CHAPTER V

THE INFIRMARY AND THE OUTER COURT

§ 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 of the sick, but was the dwelling-place of those who were too infirm to take part in the regular routine of the cloister, known in most orders as _stagiarii_ or _stationarii_, and of the _sempectae_ who, in the Cistercian order, had been professed for fifty years. It was also generally used by the _minuti_ or religious who were undergoing their periodical bleeding (_minutio_) for the sake of their health. Each of the Augustinian canons of Barnwell was allowed to be bled once every seven weeks, if he so desired: he might even be bled once a month, if his health demanded it, but in this latter case he was not allowed to take his furlough in the infirmary. The leave allowed at Barnwell lasted three days, and canons were permitted during such periods to talk to each other and take walks within a limited area[13]. Thus there were usually a few _minuti_ on leave, whose absence made little difference to the number of those in quire; and in the larger houses it is clear that opportunities of bleeding took place once a week. In the Cistercian and Carthusian orders the rules were stricter: the monks were bled in batches appointed by the prior at fixed seasons in the year—four seasons in Cistercian, five in Carthusian monasteries. According to the statutes, Cistercian _minuti_ were obliged to take their meals in the frater, but this rule appears to have been gradually relaxed, and monks probably went into the infirmary, as in other orders, and were allowed a flesh-diet[14]. In Cluniac houses the actual operation of bleeding took place in the common house. Several Benedictine houses—e.g. Bardney and Croyland—sent their _minuti_ to small houses or granges at a little distance from the monastery, under the supervision of a prior.

§ 71. The buildings of the infirmary, known colloquially as the 'farmery,' consisted of a hall, chapel and kitchen, close to which was usually a hall in which the convent might eat flesh-meat on certain days. This hall was commonly called the misericord: it was known at Canterbury as the _deportum_ and at Peterborough as the 'seyny.' As already stated, access to these buildings, which formed a self-contained group, was obtained by a passage through the east range of the cloister or at the further end of the east walk. Their position, however, was dictated by convenience, and they followed no very consistent plan. Thus, at Durham and Worcester, where the dorter was west of the cloister, the infirmary was also on the west side, between the cloister and the river. At Canterbury the infirmary was on the east side of a smaller eastern cloister, of which the west side was occupied by the great dorter and its sub-vault, the north side by the second or obedientiaries' dorter, and the south side by the laver-house and the night-passage to the church on the upper floor of the cloister. The infirmary at Gloucester was entered from the north-east side of a small cloister north of the great cloister. At Peterborough it was a detached building to the north-east of the cloister. In Cistercian abbeys it was generally connected with the east walk of the cloister by a long covered gallery or passage, which usually threw off a branch, nearly at right angles, to the eastern part of the church. The twelfth-century infirmary at Rievaulx is in this position, and its plan, with the major axis north and south and a chapel opening from it on the eastern side, was followed in the later infirmary at Fountains. But at Jervaulx the earlier infirmary appears to have been beneath the rere-dorter, and its successor formed an eastern continuation of the same building. Similarly, at Netley there is a hall with a great fireplace beneath the rere-dorter. At Furness, where the eastern part of the site is much contracted, the old infirmary, to the south-east, was converted into a lodging for the abbot: the new infirmary, with its chapel, was built south of the cloister in the fourteenth century. In Cistercian houses a special infirmary was also needed for the lay brothers: the remains of this at Fountains are on the west side of the western cloister-range, with which they are connected by the lay brothers' rere-dorter.

