§ 49.
The chapter-house (
domus capitularis) was
the place where, every day after prime, the convent
met together for the confession and correction of
faults and for the discussion of business concerning
the house as a whole. At these meetings a chapter
(
capitulum) of the rule was read daily, and from this
circumstance the name of chapter was transferred
both to the meeting and the building. Here too the
visitor of the monastery held his periodical inquiries,
prefaced by a sermon from one of his clerks or of the
senior members of the house. In the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, as at Durham and Fountains,
the chapter-house was the customary burial-place for
abbots and other heads of houses. The dead bodies
of monks rested in the chapter-house at Durham, and
matins of the dead were sung for them here before
they took their last journey through the parlour to
the graveyard. The building was normally oblong
in shape, undivided by columns into aisles, and was
usually vaulted. At Durham, Gloucester and Reading
it ended in an apse. The abbot or prior occupied a
raised seat at the east end, with the principal officers
on his right and left. The rest of the convent sat on
stone benches round the walls; while near the centre
of the floor was the desk or lectern (
analogium) from
which the daily lection from the martyrology and the
chapter for the day were read. The breadth of the
chapter-house generally corresponded to three bays
of the cloister, with a doorway in the middle of the
west wall and a window on either side.
