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English Monasteries

Chapter 46: § 41.
By A. Hamilton Thompson
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About This Book

The text surveys medieval monasticism in England, outlining major religious orders and their rules, the evolution of communal life, and the rise and decline of different houses. It analyzes architectural plans of conventual churches, cloisters, and ancillary buildings—showing how liturgy, daily routines, and practical needs shaped church, chapter-house, dorter, frater, infirmary, and gatehouse arrangements. Special attention is given to Cistercian and Benedictine variations, the role of lay brothers, and adaptations for canons, friars, and nuns. The manual closes with discussion of discipline, the daily cycle of offices and work, estate management, and the surviving ruins and archaeological evidence, supported by plans and illustrations.

§ 41.

The preference for a rectangular chancel, in our larger churches at any rate, may be attributed in some measure to the architectural influence exercised by the Cistercian order. It is certainly possible to trace Cistercian influence in some of the churches of canons regular. It cannot be said that churches of Augustinian canons followed any definite or uniform plan. Some, like St Bartholomew's, Smithfield, preferred plans for which the best contemporary models were Benedictine. But the plan of the first church at Haughmond was very like the early plans of Waverley and Tintern; and when this was superseded by a larger church with its longer axis further north than before, the new presbytery was still aisleless and was still walled off from the transept-chapels immediately adjoining. Of these there were two on either side, both rectangular in shape, and those next the presbytery were longer than those on the outside. The same plan of presbytery and transept-chapels is found at Lilleshall, and is known to have existed at Fountains before the presbytery was aisled. Similarly the plan of presbytery and transepts at Bolton and Brinkburn is distinctly Cistercian in origin, and, when the presbytery at Bolton was lengthened in the fourteenth century, its aisleless form was retained. In Premonstratensian churches the likeness to the normal Cistercian plan is often obvious. The original plan of the eastern portion of the church at St Agatha's was almost the same as that of Kirkstall; while the plan of the same part of Torre is virtually identical with those of Buildwas and Roche. As at Bolton, the aisleless presbytery at St Agatha's was prolonged in the fourteenth century to twice its original length.