§ 63.

The buildings connecting the east and west ranges of the Cistercian cloister were divided into three parts, with the warming-house on the east, the frater in the middle and the kitchen on the west, all entered from the cloister. It is probable that in the first instance the Cistercian frater was built in the usual way, with its major axis from east to west. This was always the plan of the frater at Sibton in Suffolk: there are clear traces of it at Kirkstall, and evidences of foundations at Fountains. In the Savigniac houses, afterwards Cistercian, the frater seems to have been built from east to west, and at Buckfast this position was apparently never altered. But such fraters were cramped in size by their position between the warming-house and kitchen, and, before the end of the twelfth century they were built or, as at Fountains and Kirkstall, rebuilt at right angles to the cloister with their major axes from north to south. This gave more room for the kitchen on the west: it also permitted a readjustment of the warming-house, and left room at the east end for the insertion of a wide and convenient day-stair to the dorter, with a landing at the head, from which, as at Fountains, access was given to a room, possibly the treasury or muniment-room, above the warming-house. We have no definite reason for the change of plan; but that it was due to the uncontemplated growth of numbers in Cistercian houses is at least probable. At Furness, where the dorter was of remarkable length, the frater, built in place of the old frater of the Savigniac monastery, had to be lengthened during the thirteenth century, the only reason for which can have been that, even on the new plan, it afforded insufficient room for all the brethren.