The Plan of St. Gall :: :: University of Virginia Library

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

352

[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.).

353

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

355

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]

[146]

Thompson, 1954, 12. The refectories were sometimes directly
served from the kitchen by means of turntables in the east and west walls.

[147]

An area 16½ × 30 feet seems rather small for a warming room, and
since no original fireplace remains, it is possible that this area was only a
passage to the south, as it might have been in some Benedictine houses.
However, there is no fireplace indicating a warming room in the east
range either. Hope, therefore, may have been correct in assigning the
original warming room to this place in the southern range. See Hope,
1907, 4, 52. Had this space been only a passage, it would have needed
to be no wider than the passage in the east range. However, it is twice
as wide. One wonders, therefore, whether this area may not have performed
the dual function of passage and warming room as did the
corresponding space at Cluny II (fig. 515). Kirkstall's passage (495
square feet), to be sure is somewhat smaller than the warming room in
the southern walk at Cluny (625 square feet), but so are all the other
rooms in the original south range of Kirkstall.

[148]

Williams, 1935, 396, gives an enlarged plan and key for Dom Milley's
plan of 1708.

[149]

The consecration is referred to in the Collectanea or Fragmenta
Gaudfridi, written in 1145 (Paris, Bib. Nat. MS. lat. 17639, fol. 10v;
cf. E. Vacandard, 1910, 421, and introduction xxi).

[150]

Vita Prima, book I, chap. 7, par. 34; cf. Migne, Patr. Lat.,
CLXXXV: 1, 1879, col. 247.

[151]

Jeulin, 1953, 327.

[152]

Hope, 1900, 369, 370, however, feels that its lack of alignment
might suggest that this stone refectory was constructed outside of a
temporary timber refectory with the same axis which built was sometime
between the fire of 1147 and the rebuilding in stone around 1170.

[153]

Williams, 1935, 56.

[154]

Aubert, I, 1947, 118, suggested that the Cistercians moved the
warming room out of the east range into the south range with the
consequent rotation of the refectory in order to make room for a salle
des moines in the east range. At Kirkstall, the one demonstrable example
we have of the Cistercian arrangement before the refectory was rotated,
it is likely that the warming room was included in the south range when
the refectory was aligned east and west, thus repeating the earlier
Cluniac arrangement. Moreover, if a salle des moines ever existed, it
would not have been introduced at the time the refectory was rotated.
Sowers, 1957, 347, 349, mentions that the change from field to indoor
labor, when a salle des moines could have become necessary, did not
take place before the late twelfth or early thirteenth century.

[155]

Even if the warming room sometimes may have been located in this
space, it probably served at times as a passage, as was the practice at
Cluny II seen in the description of the route of the claustral prior of
Cluny. See above, p. 338.

[156]

Sowers, 1951, 352. Wood partitions sometimes enclosed these areas
to the south, and benches were set up.

University of Virginia Library

VI.4.3

RESULTING ALTERATIONS IN THE SOUTH RANGE

PLAN: FOUNTAINS ABBEY

AUBE, FRANCE. CLAIRVAUX ABBEY

RESULTING ALTERATIONS
IN THE SOUTH RANGE