WARMING ROOM
Other changes made at Cluny, like the moving of the
warming room from the east range to the south range, may
have also occurred in some English Cluniac and autonomous
Benedictine houses, but in other cases the warming room
may have remained in the east range as on the Plan of St.
Gall, although it was reduced in size. In the Cluniac priory
of Thetford, indications of a fireplace suggest that the
warming room may have been located in the southern half
of the east range.[123]
But in many other Benedictine monasteries
an area in the east range is designated as the warming
room solely by analogy with a passage in the Rites of Durham
of 1593 indicating that the warming room was located
in the east range at that time.[124]
Although the sixteenth-century
location might reflect an earlier arrangement, this
source cannot be used as compelling proof that the warming
room occupied this position in the twelfth century.
Bernard's description of the course followed by the
claustral prior in the Ordo Cluniacensis of 1086 indicates
that the warming room in the eastern extremity of the south
range at Cluny also served as a passage to the novitiate
which was located to the south of the cloister.[125]
In most
English plans this area between the east range and the
refectory in the south range also forms a passage between
the cloister yard and the area to the south. In cases like
Finchale, where the area is only 5 feet wide, it could have
served only as a passage, but in others, such as Lewes or
Castle Acre, where it is 25 feet wide, it could have served
the additional function of warming room as did the 25-foot
space in the same position at Cluny.[126]
If this area at Castle
Acre had been intended solely as a passage, it probably
would have been made no more than 10 feet wide, as the
passage in the east range was. It can, however, only be
concluded that insufficient evidence makes it impossible to
determine with certainty the location of the warming room
in eleventh- and twelfth-century English monasteries. It is
possible that the location varied from place to place.
Whether the warming room was in the south range as at
Cluny (fig. 515) or in the southern half of the east range, as
it may have been at Thetford (fig. 517), its area is greatly
reduced in size from the area of the warming room which
covered the entire ground floor of the east range on the
Plan of St. Gall. At Thetford it would have occupied an
area of no more than three bays. A comparison of the relative
areas of the warming rooms of St. Gall (7), Cluny (1.3),
Thetford (2.5), and Castle Acre (1.2) shows that St. Gall
is two and one-half to five times larger.[127]
Mettler suggested that the reduction in size met the new
demands of asceticism of the Cluniac reform.[128]
Although
the smaller area could have been due to a change in ideals,
it may also simply have resulted from changes in other
parts of the east range. In the ninth century, according to
Adalhard, the warming room served as a place where the
monks could meet for conversation at certain hours.[129]
Passages
in Ekkehardus IV, as has been previously pointed
out, indicate that in the early eleventh century the warming
room, at least at St. Gall, served also as a chapter house.[130]
After separate rooms (the new chapter house and an inner
auditorium) had been provided for these functions, it may
have seemed that a large room was no longer necessary.
A change in the heating methods between the ninth and
the eleventh century also may have influenced the reduction
in size. Harold Brakspear suggested that the scarcity of
fireplaces in English monasteries is due to the fact "that in
Benedictine houses there was no fireplace in the commonhouse,
but that in cold weather it was lighted on the floor
or in a brazier and the smoke was allowed to find its way
out of the windows, as was usual in domestic halls."[131]
The
hypocaust system seen on the Plan of St. Gall could heat a
large area; an open fire on the floor could not.[132]
With the
method that Brakspear suggests a smaller room could be
more easily heated. This method of heating might also
explain why in some cases, as at Cluny II, the warming
room was moved from the east to the south range. There
was usually no upper story in the southern range so nothing
prevented the smoke from escaping directly through an
opening or louver in the roof. Such a louver would not have
been possible if the warming room were beneath the dormitory.
Moving the warming room to the south range may
have also reduced the chance of the dormitory catching fire.
At any rate, the arrangement set forth on the Plan of St.
Gall was altered, and the new position of the warming
room at Cluny and in some English monasteries was also
adopted in Cistercian monasteries.
