English Monasteries

§ 77.

In addition to the guest-houses, the outer court generally contained the brew-house, the bake-house and granary of the monastery. In Cistercian houses, where the statutes required that all the offices should be within the precinct, there was generally another court outside the main gatehouse. In the great monastery of Clairvaux this additional court was of large extent and included workshops and smithies with numerous other offices. It may be seen on a smaller scale at Beaulieu, where the mill of the monastery adjoins the outer gatehouse, and at Furness. There was frequently, near the outer gateway and, as at Furness and Fountains, just within it, a chapel (capella extra portas), provided for the use of persons not allowed within the great gateway. Such chapels, at Merevale in Warwickshire and Tiltey in Essex, were enlarged in the later middle ages to serve as parish churches. At Kirkstead in Lincolnshire the chapel is perfect, though now disused, and chapels at Coggeshall and Rievaulx have been repaired and are used for service. At Beaulieu and Whalley there was a chapel upon the first floor of the main gatehouse, and one was begun at Meaux to supersede an older capella extra portas[17]. Such chapels are to be distinguished from the parish churches which are often found, as at Bury St Edmunds or Coventry and in the small example at Barnwell priory, close to the precinct of a religious house.