University of Virginia Library

VI. 4

LAYOUT OF THE CISTERCIAN
MONASTERY IN THE TWELFTH
AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES

VI.4.1

CONTINUITY WITH
THE BENEDICTINE ARRANGEMENT

The tendency in the earliest Cistercian monasteries was
to follow the Benedictine cloister layout, changing it as
little as possible, and it is only later in adapting to new
needs that the layout is altered.

The Cistercians did not originate as a movement in
opposition to that of the Benedictines, not even in opposition
to their own house.[133] The group of twenty that left
Molesme in 1098 wished only to observe more strictly the
Rule of St. Benedict for themselves and naturally retained
the traditional cloister layout that they had known as
Benedictine monks.

Accordingly, the location of officinae in the Cistercian
cloister remains essentially that developed by the Benedictines
in the eleventh century. Article 55 of the Ecclesiastica
Officia of the Consuetudines Cistercienses of 1134, which
mentions the areas that should be sprinkled with holy
water each Sunday, sets forth the following order: church,
chapter house, inner parlor (auditorium), dormitory, warming
room, refectory, kitchen, and cellar.[134] Except for the
omission of the storehouse (camera), this list is the same
as that given in the Farfa description of the conventual
buildings at Cluny.

The typical Cistercian east range as seen for example on
the plan of Kirkstall Abbey, West Riding, (fig. 519), like
the Cluniac plan of Castle Acre Priory (fig. 518), includes
from north to south on the ground floor a chapter house,
parlor (auditorium), stairs to the dormitory, passage to the
infirmary, and an additional room on the south end which
may have served as a supply room, as it did at Cluny, or as
the novitiate.[135] As in the Benedictine plan, the dormitory
forms the second story of the east range and opens into the
latrine, which is at right angles to its south end.

Two features commonly appearing in the Cistercian east
range which also appeared on the Plan of St. Gall and which
may have appeared in Benedictine planning, are direct
communication from the dormitory to the church by night
stairs and the location of the sacristy near the south transept.

The Cistercian abbot, like the eleventh-century Benedictine
abbot, was at first required to sleep in the monks'
dormitory.[136] Only later in the thirteenth century did he have
a house of his own. This was usually located between the
monks' cloister and the infirmary to the east, as at Kirkstall
(fig. 519) and Fountains (fig. 520) and so was further removed
from the outside world than was the Benedictine
abbot's house.

The location of the peripheral buildings also tends to
perpetuate the Benedictine arrangement. In the 1708 plan
of Clairvaux, for example, the infirmary is still to the east
of the cloister, the guest houses and stables to the northwest,
and the mills and workshops to the south.[137] Whenever
possible, the traditional arrangements first set forth on the
Plan of St. Gall still appear. Only as a response to new needs
is the layout changed.

VI.4.2

ADAPTATION OF THE WEST RANGE
FOR LAY BROTHERS

The Cistercians stressed St. Benedict's ruling that the
monastery should be self-sustaining and further proposed
to live entirely on produce cultivated by their own members.[138]
Towards this goal manual labor was re-established
as a basic monastic obligation for the monks. But, in order
to maintain the economic independence of the monastery
and attend to outlying farms without interfering with the
monks' full observance of the rule within the monastery,
lay brothers were attached to the monastic body.

The introduction of the lay brothers as a permanent segment
of the monastic community was the innovation which
most significantly affected the layout of the Cistercian monastery.

[ILLUSTRATION]

WEST RIDING, YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND. KIRKSTALL ABBEY. PLAN

519.B

KIRKSTALL ABBEY. SITE PLAN 1:8,000

519.A

Most of the church and all primary claustral structures
date from 1152-1175. Its rapid construction and
unusually complete preservation made Kirkstall,
among Cistercian ruins of England, an exciting visual
experience.

The east range is virtually identical with corresponding
ranges at Bardney, Thetford, and Castle Acre. On
the ground floor are: chapter house (originally con-
tained within the range, but in the 13th century expan-
ded eastward), parlor, day stairs to dormitory,
passageway to buildings lying east of the cloister, and
an undercroft of uncertain purpose. The dormitory
extended over the entire length of this range, termina-
ting in the south with the monks' latrine. In the south
range the refectory, initially parallel to the southern
cloister walk, was soon after completion repositioned at
right angles, thus allowing installation of a warming
room to its east, and a kitchen-brewhouse to its west.

