§ 47.
In all monasteries, save in those of the
Carthusian order, the walk next the church was the
ordinary place where the convent spent the hours of
the day allotted to study and contemplation. For
this reason the cloister was normally planned on the
south, the sunnier side of the church, where the high
walls of nave and transept checked the north and
east winds. This walk, which was omitted from the
route of the Sunday procession, was sometimes enclosed
at either end by screens. In early times the
brethren seem to have sat side by side on the stone
benches which, as at Worcester, were set against the
church wall between the buttresses. But at a later
date the part of the walk next the court was divided
by short partition walls into a number of small
studies called carrels (
caroli, i.e. enclosed spaces).
At Durham, where the walk was ten bays long and
was lighted by ten three-light windows, there were
thirty carrels, three to each window. The carrels
remain at Gloucester, twenty in number, two to
each of the ten four-light windows. They were
roofed at the level of the window-transoms, so that
the upper portions of the windows gave plenty of
light to the walk behind. Each contained a desk
for books: at Durham they were wainscoted, and
entered by doors, the tops of which were pierced, so
that each monk as he worked was under survey. As
private property was forbidden, no religious was
allowed to keep books of his own in his carrel.
Manuscripts in use were kept in special cupboards
or almeries (
armaria), which at Durham were ranged
against the church wall. Such book-cupboards were
placed in the cloister where there was room for them.
At Worcester there are two in the east walk near the
chapter-house door, while at Gloucester the easternmost
carrel and two small cupboards projecting into
the court from the east walk were probably used for
this purpose. In Cistercian houses a special place
was set aside for the library; but in the houses of
most orders no definite part of the plan was so distinguished,
and it is not until a late date that, at
Canterbury and Durham, we hear of separate rooms
assigned to the library, as distinct from the cupboards
and presses in the cloister
[7].