§ 72. The infirmary hall in its simplest form was an aisleless oblong, on either side of which was a row of beds. From the east side or end opened the infirmary chapel. The hall, however, was sometimes too wide to be roofed in one span without support, and consequently aisled halls became very usual, divided either by regular arcades with a clerestory above or by upright posts of wood. The beds were placed within the aisles, the nave forming a central gangway. This was a common plan in medieval hospitals, many of which were quasi-conventual establishments following the rule of St Augustine: St Mary's hospital at Chichester, a long hall running east and west, with a wooden roof of one span supported on each side of the nave by upright posts which are bound together by longitudinal trusses, and with an aisleless chapel screened off at the east end, is a famous surviving example of its use. At Ely and Canterbury the Norman infirmaries were divided by stone arcades and clerestoried; while at Gloucester and Peterborough there are substantial remains of aisled infirmaries of the thirteenth century. Most of the south aisle at Peterborough is now included in one of the canons' houses, while the chapel at the east end of the infirmary forms the dining-room of another. In the infirmary hall at Fountains, which ran north and south, with the chapel and kitchen on its eastern side, the arcades were returned across the ends, and there were large fireplaces in the end walls. A fireplace was a necessity, and, where no original fireplaces can be traced in the side or end walls, there was presumably a middle hearth, the smoke from which escaped through a louvre in the roof. As a rule the beds were arranged at right angles to the side walls. At Furness, however, where there were no arcades and the hall was lighted by windows in the upper part of the walls, the north and south walls contained a number of arched recesses near the floor, each lighted by a small window and wide enough to contain a bed with its side against the wall. Similar recesses have been noted in a portion of the east aisle of the infirmary of the lay brothers at Fountains, against the end wall of the lay brothers' rere-dorter. In later days it became the general custom to divide the aisles into separate rooms, often with their own fireplaces. This was usual by the beginning of the fifteenth century: it is known to have been done at Meaux before 1396, and there is much evidence for it in the Lincoln episcopal registers of the next fifty years. At Canterbury the south aisle was walled up before 1400 and divided into rooms as a lodging for the sub-prior. In Cistercian infirmaries, as at Fountains, Kirkstall, Tintern and Waverley, there are abundant traces of this practice. A peculiar arrangement was adopted in the fourteenth-century infirmary at Westminster, where the hall was removed and a number of separate rooms were arranged round a cloister, the aisled chapel of the hall being retained on the east side. At Jervaulx, where the infirmary hall was not large, part of the sub-vault of the dorter was partitioned off into separate rooms, probably as an annexe to the infirmary.

§ 73. A special kitchen, where more delicate food (_cibi subtiliores_) could be cooked for the infirm, was a necessary adjunct to an infirmary, and is usually found divided from it by a narrow yard, crossed by a covered passage, as at Fountains. The infirmary kitchen at Furness was octagonal, but the normal plan was rectangular. The Furness kitchen served the old infirmary: when this was converted into the abbot's lodging and a new infirmary built, it probably served both; but in the fifteenth century a kitchen was made in the abbot's lodging, the octagonal kitchen seems to have been taken down, and the infirmary was probably served from a meat-kitchen which, as has been explained in the previous chapter, also served the new frater and misericord. The misericord or flesh-frater had no fixed position in the plan of the infirmary buildings. At Fountains, it was an aisleless hall, lying between the infirmary hall and the abbot's lodging, and must have been served through the infirmary hall from the kitchen.

§ 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].

§ 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.

§ 76. The hospitality of the abbot or prior, however, was accorded only to distinguished guests. For the more ordinary type of guest a special hostry or guest-house (_hospitium_) was built in the outer court. In the ninth-century plan of St Gall, there are two hostries, one on each side of the main entrance, one of which was the general guest-house, while the other was the lodging for the poor. At Canterbury this double division of guest-houses existed. On the west side of the outer court, immediately to the left of the main gatehouse, was the hall known as the north hall, a long building with a sub-vault, entered by a covered stair which is one of the most celebrated examples of Anglo-Norman architecture. This, in close connexion with the almonry, is generally recognised to have been the casual ward, to borrow a modern term, of the monastery. From the other side of the gatehouse, a pentise along the west wall of the court formed a covered way towards the north-west angle of the cloister, where a small gatehouse gave admission to a court between the kitchen on the east and the cellarer's guest-hall on the west. About the beginning of the fifteenth century, the accommodation for guests under charge of the cellarer was enlarged by the building of a range of guest-chambers on the north side of the kitchen[16]. In the _Rites of Durham_ there is no mention of a special guest-house in connexion with the almonry; but there is a description of the guest-house on the east side of the _curia_, with its aisled hall and central fireplace, and its separate chambers or lodgings. It was served from the prior's kitchen and was conveniently situated with regard to the cellarer's checker and the cellar. The guests, however, were as a rule under charge, not of the cellarer, but of a special guest-master or hosteller (_hospitarius_), who was known at Durham as the terrer (_terrarius_), a name implying other duties in connexion with the lands of the monastery. The office of the hosteller is minutely described in the customs of the Augustinian priory of Barnwell: he had complete supervision of the guest-house and its furniture, and was in close communication with the cellarer and kitchener, from whom he obtained supplies for his guests. In Cistercian abbeys the usual division between classes of guests appears to have been observed: thus at Fountains and Kirkstall there are remains of two guest-houses in the outer court. A special infirmary for lay-folk was a feature of Cistercian monasteries, and at Fountains there seems also to have been an infirmary for the poor. A Benedictine infirmary for lay-folk existed at Durham, where it stood outside the monastery gates.