The new refectory, originally of one storey, was in the
15th century divided into two levels, the lower serving
as a MISERICORD (where meat was served in violation
of the original rules). The west range, like its eastern
counterpart, was formed by a two-storey building,
accommodating in the undercroft cellar and refectory of
the lay brothers, and overhead their dormitory that
extended the entire length of the range, terminating in
the south with the latrine attached at an oblique angle
over a water channel. An infirmary hall and a guest
house were added in the 13th century, the former to the
east and the latter at some distance west of the cloister.

Lay brothers had existed in other orders, but only
in the Cistercian order were they instituted in a form and
to an extent that called for special housing within the inner
cloister.[139] Since the lay brothers often outnumbered the
monks, a large area was needed to shelter and feed them.[140]
The lay brothers' daily schedule differed greatly from that
of the monks; accordingly they needed a place apart where
they would not interfere with the monks' routine. Like the
monks, the lay brothers were required to sleep in a common
dormitory, eat the same food, and attend required mass at
regular hours each day. Their quarters needed to be within
easy access of the church and their refectory close to the
kitchen which they shared with the monks.

The east range belonged traditionally to the monks. No
written source designates which part of the cloister housed
the lay brothers, but the cloister buildings themselves indicate
that the traditional Benedictine west range was adapted
for this purpose.[141] In order to accommodate the large number
of lay brothers, the Cistercian west range was extended
beyond the cloister square to the south and arranged to
nearly duplicate the monks' living facilities in the east
range. The lay brothers' dormitory occupied the entire
second floor of the west range; their latrine was located at
an angle to its south end. The ground floor of the west
range was divided in the center by a passage. The area to
the left of this passage was usually the cellar, traditionally
located in the west range of the cloister. To the right of the
passage was the lay brothers' refectory. The lay brothers
not only had their own refectory, dormitory and latrine, but
usually had a separate infirmary to the west. In some cases
they may even have had a separate warming room and
auditorium.[142] Except for the fact that lay brothers and
monks were served from the same kitchen, there actually
existed two monasteries in one, parallel to each other, one
on the east and the other on the west side of the cloister
yard, with little contact between the two.[143]

In some monasteries, such as Kirkstall (fig. 519), an
open lane of almost twice the width of the monks' cloister
walk lay between the west range and the monks' cloister,
from which it was cut off by a solid masonry wall. In other
monasteries the west range lay directly along the west walk
of the monks' cloister. The two arrangements exist side by
side, but the west range separated by a lane may possibly
be the older type since it exists in the first monasteries of
the order, Clairvaux and Citeaux.[144] The two types are constructed
concurrently, as for example at Roche Abbey
(Yorkshire) and Byland Abbey (Yorkshire) and a general
reason for the development of the two types has not been
determined.[145] The lane for the lay brothers may have originated
as a small cloister yard, since it is twice as wide as
would have been necessary for it to serve only as a passage
to the church. In some monasteries, such as the one at
Byland, it was even fitted with stone benches. In monasteries
without a lane the lay brothers would have merely
congregated in the area west of their quarters to which
exterior day stairs gave access, as at Fountains (fig. 520).

The introduction of a special lane for the lay brothers
at the place which in the Benedictine plan was occupied by
the western cloister walk in a certain sense insulated the
outer parlor from the monks' cloister. Although no Cistercian
document mentions an entrance or an outer parlor
where the monks could meet with seculars, one or two
bays, as can be seen at Kirkstall (fig. 519) and at Fountains
(fig. 520), are usually divided off from the cellar on the
north end of the west range next to the church, and must
have served this traditional purpose. In order to pass from
the outer parlor to the door near the south end of the lay
brothers' lane, which gave access to the inner cloister at
Kirkstall and at Clairvaux (fig. 521), it was necessary to
cross the length of the lay brothers' lane. The lay brothers'
lane thus separated the cloister from the place in which the
monk had contact with seculars. And in the same way the
lay brothers' quarters themselves acted as a buffer between
the monks and the outside world.

