§ 74.
Heads of religious houses were provided,
as time went on, with separate lodgings (
camerae,
i.e. chambers), which, as has been seen, frequently
occupied or were partly upon the upper floor of the
western cloister-range. In Cistercian abbeys, where
the western range had its own use, the abbot's
camera
was very generally built, as is recorded of Croxden
and Meaux, on the east side of the dorter, between
the eastern cloister-range and the infirmary. As the
first floor of the lodging generally communicated
with the monks' rere-dorter, the spirit, if not the
letter, of the custom which required Cistercian
abbots to sleep in the dorter was still observed.
The construction of these separate lodgings in
Cistercian monasteries seems to have become general
towards the beginning of the fourteenth century;
but at Kirkstall there is a three-storied house of the
later part of the twelfth century, standing between
the rere-dorter and an eastern annexe of the thirteenth
century in which were additional rooms and
the abbot's chapel. At Fountains the abbot's lodging
was made by remodelling an older block of buildings
between the dorter and the infirmary. Additions
were made to this in later times: the living rooms
were upon the first floor and must have included the
abbot's great chamber or solar and his bedroom and
chapel or oratory. It has been suggested that he
used the misericord, to which there was a passage
from the ground-floor of his lodging, as his hall for
the entertainment of guests; and monastic visitations
shew that in houses of other orders the abbot's hall
was sometimes used as the misericord. The upper
floor of the long passage which led from the cloister
to the infirmary at Fountains was apparently the
gallery of the abbot's lodging, and another gallery
over the passage which branched off to the church
led to a pew overlooking the nine altars, which allowed
the abbot and his guests to hear mass without leaving
his lodging. The connexion with the dorter, which
was to some extent preserved at Fountains, was
entirely severed at Furness, where the old infirmary
hall was converted into the abbot's hall, and a new
block, containing his great chamber, chapel and bedroom
was built on the narrow space between the hall
and the low cliff on the east. It has been noted before
that the western range at Hayles was turned into an
abbot's lodging. The same change took place at
Ford, where, not long before the suppression, abbot
Chard built the magnificent abbot's hall, which,
extending westwards from the site of the lay-brothers'
frater, forms part of the existing dwelling-house.
Evidence of additional
camerae is often
found in the neighbourhood of the abbot's lodging
and infirmary of Cistercian houses, as at Kirkstall,
Furness and Waverley. These may have been applied
to the use of the visiting abbot; but it is clear that
in houses of other orders, as in the Cluniac priory of
Daventry, such lodgings were appropriated to abbots
or priors who had resigned their office, and this may
account for the existence of more than one such
camera at Furness
[15].
