§ 40.
Cistercian naves were not affected by the
problem of parochial services, but served special
purposes required by the peculiar constitution of the
order. So far as the Sunday procession was concerned,
their arrangements did not greatly vary from those of
other monasteries, although the position of the western
processional doorway with regard to the cloister was
rather different. The west end of the quire was shut
off by the
pulpitum, which in the longer naves, as at
Fountains, consisted of two parallel screens with a
loft above, occupying a full bay, but was often a single
screen-wall with a loft. Against the west face of the
pulpitum there were two altars, one on each side of
the middle doorway. The bay west of these was
called the retro-quire, where infirm and aged monks
attended service, and was shut off on the west by the
rood-screen. This was of the usual character, with
an altar against its western face between two doorways.
The nave west of the rood-screen was used as
the quire of the lay brothers, who had a night-stair
from their dorter in the adjacent aisle, and used the
western processional doorway as their day-entrance.
Their stalls were set against the walls which, as in
the presbytery, shut the nave off from its aisles:
these were discontinued in the westernmost bay, so as
to give a clear entry for the lay brothers and for
processions. This arrangement can be well seen at
Tintern, where only the west bay on the north side,
next the cloister, was left unwalled. The plan received
its fullest extension at Fountains, where the nave was
eleven bays long, of which seven were west of the
rood-screen, while of the rest one was devoted to the
quire, and one each to the
pulpitum, the altars in
front of it and to the retro-quire. At Furness, where
there were ten bays, two were given to the quire, five
were west of the rood-screen and the intermediate
three were divided as at Fountains. In shorter
churches, such as Buildwas (seven bays) and Tintern
(six) some economy of space between the screens had
to be studied. Thus, of eight bays at Kirkstall two
were in the quire, four were west of the rood-screen,
the
pulpitum occupied a whole bay, and the remaining
bay contained the altars on its western side: the space
beneath the
pulpitum may in this case have been used
as a retro-quire. The
pulpitum at Valle Crucis was
a single screen-wall between the western piers of the
crossing, and the quire did not extend into the short
nave. After the lay brethren had ceased to be a
part of Cistercian convents, the walls dividing their
quires from the nave-aisles were removed where
they were not in bond with the piers, and chapels
were then made in the eastern bays of the aisles.
There is no trace of any new chapels at Furness,
but there was probably always an altar there in
each of the aisles, in a line with the altars next the
pulpitum.