VI.4.3

RESULTING ALTERATIONS
IN THE SOUTH RANGE

The accommodation of the west range for the lay brothers
not only complicated the traditional plan of the west range,
but also altered the shape of the south side of the cloister.
In the earliest Cistercian monasteries the monks' refectory

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN: FOUNTAINS ABBEY

520.A

520.B

YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND

Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, XV(1900),
& Fountains Abbey (Hodges), 1904

"There is no other place in the country in which the mind can so readily evoke
the picture of 13th-century monastic life, and the eye the picture of the vast
extent and yet the crispness and freshness of Cistercian architecture in the wild
North Country forests."—N. Pevsner, THE BUILDINGS OF ENGLAND,
YORKSHIRE, THE WEST RIDING, London, 1959, 203-04.

At Fountains Abbey the conventional Cistercian scheme was transformed into
one of the most amazing examples of architectural site planning of which there
is record or remains. Here a vast monastic complex, in reach a thousand feet
long, embraces the River Skell as it flows gently north and eastward to the Ure,
in an architectural composition in which monastery structures rose from
foundations laid in the stream bed, and other buildings daringly straddled the
channeled Skell in an extraordinary work of applied hydraulics and structural
engineering. We know of no other monastic planning like Fountains, married to
the waters of a river, where monumental symmetry of church and cloister blends
harmoniously with oblique oxial configurations, akew to the nave, to conform to
the winding stream.

In the abbey's final state, complex functional relations of internal planning and
composition of buildings, courts, yards, and galleries are resolved with effortless
ease and beauty, giving no hint of deception where sophisticated mastery of
planning blends structures, water site, and natural setting into one of the great
works of art of medieval England. The accomplishment of Fountains is the more
remarkable a feat of human ingenuity for the site, anything but ideal, was
inconvenient of access and too narrow to accommodate the eventual complement
of buildings comprising the monastery.

Fountains was founded in 1132 by discontented monks of St. Mary's Abbey,
York, who established themselves in the wild, densely wooded valley of the Skell
by raising some wooden huts and a timbered oratory. Its permanent buildings,
constructed when funds became available, belong to three distinct periods:
The church was built between 1135 and 1147. It originally had a rectangular
choir that gave way, in the 13th century, to a new and larger presbytery terminating
in a second transept.

Between 1147 and 1179 were built all three claustral ranges and, west of the
cloister in a bend of the Skell, two guest houses as well as the lay brothers'
infirmary, the latter bridging the stream and connecting with their dormitory by
a latrine also built over the river.

Between 1243 and 1247 the new choir of the church and an entire cluster of
buildings were erected east of the cloister; most notable among them the monks'
infirmary, an aisled building 190 feet long and 80 feet wide, and like the lay
brothers' infirmary, bridging the stream.

The western approach to the monastery is breathtaking. The valley is blocked in
its entire width by a two-storey structure 307 feet long and 40 feet wide that
extends from the facade of the church full course across the river. In the under-croft
of this building are cellar and refectory of the lay brothers; above is their
dormitory. The location of this wing and all other claustral structures is in full
accord with general Cistercian standards: refectory in the south range at right
angles to the cloister yard and flanked by kitchen and warming room; the kitchen
placed so it can serve both monks and lay brothers; chapterhouse in the east
range at right angles to the cloister yard; above it the dormitory but coaxial
with the transcept over an undercroft that overshoots the south range nearly as
much as the refectory; two latrines attached to the dormitory at right angles. An
incomprehensible peculiarity is the abbot's lodging (1135-1147) built across the
eastern end of the two latrines. Between it and the monks' infirmary lies the
MISERICORD and eating hall, where sick monks, if their conditions warranted,
could be served meat.

The abbey was dissolved in 1539 and came into secular hands. Its present
excellent state of preservation owes to the fact that in 1768 it became part of the
grounds of Studley Royal, whose owner, William Aislabie, "with arrogant self-confidence
and stupendous success" used its remains "as the obligatory ruin in a
landscape garden, in which temples of fame and piety and other garden ornaments
were not lacking either" (Pevsner, loc. cit.).

lay parallel to the southern cloister walk, as was traditional
in Benedictine abbeys, but by at least the third quarter of
the twelfth century, the axis of the refectory had been rotated
ninety degrees so that it came to lie at right angles to
the southern cloister walk.

