§ 51.
Where the infirmary buildings stood due
east of the cloister, as at Canterbury, they were
approached by a passage through the east range,
next the chapter-house. Their position, however,
was variable; and in such instances the infirmary
passage represented a bay cut off from the vaulted
undercroft of the dorter, which formed the rest of the
ground-floor of the eastern range. At Westminster,
where this sub-vault belongs to the earliest portion
of the monastery, the ordinary custom was followed
of dividing it into two apartments. The northern
and smaller, occupying the two bays at the south end
of the east walk, was the treasury, known at Westminster
as the chapel of the Pyx, because the
currency, contained in a box or casket (
pyxis) was
brought there for trial. The southern division extended
for five bays beyond the cloister, and was the
common house or warming-house (
calefactorium),
which contained the fireplace where the monks
warmed themselves in winter. In Cluniac monasteries
this was also the bleeding-house of the monks. If,
however, the Westminster arrangement may be quoted
as typical, it was not invariable. The customary position
for the warming-house was beneath the dorter;
and consequently, if the dorter, as sometimes happened,
occupied an abnormal situation, the warming-house
followed suit. Thus, on the contracted site at Gloucester,
the dorter was on the first floor of a building
at right angles to the cloister, parallel to the chapter-house.
At Worcester, it was at right angles to
the west walk of the cloister. Probably the early
plan at Durham was like that at Westminster, but
eventually the dorter and common house were removed
to the west range. The plan of St Agatha's, which
in more than one respect resembles that of Durham,
also shews the dorter and common house in the west
range; but, while the treasury at Durham was the
part of the dorter sub-vault between the common
house and the church, the treasury at St Agatha's, as in
many canons' houses, was probably the sacristy in the
east range, between the church and chapter-house,
where at Durham we find the parlour. The dorter
and common house at Canterbury were in the usual
place; but the treasury was in quite a different part
of the monastery, between the infirmary and one of
the chapels of the apse; and at Gloucester, at any
rate after the fourteenth century, the treasury was a
first-floor room above the monks' parlour, between
the chapter-house and north transept
[8].