§ 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.

§ 78. Monasteries of other orders were generally content with a single outer court, although there is evidence, for example at Gloucester, of some of the offices being arranged round a smaller court entered from the _curia_[18]. The great gatehouse of the _curia_, of which many fine examples remain, was the main entrance to the monastery, and was usually a building with one or more upper floors and a vaulted passage or gate-hall on the ground-floor. In the earlier examples, as at Peterborough, the gateway was a single wide arch, as is also the case in the early fourteenth-century gatehouse at Kirkham. This gave entrance to carriages and foot-passengers alike. Later gatehouses were built on a larger scale, and the gate-hall was entered by a wide portal with a low doorway or postern at the side for pedestrians, as at Bridlington, Christchurch gate, Canterbury, Torre, and St Albans. On one side of the gate-hall was the porter's lodge. Occasionally, as at Peterborough, the chamber on the upper floor was used as a chapel. The finest of all existing English examples is the gatehouse at Thornton, remarkable for the barbican which gives it as important a place in military as in monastic architecture; but the Christchurch and St Augustine's gatehouses at Canterbury, and the two gatehouses at Bury St Edmunds are hardly second to it in interest and beauty. The southern and earlier gatehouse at Bury was the _porta coemeterii_ directly opposite the west front of the church, and is a square Norman tower, not unlike the great tower of a Norman castle: the northern gatehouse, built in the fourteenth century, was the entrance to the outer court of the monastery. Large monasteries were frequently provided with more than one outer gatehouse: thus the Christchurch gateway at Canterbury was the entrance to the cathedral and the part of the churchyard set apart for lay burials, while the main gatehouse was in the western wall of the outer court. Special entrances to the lay-folks' cemetery are also found at Gloucester and Rochester; while at Norwich, as at Bury, one of the two western gateways leads directly to the cathedral, while the other was the main entrance to the precinct.

§ 79. Close to the gatehouse of the _curia_, and, as at Canterbury, immediately outside it, was the almonry (_domus elemosinaria_), where the daily dole of broken meat from the tables of the monastery was given to the poor by the almoner (_elemosinarius_). The almoner at Durham had control of the infirmary without the gate, where four old women were maintained. Such monastic almshouses, which had parallels in the bede-houses attached to some secular colleges in the later middle ages, were not uncommon: it is clear, from a passage in the Ripon chapter act-book, that the chamber over the outer gateway at Fountains was used for the same purpose. In the upper part of the almonry at Durham were lodged the 'children of the almery,' who were educated at the expense of the monastery and were taught daily in the outer infirmary. Elsewhere, as at Barnwell and Thornton, these children were known as the clerks of the almonry, and their position was similar to that of the _clerici secundae formae_, who in secular colleges were under the direction of the chancellor. They were educated with the intention of entering holy orders. Some of them, no doubt, became novices in the monastery, but ordination lists shew that many of them became secular clergy, who obtained their titles to orders from the religious houses in which they had received their education. In 1431 a papal dispensation was granted to the abbot and convent of St Augustine's, Canterbury, to build a grammar school outside their gates for the poor boys of their almonry and to appoint a special master or rector, and it is evident that, although there was some doubt as to the canonical propriety of the application of alms in this direction, the education of poor children was a common part of the activity of monasteries[19].