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English Monasteries

Chapter 76: § 69.
By A. Hamilton Thompson
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About This Book

The text surveys medieval monasticism in England, outlining major religious orders and their rules, the evolution of communal life, and the rise and decline of different houses. It analyzes architectural plans of conventual churches, cloisters, and ancillary buildings—showing how liturgy, daily routines, and practical needs shaped church, chapter-house, dorter, frater, infirmary, and gatehouse arrangements. Special attention is given to Cistercian and Benedictine variations, the role of lay brothers, and adaptations for canons, friars, and nuns. The manual closes with discussion of discipline, the daily cycle of offices and work, estate management, and the surviving ruins and archaeological evidence, supported by plans and illustrations.

§ 69.

The plan of the Carthusian cloister, however, owing to the solitary life prescribed by the rule, was unique. The monastery at Mount Grace consisted of two courts, the northern or cloister-court being surrounded on three sides by a series of separate cells, each with its own garden. On the south side were the chapter-house and the cells occupied by the sacrist and prior; while the frater occupied the south-west angle of the court. The church stood at the back of the chapter-house and part of the south range, next the outer court. The chapter-house was, in fact, a northern annexe to the church, parallel and almost exactly equal in dimensions to the presbytery. Some years after the foundation of the priory, owing to an increase in endowments and the number of monks, a second cloister was formed south of the church by enclosing a long rectangular space in the north-east part of the outer court: later still, the north-west angle of the same court was divided by partition walls into one or more courts covering the west front of the church and the west wall of the new cloister. The outer court, thus curtailed, contained as usual the storehouses of the convent, the building on the west side, through which the monastery was entered, being probably devoted to the use of guests.