§ 71.
The buildings of the infirmary, known
colloquially as the 'farmery,' consisted of a hall,
chapel and kitchen, close to which was usually a
hall in which the convent might eat flesh-meat on
certain days. This hall was commonly called the
misericord: it was known at Canterbury as the
deportum and at Peterborough as the 'seyny.' As
already stated, access to these buildings, which
formed a self-contained group, was obtained by a
passage through the east range of the cloister or
at the further end of the east walk. Their position,
however, was dictated by convenience, and they
followed no very consistent plan. Thus, at Durham
and Worcester, where the dorter was west of the
cloister, the infirmary was also on the west side,
between the cloister and the river. At Canterbury
the infirmary was on the east side of a smaller
eastern cloister, of which the west side was occupied
by the great dorter and its sub-vault, the north
side by the second or obedientiaries' dorter, and the
south side by the laver-house and the night-passage
to the church on the upper floor of the cloister.
The infirmary at Gloucester was entered from the
north-east side of a small cloister north of the great
cloister. At Peterborough it was a detached building
to the north-east of the cloister. In Cistercian abbeys
it was generally connected with the east walk of the
cloister by a long covered gallery or passage, which
usually threw off a branch, nearly at right angles, to
the eastern part of the church. The twelfth-century
infirmary at Rievaulx is in this position, and its plan,
with the major axis north and south and a chapel
opening from it on the eastern side, was followed in
the later infirmary at Fountains. But at Jervaulx
the earlier infirmary appears to have been beneath
the rere-dorter, and its successor formed an eastern
continuation of the same building. Similarly, at
Netley there is a hall with a great fireplace beneath
the rere-dorter. At Furness, where the eastern part
of the site is much contracted, the old infirmary, to
the south-east, was converted into a lodging for the
abbot: the new infirmary, with its chapel, was built
south of the cloister in the fourteenth century. In
Cistercian houses a special infirmary was also needed
for the lay brothers: the remains of this at Fountains
are on the west side of the western cloister-range,
with which they are connected by the lay brothers'
rere-dorter.
