COMMUNAL PRIVIES
Apart from these private toilets directly attached to the
bedrooms of their respective users, there are others installed
in greater quantities in separate outhouses located
directly behind the buildings they serve. The largest
among these is the privy for the servants at the House for
Distinguished Guests (fig. 496A). It is 10 feet wide, 45
feet long, and contains eighteen toilet seats. Next in size
is the privy for the students of the Outer School, which
measures 10 feet by 37½ feet and is furnished with fifteen
seats (fig. 496B). Then follows in order of decreasing magnitude:
the privy of the House for Bloodletting, with seven
seats (fig. 496C); the privy of the Abbot's House, with six
seats (fig. 496D); and the privies of the Novitiate and the
Infirmary, each with six seats (fig. 496E). The Monks'
Privy (fig. 497) falls into a category by itself; like the other
collective privies of the Plan, it is a separate house, but it
does not have their narrow, elongated floor plan; instead, it
is almost square. It measures 30 feet by 40 feet, provides
for a total of nine seats (
sedilia), a stand for a lantern
(
lucerna), and three other facilities of oblong shape, whose
function remains unexplained.
