VI. 3
LAYOUT OF THE BENEDICTINE
MONASTERY FROM
THE LATE ELEVENTH TO THE
THIRTEENTH CENTURY
VI.3.1
ENGLISH SOURCES
All of the monasteries discussed on the pages which
follow are English, because in England the archaeological
record is more reliable and richer than elsewhere in
Europe. The suppression of monastic life by Henry VIII
from 1538 onward halted rebuilding; and the existing or
excavated remains reflect the original dispositions more
closely than do the Continental monasteries, most of which
were extensively renovated from the fifteenth century onward
and remained in continuous use up to the French
Revolution. No claim for completeness is made. The observations
set forth are based on a survey of the remains of
not more than twenty-one Cluniac and autonomous
Benedictine monasteries of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries. The Clunaic abbeys are Lewes, Castle Acre,
Thetford, and Much Wenlock; the autonomous abbeys:
Battle, Bardney, Christchurch, Canterbury, Gloucester,
St. Albans, Ely, St. Augustine's Canterbury, Westminster,
Rochester, Durham, Bury St. Edmunds, Peterborough,
Norwich, Winchester, Reading, Worcester, and Finchale.[93]
This sampling, admittedly, is small when viewed against
the total of Benedictine monasteries flourishing at this time.
Yet their comparison conveys a surprisingly uniform picture.
They disclose that the layout adopted at Cluny was
transmitted to the English houses and became traditional.
* * * * * * * * * *
VI.3.2
TRADITION
Many autonomous Benedictine monasteries adopted the
customs of Cluny. Christchurch, Canterbury, for instance,
was built by Lanfranc, who was previously prior of the
Abbey of Bec in Normandy. The customs of Bec are true
to the earlier customs of Cluny which William of Volpiano
brought to Fécamp and other northern monasteries at the
beginning of the eleventh century. The monastic constitutions
which Lanfranc later wrote are similar to the customs
composed under Odilo between 1030 and 1048.[94]
There was
continual interaction between Cluny and the autonomous
English houses and in many cases Cluny must have transmitted
the reform ideas promulgated at Aachen.
Earlier ties, however, also connect the English monasteries
with the synods of Aachen. The monastic revival
begun by Dunstan in the second half of the tenth century
was based on the continental monastic tradition of Benedict
of Aniane.[95]
While in exile Dunstan took refuge in the monastery
of Blandium at Ghent in 954. Around 970 a synod
under Dunstan's guidance was called at Winchester to
establish a common way of life for English monasteries
under the patronage of King Edgar. The procedure and
provisions of the meeting consciously imitated those of the
synod at Aachen, directed by Benedict of Aniane in 817
under the auspices of Louis the Pious. In the presence of
monks from Fleury and Ghent the Regularis Concordia, a
code based on the Ordo Qualiter and the Rule for Canons
and Capitula of Aachen, was drawn up.[96]
About forty monasteries
were founded under this revival between 957 and
the Conquest, but no architectural remains seem to indicate
the arrangement of the conventual buildings before the last
phase of this revival during the reign of Edward the Confessor.
At this time both the style of Norman architecture
(exemplified by Westminster Abbey, consecrated in 1065)
as well as the typical institutions of Norman monasticism,
that clearly characterize post-Conquest England, were
already established.[97]
In the Post-Conquest English Benedictine monasteries
of the eleventh and twelfth century, the east range of the
cloister contains the dormitory; the south range, the refectory;
and the west range, the cellar, as on the Plan of St.
Gall and at Cluny II.
These relationships have become traditional and binding.
Whenever the site permitted in the few examples that
remain the peripheral houses and workshops were arranged
as they were on the Plan of St. Gall. The entrance to the
monastery is usually to the west of church and cloister. The
mill and bake house are adjacent to the kitchen, as on the
plan of the waterworks of Christchurch, Canterbury (Kent),
shown above in figure 52. The infirmary, its chapel and
cemetery are to the east of the cloister, as can be seen at
Christchurch and at Bardney Abbey, Lincolnshire, (fig.
516).
In some particulars the English plans reflect the arrangement
on the Plan of St. Gall even more closely than Cluny
II. In all of these monasteries the east range of the cloister
is aligned with the southern transept-arm and the cloister
forms a regular square. Whenever the location of the
twelfth century kitchen is known, as on the Canterbury
plan (fig. 52), it is isolated from the refectory and connected
with the south range by passageways, as it was on the
Plan of St. Gall; while at Cluny II it may have been part
of that range. As at St. Gall, there is only one kitchen;
Cluny had two.