In Benedictine monasteries, as at Cluny, it was possible
to place the refectory parallel to the southern cloister walk
and still include the warming room and the kitchen on the
same axis, because the southern range could be extended
westward without limitation. In some English Benedictine
monasteries the kitchen was taken out of the range and
moved south of the refectory. In Cistercian monasteries,
however, one kitchen served both the lay brothers and the
monks. The Cistercians preferred to keep this kitchen
within the south range, between the refectory of the monks
and that of the lay brothers. From this position, food could
be more quickly and easily served to both refectories than
would have been possible had the kitchen stood outside the
cloister.[146] The Cistercians also kept the warming room
in the south range as it was at Cluny and in some Benedictine
houses. But the south range of the Cistercian plan,
unlike that of the Benedictines, could not be extended to
the south since here its path was blocked by the quarters
for the lay brothers.

Seeing a specific site, such as Kirkstall Abbey (fig. 519),
illustrates the problem which the Cistercians faced. In the
original south range of 1152 the axis of the refectory was
parallel to the cloister walk in the traditional east-west
orientation, but in 1182 it was turned by ninety degrees so
as to run from north to south. The southern range of 1152,
with the refectory aligned east and west, was 105 feet long
and 30 feet wide. The refectory itself was 70 feet long; to the
west of the refectory stood a kitchen 19 feet long and to the
east was an area 16½ feet long that was probably the warming
room.[147] The total length of the second refectory, warming
room and kitchen of 1182 was 174 feet. Given the desired
size of the new buildings, the axis of the refectory of 1182
could not have been placed east and west. Even if the
Cistercians at Kirkstall had wished to extend the proposed
south range across the lay brothers' lane, which provided
25 feet more to the west, it would still have been 45 feet

[ILLUSTRATION]

AUBE, FRANCE. CLAIRVAUX ABBEY

521.A VIEW FROM SOUTH

521.B PLAN

ENGRAVINGS OF DOM MILLEY, 1708

PARIS, CABINET DES ESTAMPES,

Topgraphie de la France, Aube, Bar-sur-Aube, fols 27 and 29.

[by courtesy of the Cabinet des Estampes]

Founded in 1115 by Stephen Harding, the abbey CLARA VALLIS,
through Bernard of Clairvaux's efforts and unique reputation, rose
to spectacular heights and soon accommodated 700 monks and lay brothers.
It became one of the most famous monasteries of the occident, with eighty
daughter affiliations and sixty-six nunneries, spread over twelve different
countries. The order owed its wealth and rapid expansion to a new concept
of labor, in which responsibilities of agricultural management and
exploitation of its rich lands were transmitted to a vast force of lay
brothers, thus making the monastery independent of the work of tenants
and serfs, as well as the duties of assuming care for the latter's livelihood.
A first settlement and church (MONASTERIUM VETUS) dedicated in 1115
had to be replaced as early as 1135-1145 because of the community's rapid
growth. The new monastery (MONASTERIUM NOVUM) was built in the
broader section of the valley, immediately to the east of the original site.
Its square choir and square transept chapels exercised a profound influence
on the layout of the churches of Clairvaux's daughter houses; but these
fixtures were replaced between 1154 and 1174 by a new and larger choir
with circular apse and radiating chapels (cf. Jean Dorothy Owens, "Early
Cistercian architecture in Burgundy: The Bernardian Plan," Master's
Thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1971).

The abbey was secularized in 1792 and during the next three decades
was reduced to a shambles, some of the remaining buildings being used as
a prison for women. The church itself was systematically dismantled in
1819. We are nevertheless fortunate in being able to form a clear picture
of the architectural and topographical layout of the monastery by means
of a plan and two superb engravings drawn in 1708 by Dom Milley, at a
time when the monastery was still substantially in the form it had
acquired by the end of the 12th century. The church on these engravings
is shown in the state it had attained in 1154-1174; but the cloister, with
its refectory at right angles to the south range and its east and west
ranges projecting boldly beyond the boundaries of the cloister square,
belong to the period of 1135-1145, and served as a model for the
claustral layout of many of the English monasteries discussed on the
preceding pages.

