Attached to each House of the Cistercians was a band of conversi, or lay brethren, the uneducated portion of the community, who did all the rough work of the House. Their frater and dorter were separate from the other buildings, the dorter running over the cellarium; and they attended service in the nave of the church, whereas the monks used the choir or chancel.
Such was the general plan of a Cistercian monastery or nunnery. That of the Benedictines did not differ from it except that their churches were larger and more magnificently built than those of the Cistercians, and their fraters ran east and west instead of north and south.
Look at the outer wall of the south aisle of Bridlington Priory Church, and you will at once notice something strange. The windowless wall and blocked arches are due to the fact that the Abbot’s house adjoined the church at this spot. Look along the wall farther to the east, and you will see plainly the brackets on which once rested the roof beams of one of the four cloisters.
In some cases the domestic buildings lay to the north of the church, but this was exceptional. Advantage was usually taken of the protection afforded by the church against the biting north winds of winter, an advantage not to be despised by those who had to live in unwarmed stone buildings on the bleak moorlands of Yorkshire. One can imagine a shivering monk returning from his two hours’ service in the church at two o’clock on a cold winter’s morning, and piling on the bed his whole wardrobe in a vain endeavour to keep the marrow of his bones from freezing into solid ice. It was worth something to be an Abbot. For the Abbot’s house had fire-places, and there would be little fear of his forgetting to make use of such a comfortable privilege.
The Priory Church, Bridlington.
As was mentioned earlier in the chapter, the monk lived in common with his fellows. In winter his time-table was as follows:—
7 a.m.—Prime—a prayer,[[31]] hymn, and three psalms.
8 a.m.—Mixtum or breakfast.