Other aspects seem closer to the Plan of St. Gall, but
they are not well enough established to allow generalization.
In some English monasteries such as Thetford (fig. 517),
part of the undercroft of the dormitory may still have served
as the warming room, but it is considerably reduced
in area and pushed to the southern part of the range.
There is some indication that in later English monasteries
night stairs connected the dormitory with the southern
transept arm of the church, as it did on the Plan of St. Gall.
In Cluny (fig. 515) such a connection probably would not
have existed if the east range, as Conant assumes, was
severed from the transept. In Cistercian planning the night
stairs reappear in the place where they were indicated on
the Plan of St. Gall. Since the elements that Cistercian
planning have in common with the Plan of St. Gall could
only have been transmitted by later Benedictine monasteries,
they must have been more common in Benedictine
planning than present remains indicate.[98]
Our survey of English monastery plans also reveals that
the dimensions of the cloister square comply with the standards
set by the Plan of St. Gall and with the stipulation
made by Hildemar of Corbie (ca. 845) that a cloister yard
should never be less than 100 feet square.[99]
In the Benedictine
and Cluniac English monasteries the cloister yard, as a
rule, is not smaller than this, though it is sometimes larger.[100]
These basic similarities between the English monasteries
and the Plan of St. Gall remain constant wherever the
natural conditions of the site permit. When exceptions occur
they can be explained either by the topography or by restrictions
imposed by the architectural surroundings.[101]
In
England such irregularities are more common in Benedictine
than in Cistercian monasteries because the Benedictines
rarely had a virgin site on which to build and were
often settled near cities, while the Cistercians chose isolated
areas, a fact which may be primarily responsible for
what, in contrast to Cistercian conformism, appears to be
a lack of uniformity in Benedictine planning.
VI.3.3
INNOVATIONS
CHAPTER HOUSE
Certain innovations made at Cluny became an integral part
of the later Benedictine tradition and remained in permanent
departure from the solution set forth on the Plan of
St. Gall. The most notable of these is the inclusion in the
east range of a separate chapter house.[102]
Once conceived, the
separate chapter house could not be abandoned because of
its functional advantages. To place the chapter house at the
northern end of the east range, however, brought with it
certain complications. As long as it remained confined to
the ground floor, the dormitory overhead could still be
connected directly with the transept by means of night
stairs. But if the space of the chapter house extended upwards
through the entire height of the east range, arrangements
had to be made to connect the dormitory with the
church by special passageways; or the night stairs had to be
abandoned altogether.[103]
INNER PARLOR
A second permanent innovation adopted by the Benedictine
monasteries was the inclusion of an inner parlor in
the east range, directly adjacent to the chapter house. Although
this inner parlor is referred to by name in several
Benedictine and Cluniac customs, its function is not stated.[104]
An auditorium is first mentioned in the Farfa description
of 1043.[105]
Later in the eleventh century it is mentioned in
the tours of the claustral prior at Cluny and Hirsau.
Bernard's account of the claustral prior's tour at Cluny in
his Ordo Cluniacensis refers to a parlatorium in the same
context that the otherwise similar tour in the Consuetudines
of Hirsau refers to the auditorium.[106]
This designates the
inner parlor in the east range as a place for talking and
listening.
Twelfth-century customs outside the Benedictine order
further explain the exact use of the auditorium. Cistercian
customs describe the auditorium as the place where monastic
officials could converse privately with one or two monks,
where the prior made work assignments, and handed out
tools for the day's work after the chapter meeting, and
where the master of the novices could instruct new novices.[107]
The Liber Ordinis S. Victoris Parisiensis further specifies
that in this order of canons the auditorium or locutorium,
as it is called in this text, was particularly used for briefly
talking about any business that could neither be signified
(probably referring to sign language) nor put off until the
time of the locutio, but the Liber emphasizes that no one
could talk there without permission from a high member of
the order.[108]
It explicitly states that no stranger may be led
into this "regular locutorium" and also mentions rules for
the "other locutorium," thus distinguishing between the
locutorium or auditorium in the east range and the auditorium
in the west range, which, as on the Plan of St. Gall, served
as reception room for visitors. The auditorium in the east
range of the twelfth-century cloister is thus defined as a
place where claustral silence could be broken to discuss
necessary business. This had probably been its role since
its beginning.
