§ 68.
The chief peculiarities of the Cistercian
plan were without influence on the houses of other
orders, which adhered to Benedictine precedent in
such points as the position of the warming-house,
frater and kitchen. Thus the plan of the Augustinian
house of Haughmond, allowing for special exigencies
of site, is that of a Benedictine monastery, with the
exception that the building between the church and
chapter-house appears, as at St Agatha's and many
smaller monasteries, to have been a sacristy, while the
canons' parlour, as again at St Agatha's and at Repton,
was in the Cistercian position, south of the chapter-house.
At Alnwick the sacristy and parlour stood
side by side south of the church. Variations may be
found in such points as the connexion of the dorter
with the church: in the Carmelite friary of Hulne,
for example, the night-stair opened, not into the
church itself, but into a small court next it. But
the collation of plans, such as those of the Augustinian
St Frideswide's at Oxford and the Premonstratensian
St Radegund's at Bradsole, with those of other orders,
shews clearly that the arrangement of canons' and
friars' cloisters was modelled upon the convenient
Benedictine plan. The same conclusion applies to
nunneries, as may be gathered from the foregoing
pages. Little is known of the buildings of Cistercian
nunneries, but the nuns' cloister at Watton was upon
the Benedictine plan, with the exception that the
ground-floor of the western range was probably the
house of the lay sisters. The canons' cloister was
very similar in plan; but its vaulted chapter-house,
like others already mentioned, may shew the architectural
influence of the Cistercian order. The two
cloisters were connected by a long passage, in which
was the turning-window (
fenestra versatilis), where
necessary communication was carried on between the
two divisions of the monastery.
