§ 75.
The normal position of the abbot's lodging
in monasteries of other orders was, however, west of
the cloister. Exceptional positions are found, for
example at Haughmond, where the thirteenth-century
abbot's lodging was a building south of the cloister,
nearly parallel with the dorter and its sub-vault.
The abbot seems to have used the ground floor, while
the upper floor was used as part of the infirmary, the
great hall of which, parallel with the frater, adjoined
it on the west. In canons' houses, however, the
abbot or prior might entertain his guests in the
frater, and there was consequently no need for
the large hall which was a feature of his lodging
in the great Benedictine houses. In these, and
especially in monasteries where pilgrimages were
frequent, considerable provision had to be made
for housing guests. In such houses as Canterbury,
Durham and Worcester, where the prior was the
actual head, under the archbishop or bishop, of the
cathedral priory, he had his own lodging with its hall
and guest-chambers. At Durham and Worcester
these were to the south-east of the cloister, near the
great gatehouse of the monastery: at Canterbury
the prior's lodging was at the north-east angle of the
infirmary cloister, where it is shewn in the famous
Norman plan of the monastery. The same plan
shews another building further east, called the
nova
camera prioris, divided from the older lodging by
the kitchen and
necessarium of the infirmary. This
was the prior's guest-house. Both lodgings underwent
much enlargement, and a third lodging or
guest-house, which is now the deanery, was built
by prior Goldstone (1495-1517) on a site north of the
infirmary and north-east of the old lodging. The
ruins of the prior's guest-house at Worcester still
remain: it was destroyed as recently as 1860. The
older abbot's lodging at Gloucester, west of the
cloister, was in course of time devoted to the prior,
while the abbot built himself a new house north of
the monastery. As at Peterborough, the abbot's
lodging became in 1541 the bishop's palace, while
the prior's lodging was appropriated to the dean. In
monasteries where cathedral chapters were founded
by Henry
VIII, the prior's lodging, as at Durham,
was usually occupied by the dean. It was the
deanery at Worcester until some seventy years ago,
when the dean removed to the old bishop's palace on
the north-west side of the cathedral. Part of it is
used as the deanery at Ely: the prior's chapel, built
in 1325-6 by prior John of Crauden, adjoins a
portion of the lodging now converted into a canon's
house.
