§ 63.
The buildings connecting the east and west
ranges of the Cistercian cloister were divided into
three parts, with the warming-house on the east, the
frater in the middle and the kitchen on the west, all
entered from the cloister. It is probable that in the
first instance the Cistercian frater was built in the
usual way, with its major axis from east to west.
This was always the plan of the frater at Sibton in
Suffolk: there are clear traces of it at Kirkstall,
and evidences of foundations at Fountains. In the
Savigniac houses, afterwards Cistercian, the frater
seems to have been built from east to west, and at
Buckfast this position was apparently never altered.
But such fraters were cramped in size by their
position between the warming-house and kitchen,
and, before the end of the twelfth century they
were built or, as at Fountains and Kirkstall, rebuilt
at right angles to the cloister with their
major axes from north to south. This gave more
room for the kitchen on the west: it also permitted
a readjustment of the warming-house, and
left room at the east end for the insertion of a
wide and convenient day-stair to the dorter, with
a landing at the head, from which, as at Fountains,
access was given to a room, possibly the treasury or
muniment-room, above the warming-house. We have
no definite reason for the change of plan; but that it
was due to the uncontemplated growth of numbers in
Cistercian houses is at least probable. At Furness,
where the dorter was of remarkable length, the frater,
built in place of the old frater of the Savigniac
monastery, had to be lengthened during the thirteenth
century, the only reason for which can have
been that, even on the new plan, it afforded insufficient
room for all the brethren.