Although silence was at all times considered a basic
monastic virtue it had not always been as severely enforced
as it was by the Cluniacs, the later autonomous Benedictines,
and the Cistercians. St. Benedict, in dealing with this
problem, referred to it as taciturnitas rather than silentium.[109]
He designated three regular periods of absolute silence; but
for the rest of the time only excessive loquacity was forbidden.
The same relative freedom of speech, except at
certain regulated periods, is evident in the monastic customs
of the eighth and ninth centuries. The rule of ordinary
silence is in fact so relaxed that a consuetudinary from
Corbie of around 826 permits conversation during the midday
rest in the summer, provided that it does not bother
those who sit and read in bed; should there be any need for
sustained talk the monks must simply go outside and conduct
their business there. In the same text they are instructed
not to yell from a distance because of the noise.[110]
Under
relaxed conditions like these there was no need for a special
room in which the ordinary claustral silence could be
broken. No such area, consequently, is set aside on the Plan
of St. Gall.
Joseph Semmler has pointed out that it was not until the
tenth century that the monks began to practice strict silence
during the days of the great religious festivals. This trend
toward increased enforcement of silence is true of the reformed
German monasteries, the English monasteries that
adopted the reform of Dunstan, and it is also true in particular
for Cluny.[111]
In the eleventh century men like Peter Damian (9881072),
inspired by the same ideals of reform as Cluny,
wrote impassioned letters against unnecessary talking and
forcefully recommended greater silence.[112]
At Cluny, as the
number and length of the breaks in silence were progressively
reduced, as absolute silence was required even in the
workshops, a sign language was developed to maintain the
necessary communication.[113]
The auditorium in the east
range, first mentioned in the Farfa description, provided an
area for talking aloud and may well owe its existence to the
pressure of increasing claustral silence. Like the sign language
it might also have originated at Cluny. Just as the
sign language was adopted by nearly all the later medieval
monasteries, the auditorium in the east range became an
integral part of all later Benedictine and Cistercian planning.[114]
NOVITIATE
Another innovation made at Cluny that seems to have been
permanently adopted in later monastic planning was the
transfer of the novitiate to a location more closely related to
the quarters of the regular monks. The Constitutions of
Lanfranc reflect a growing tendency to integrate the novices
with the regular monks in the eleventh century English
Benedictine monasteries: "The novice shall sleep in the
cell of the novices, or, if the monastery have no such special
cell, in the dormitory.[115]
"He shall be taken into the church
and a place assigned to him. From the church he shall be
taken to the dormitory and the place shown him where he
is to rest, and he shall be taken beyond the dormitory, and
the cells shown him to which he is to repair when nature's
ways demand it . . . on that day the novice shall follow, and
a seat in the refectory shall be assigned."[116]
These passages
by Lanfranc suggest that in the late eleventh and twelfth
century there was not always a separate building for the
novices and that they often shared the buildings of the
regular monks. In the English plans there is no indication
of a special court of building set aside for novices.
The novices were probably often integrated with the
monks for economic reasons and perhaps also because there
were not as many oblati in the eleventh and twelfth centuries
as there were in the ninth century. According to
David Knowles, despite Lanfranc's attempts to perpetuate
the age-old institution of child oblation, it was everywhere
on the decline fifty years after his death.[117]
ABBOT'S HOUSE
As at Cluny, so in the autonomous English Benedictine
houses: a change in customs was responsible for the disappearance
of a separate house for the abbot. But this issue
remained controversial, as it had been in the days of St.
Benedict of Aniane.[118]
Like the Customs of Udalric, the
Constitutions of Lanfranc[119]
reveal that the abbot slept in the
dormitory: "In the early morning no one shall dare to make
a sound as long as (the abbot) is in bed asleep."[120]
Yet by
1150 all but a very few abbots in England had removed to
quarters of their own.
[121]
Brakspear, in his survey of English
abbots' houses, discloses that by the thirteenth century the
abbot, as on the Plan of St. Gall, is once more provided
with a separate building, usually connected to the outer
parlor with guest houses next to it. This is the case at
Battle and Castle Acre (fig. 518).
[122]
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.
