TABLES AND BENCHES
The Plan provides us with a complete and detailed
account of the furnishings of this hall (fig. 211). It shows in
the center of the eastern, or upper, half of the hall the
"table of the abbot" (mensa abbatis), a [ILLUSTRATION]
-shaped table
with two arms 30 feet long, and a connecting head piece 10
feet long. Two longitudinal benches (scammum, aliud) range
along the arms of the table. The center is left free for easy
access by the servers. The abbot's table has a total length of
70 feet and can seat twelve persons on each of its long arms
and four at its head, if we allow 2½ feet per person. Parallel
to the abbot's table, on either side of the hall, are two
L-shaped tables, each having a total length of 40 feet,
providing space for sixteen persons per table. These tables
are served by a single continuous wall bench which ranges
around the circumference of the entire eastern half of the
hall (sedes in circuitu) and also serves the abbot's table. The
combined seating capacity of the upper portion of the hall
is sixty: twenty-eight at the abbot's table, sixteen at the
southern wall table, and sixteen at the northern wall table.
The seating arrangement in the western or lower half of
the hall is different. It consists of a straight center table
(mensa) with benches on either side (sedile, aliud) 27½ feet
long, permitting sitting space for twenty-two persons, and
two L-shaped wall tables along the southern and northern
walls of the hall, identical with the corresponding tables in
the upper end of the hall, each seating nineteen persons.
The total seating space at the lower end of the hall, despite
the different layout, is the same as that in the upper half,
viz., twenty-two at the center table, nineteen at the southern
wall table, and nineteen at the northern wall table,
equaling sixty. The grand total for the entire hall is 120,
not counting the table for the visiting monks (ad sedendū cū
hospitibus), which provides six additional seats, corresponding
exactly to the number of beds available in the
lodging for the visiting monks.[100]
The table for the visiting
monks stands in front of the reader's pulpit.
