Category: History - British

English Monasteries

§ 1. The medieval monastery. 2. Growth of monachism in the east. 3. Beginnings of western monachism: Italy, Gaul and Ireland. 4. The rule of St Benedict. 5. The Benedictine order in England: early Saxon monasteries. 6. The Danish invasions and the monastic revival. 7. Monastic...

Chapters

1. CHAPTER I

§ 1. The medieval monastery. 2. Growth of monachism in the east. 3. Beginnings of western monachism: Italy, Gaul and Ireland. 4. The rule of St Benedict. 5. The Benedictine orde...

2. CHAPTER II

§ 28. Divisions of the monastery precinct: varieties of plan. 29. The plan of church and cloister: necessities governing the church-plan. 30. General arrangement of the church....

3. CHAPTER III

§ 46. Plan and position of the cloister. 47. The cloister-walk next the church. 48. The eastern range: the parlour. 49. The chapter-house: its uses. 50. Varieties of the chapter...

4. CHAPTER IV

§ 59. Plan of the eastern range: the vestry and library. 60. The Cistercian chapter-house. 61. Parlour, infirmary passage and sub-dorter. 62. Dorter, rere-dorter and day-stair....

5. CHAPTER V

§ 70. Objects of the infirmary. 71. Buildings and position of the infirmary. 72. Plan and arrangement of the infirmary hall. 73. The infirmary kitchen and the misericord. 74. Th...

6. CHAPTER VI

§ 80. Officers of the monastery: the obedientiaries. 81. The monastic day and its divisions: the night-office. 82. Services and work of the morning in summer. 83. The day from s...

7. CHAPTER I

§ 1. A monastery is a community of men or women, devoted to the service of God and obeying a fixed rule. Monastic rules of life varied in strictness and in detail; while each co...

8. CHAPTER II

§ 28. The precinct of a religious house was separated from the outer world by an enclosing wall or dyke, on the line of which a gatehouse gave admission to the outer court (_cur...

9. CHAPTER III

§ 46. The cloister (_claustrum_) was, as its name implies, an enclosed space, surrounding all four sides of a rectangular court. The four walks of the cloister were roofed in: t...

10. CHAPTER IV

§ 59. Having thus traced the position of the various buildings in the normal cloister-plan, we may consider the features peculiar to cloisters of the Cistercian order—features f...

11. CHAPTER V

§ 70. Of the extra-claustral buildings of a monastery, the most important was the infirmary (_domus infirmaria_, _infirmitorium_). This was not merely used for the accommodation...

12. CHAPTER VI

§ 80. The chief object of this book has been to explain the position and use of the various buildings of a monastery, and in its course reference has been made to several leadin...