*

NOTE ON THE SCALE OF THE PLAN

The graphic scale of the engraving reads Scala mensoria Centum Hexapedarum. The
old French measure of length, the hexapedarum or toise, 6 pied de roi, was equivalent
to 2.135 yards or 1.949 meters. The pied de roi may be taken as 1.066 feet. The
asterisks by the right margin of the plan mark intervals of 500 feet, the symbols in
the left margin, 100 meters.

PLAN SHOWN AT SCALE 1:4500

too long. To keep all the buildings in the south range and
yet provide space for a sufficient increase in size, the only
possible solution was to rotate the refectory so that its
short end abutted the south cloister walk. In this way the
surface area of the kitchen and warming room at Kirkstall
could be doubled, ten hundred square feet could be added
to the refectory, and the layman's lane could still be kept
open to the south.

At Clairvaux (fig. 521) the axis of the refectory is shown
at right angles to the southern range in the plan of the
monastery drawn in 1708 by Dom Milley.[148] The second
abbey of Clairvaux was begun in 1135 on a new site when
the first abbey of 1116 became too small. The work was
far enough along by 1145 for a first consecration of the
church.[149] At that time all of the principal claustral structures
must also have been in place since the first book of the
Vita Prima whose author died in 1147 or 1148 referred to
the transfer of the monastery to its new site as an accomplished
fact.[150] If Dom Milley's plan reflects the building
campaign before Saint Bernard's death in 1153, as Paul
Jeulin believes, the ninety-degree turn of the refectory was
undertaken at Clairvaux toward the middle of the twelfth
century, long before the change can be demonstrated at
Kirkstall.[151] In England the earliest known example of a
refectory facing the south walk with its narrow end is that
of 1170-79 at Fountains Abbey[152] (fig. 520). If the innovation
was made at Clairvaux by the middle of the century it
is strange that it would not have been copied by the closely
affiliated English monasteries before the third quarter of the
century. In the planning of the new monastery of Clairvaux,
however, the documented aim was to provide for future
expansion to accommodate the daily increasing number of
brothers, and the new north-south orientation of the Cistercian
refectory would be in accord with this goal.[153] In
its new position the refectory, like the dormitories of the
monks and lay brothers, offered the possibility of future
expansion to the south of the cloister.[154]

Since the time of the Plan of St. Gall the east range and
the west range had been extended southward beyond the
south range of the cloister. This blocked any possibility
of extending the south range along its axis either eastward
or westward. The reorganization of the east and west
ranges required that the warming room and the kitchen be
accommodated in the south range; the only way to provide
enough space along the southern cloister walk was to turn
the refectory to a north and south axis. In the Cistercian
cloister plan three parallel arms now extended to the south
of the simple cloister square seen on the Plan of St. Gall.

The inner cloister had also been opened up in order to
gain a freer interaction with the buildings around it. On
the Plan of St. Gall it was connected with the rest of the
complex at only one point, the entrance through the parlor
in the west range. Efficient communication demands more
openings in the claustral block. In the Benedictine and
Cistercian monastic plans of the twelfth century, a passage
between the auditorium and camera of the east range connects
the monks' cloister directly with the infirmary to the
east. Between the east range and the refectory another
passage opens the cloister to the south.[155] These passages
are often aligned with the south and east walks of the
cloister, giving a new feeling of spatial expansion to the
cloister. Moreover, the covered walks joining the monks'
cloister and the infirmary, as can be seen on the Plan of
Christchurch, Canterbury, and at Kirkstall (figs. 52 and
519), actually form a new courtyard and thus extend the
enclosed claustral area to which the monks have access.
In the Cistercian plan, as at Fountains (fig. 520), the extensions
of the east range, west range, and refectory beyond
the cloister to the south enclose on three sides two southern
court-like areas which, perhaps, were also used as additional
claustral space.[156]