon flesh-diet, which went so far that in the fifteenth
century flesh was eaten on three days a week[12]. Hitherto a special
flesh-frater or misericord (_misericordia_, i.e. indulgence) for monks
undergoing bleeding had been provided in connexion with the infirmary
buildings and kitchen. It now became convenient to place the misericord
in closer communication with the cloister, and at Ford and Kirkstall
this was done by dividing the frater into an upper and lower floor, the
lower floor being probably used as the misericord. A new and smaller
two-storied frater was built at Furness. In such cases meat was never
cooked in the old kitchen, but a special meat-kitchen was provided; and
the south end of the destroyed frater at Furness may have been kept for
this purpose. At Jervaulx a new misericord was built at right angles to
the east end of the frater, and a meat-kitchen was made about the same
time on the other side of the sub-dorter.
§ 68. The chief peculiarities of the Cistercian plan were without
influence on the houses of other orders, which adhered to Benedictine
precedent in such points as the position of the warming-house, frater
and kitchen. Thus the plan of the Augustinian house of Haughmond,
allowing for special exigencies of site, is that of a Benedictine
monastery, with the exception that the building between the church and
chapter-house appears, as at St Agatha's and many smaller monasteries,
to have been a sacristy, while the canons' parlour, as again at St
Agatha's and at Repton, was in the Cistercian position, south of the
chapter-house. At Alnwick the sacristy and parlour stood side by
side south of the church. Variations may be found in such points as
the connexion of the dorter with the church: in the Carmelite friary
of Hulne, for example, the night-stair opened, not into the church
itself, but into a small court next it. But the collation of plans,
such as those of the Augustinian St Frideswide's at Oxford and the
Premonstratensian St Radegund's at Bradsole, with those of other
orders, shews clearly that the arrangement of canons' and friars'
cloisters was modelled upon the convenient Benedictine plan. The same
conclusion applies to nunneries, as may be gathered from the foregoing
pages. Little is known of the buildings of Cistercian nunneries, but
the nuns' cloister at Watton was upon the Benedictine plan, with the
exception that the ground-floor of the western range was probably the
house of the lay sisters. The canons' cloister was very similar in
plan; but its vaulted chapter-house, like others already mentioned,
may shew the architectural influence of the Cistercian order. The
two cloisters were connected by a long passage, in which was the
turning-window (_fenestra versatilis_), where necessary communication
was carried on between the two divisions of the monastery.
§ 69. The plan of the Carthusian cloister, however, owing to the
solitary life prescribed by the rule, was unique. The monastery at
Mount Grace consisted of two courts, the northern or cloister-court
being surrounded on three sides by a series of separate cells, each
with its own garden. On the south side were the chapter-house and the
cells occupied by the sacrist and prior; while the frater occupied the
south-west angle of the court. The church stood at the back of the
chapter-house and part of the south range, next the outer court. The
chapter-house was, in fact, a northern annexe to the church, parallel
and almost exactly equal in dimensions to the presbytery. Some years
after the foundation of the priory, owing to an increase in endowments
and the number of monks, a second cloister was formed south of the
church by enclosing a long rectangular space in the north-east part of
the outer court: later still, the north-west angle of the same court
was divided by partition walls into one or more courts covering the
west front of the church and the west wall of the new cloister. The
outer court, thus curtailed, contained as usual the storehouses of the
convent, the building on the west side, through which the monastery was
entered, being probably devoted to the use of guests.