§ 59.
Having thus traced the position of the
various buildings in the normal cloister-plan, we may
consider the features peculiar to cloisters of the
Cistercian order—features for which the internal
arrangement of their churches have in some degree
prepared us. It has been pointed out by Mr Micklethwaite
that the plan of the Cistercian cloister is
indicated by the order in which the buildings are
directed to be visited in the Sunday procession—viz.
chapter-house, parlour, dorter, rere-dorter,
warming-house, frater, kitchen, cellarer's building. It
will be observed that the parlour in this list comes between
the chapter-house and dorter, and was therefore
on the further side of the chapter-house from the
church. On the other hand, although at Furness and
Waverley the chapter-house directly joins the south
transept of the church, there was in most Cistercian
houses an intervening building. The ground-floor of
this, however, was not a passage—for the way to the
graveyard was through the doorway in the opposite
transept—but was divided into two parts by a transverse
wall. The eastern division, entered from the
transept, was a vestry (
vestiarium): the western,
entered from the cloister, was probably the library
(
librarium), outside which, in the west wall of the
transept, was the book-cupboard (
armarium commune),
a wainscoted recess in which the books wanted
for constant use in cloister were kept. At Furness,
where the chapter-house was entered by a short
vestibule, the entrance-arch was flanked by two
similar arches, each of which opened into a rectangular
apartment: these rooms probably formed the library.
In the later middle ages the partition-wall between
the library and vestry was taken down at Fountains,
and the double chamber was converted into a passage.
The books appear to have been removed into closets
formed by enclosing the western bays of the north
and south alleys of the chapter-house.
