Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages / Third Edition

by Edward Lewes Cutts

Monk in Scriptorium.

There are numerous illuminations representing monks and ecclesiastics writing; they sit in chairs of various kinds, some faldstools, some armed chairs, some armed backed; and they have desks and bookstands before them of various shapes, commonly a stand with sloping desk like a Bible lectern, not unfrequently a kind of dumb-waiter besides on which are several books. We see also in these illuminations the forms of the pens, knives, inkstands, &c., which were used. We will only mention two of unusual interest. One is in a late fourteenth-century Psalter, Harl. 2,897, at p. 186, v., where St. Jude sits writing his Epistle in a canopied chair, with a shelf across the front of the chair to serve as a desk; a string with a weight at the end holds his parchment down, and there is a bench beside, on which lies a book. A chair with a similar shelf is at f. 12 of the MS. Egerton, 1,070. Our woodcut on the preceding page is from a MS. in the Library of Soissons. We also find representations of ecclesiastics writing in a small cell which may represent the enclosed scriptoria—e.g. St. Bonaventine writing, in the MS. Harl. 3,229; St. John painting, in the late fifteenth-century MS. Add. 15,677, f. 35.

The Abbot’s Lodging sometimes formed a portion of one of the monastic courts, as at St. Mary, Bridlington, where it formed the western side of the cloister-court; but more usually it was a detached house, precisely similar to the contemporary unfortified houses of laymen of similar rank and wealth. No particular site relative to the monastic buildings was appropriated to it; it was erected wherever was most convenient within the abbey enclosure. The principal rooms of an abbot’s house are the Hall, the Great Chamber, the Kitchen, Buttery, Cellars, &c., the Chambers, and the Chapel. We must remember that the abbots of the greater houses were powerful noblemen; the abbots of the smaller houses were equal in rank and wealth to country gentlemen. They had a very constant succession of noble and gentle guests, whose entertainment was such as their rank and habits required. This involved a suitable habitation and establishment; and all this must be borne in mind when we endeavour to picture to ourselves an abbot’s lodging. To give an idea of the magnitude of some of the abbots’ houses, we may record that the hall of the Abbot of Fountains was divided by two rows of pillars into a centre and aisles, and that it was 170 feet long by 70 feet wide.[85] Half a dozen noble guests, with their retinues of knights and squires, and men-at-arms and lacqueys, and all the abbot’s men to boot, would be lost in such a hall. On the great feast-days it might, perhaps, be comfortably filled. But even such a hall would hardly contain the companies who were sometimes entertained, on such great days for instance as an abbot’s installation-day, when it is on record that an abbot of one of the greater houses would give a feast to three or four thousand people.

Of the lodgings of the superiors of smaller houses, we may take that of the Prior of St. Mary’s, Bridlington, as an example. It is very accurately described by King Henry’s commissioners; it formed the west side of the cloister-court; it contained a hall with an undercroft, eighteen paces long from the screen to the dais,[86] and ten paces wide; on its north side a great chamber, twenty paces long and nineteen wide; at the west end of the great chamber the prior’s sleeping-chamber, and over that a garret; on the east side of the same chamber a little chamber and a closet; at the south end of the hall the buttery and pantry, and a chamber called the Auditor’s Chamber; at the same end of the hall a fair parlour, called the Low Summer Parlour; and over it another fair chamber; and adjoining that three little chambers for servants; at the south end of the hall the Prior’s Kitchen, with three houses covered with lead, and adjoining it a chamber called the South Cellarer’s Chamber.[87]

A Present of Fish.

There were several other buildings of a monastery, which were sometimes detached, and placed as convenience dictated. The Infirmary especially seems to have been more commonly detached; in many cases it had its own kitchen, and refectory, and chapel, and chambers, which sometimes were arranged round a court, and formed a complete little separate establishment.

The Hospitium, or Guest-house, was sometimes detached; but more usually it seems to have formed a portion of an outer court, westward of the cloister-court, which court was entered from the great gates, or from one of the outer gates of the abbey. In Cistercian houses, as we have said, the guest-house, with its hall below and its chambers above, perhaps occupied the west side of the cloister-court, and would therefore form the eastern range of buildings of this outer court. At St. Mary’s, Bridlington, where the prior’s lodging occupied this position, the “lodgings and stables for strangers” were on the north side of this outer court. The guest-houses were often of great extent and magnificence. The Guesten-hall of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, still remains, and is a very noble building, 150 feet long by 50 broad, of Norman date, raised on an undercroft. The Guesten-hall of Worcester also remains, a very noble building on an undercroft, with a fine carved timber roof, and portions of the painting which decorated the wall behind the dais still visible.[88] Besides the hall, the guest-house contained often a great-chamber (answering to our modern drawing-room) and sleeping-chambers, and a chapel, in which service was performed for guests—for in those days it was the custom always to hear prayers before dinner and supper.

Thus, at Durham, we are told that “a famous house of hospitality was kept within the abbey garth, called the Guest-hall, and was situate in the west side, towards the water. The sub-prior of the house was the master thereof, as one appointed to give entertainment to all estates, noble, gentle, or what other degree soever, came thither as strangers. Their entertainment was not inferior to that of any place in England, both for the goodness of their diet, the clean and neat furniture of their lodgings, and generally all things necessary for travellers; and, with this entertainment, no man was required to depart while he continued honest and of good behaviour. This hall was a stately place, not unlike the body of a church, supported on each side by very fine pillars, and in the midst of the hall a long range for the fire. The chambers and lodgings belonging to it were kept very clean and richly furnished.” At St. Albans, the Guest-house was an enormous range of rooms, with stabling for three hundred horses.