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Abbey

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History
1500-1750; Religious movements, traditions and organizations

   An abbey (from the Latin abbatia, which is derived from the Syriac
   abba, "father"), is a Christian monastery or convent, under the
   government of an Abbot or an Abbess, who serves as the spiritual father
   or mother of the community.

   Some cities were ruled by heads of a certain abbey. For more
   information, see abbey-principality.

   A nunnery is a convent of nuns. The first nunnery in England was built
   at Folkestone in about 635 by Osyth, daughter of Redwald.

Origins

   The earliest known Christian monastic communities (see Monasticism)
   consisted of groups of cells or huts collected about a common centre,
   which was usually the house of some hermit or anchorite famous for
   holiness or singular asceticism, but without any attempt at orderly
   arrangement. Such communities were not an invention of Christianity.
   The example had been already set in part by the Essenes in Judea and
   perhaps by the Therapeutae in Egypt.

   In the earliest age of Christian monasticism the ascetics were
   accustomed to live singly, independent of one another, not far from
   some village church, supporting themselves by the labour of their own
   hands, and distributing the surplus after the supply of their own
   scanty wants to the poor. Increasing religious fervour, aided by
   persecution, drove them farther and farther away from the civilization
   into mountain solitudes or lonely deserts. The deserts of Egypt swarmed
   with the "cells" or huts of these anchorites. Anthony the Great, who
   had retired to the Egyptian Thebaid during the persecution of Maximian,
   A.D. 312, was the most celebrated among them for his austerities, his
   sanctity, and his power as an exorcist. His fame collected round him a
   host of followers imitating his asceticism in an attempt to imitate his
   sanctity. The deeper he withdrew into the wilderness, the more numerous
   his disciples became. They refused to be separated from him, and built
   their cells round that of their spiritual father. Thus arose the first
   monastic community, consisting of anchorites living each in his own
   little dwelling, united together under one superior. Anthony, as Johann
   August Wilhelm Neander remarks, "without any conscious design of his
   own, had become the founder of a new mode of living in common,
   Coenobitism." By degrees order was introduced in the groups of huts.
   They were arranged in lines like the tents in an encampment, or the
   houses in a street. From this arrangement these lines of single cells
   came to be known as Laurae, Laurai, "streets" or "lanes."

   The real founder of cenobitic (koinos, common, and bios, life)
   monasteries in the modern sense was Pachomius, an Egyptian of the
   beginning of the 4th century. The first community established by him
   was at Tabennae, an island of the Nile in Upper Egypt. Eight others
   were founded in the region during his lifetime, numbering 3,000 monks.
   Within fifty years from his death his societies could claim 50,000
   members. These coenobia resembled villages, peopled by a hard-working
   religious community, all of one sex.

   The buildings were detached, small and of the humblest character. Each
   cell or hut, according to Sozomen (H.R. iii. 14), contained three
   monks. They took their chief meal in a common refectory or dining hall
   at 3 P.M., up to which hour they usually fasted. They ate in silence,
   with hoods so drawn over their faces that they could see nothing but
   what was on the table before them. The monks spent the time not devoted
   to religious services or study in manual labour.

   Palladius, who visited the Egyptian monasteries about the close of the
   4th century, found among the 300 members of the coenobium of Panopolis,
   under the Pachomian rule, 15 tailors, 7 smiths, 4 carpenters, 12
   cameldrivers and 15 tanners. Each separate community had its own
   oeconomus or steward, who was subject to a chief steward stationed at
   the head establishment. All the produce of the monks' labour was
   committed to him, and by him shipped to Alexandria. The money raised by
   the sale was expended in the purchase of stores for the support of the
   communities, and what was over was devoted to charity. Twice in the
   year the superiors of the several coenobia met at the chief monastery,
   under the presidency of an archimandrite ("the chief of the fold," from
   miandra, a sheepfold), and at the last meeting gave in reports of their
   administration for the year. The coenobia of Syria belonged to the
   Pachomian institution. We learn many details concerning those in the
   vicinity of Antioch from Chrysostom's writings. The monks lived in
   separate huts, kalbbia, forming a religious hamlet on the mountain
   side. They were subject to an abbot, and observed a common rule. (They
   had no refectory, but ate their common meal, of bread and water only,
   when the day's labour was over, reclining on strewn grass, sometimes
   out of doors.) Four times in the day they joined in prayers and psalms.

Santa Laura, Mount Athos

   The necessity for defence from hostile attacks (for monastic houses
   tended to accumulate rich gifts), economy of space and convenience of
   access from one part of the community to another, by degrees dictated a
   more compact and orderly arrangement of the buildings of a monastic
   coenobium. Large piles of building were erected, with strong outside
   walls, capable of resisting the assaults of an enemy, within which all
   the necessary edifices were ranged round one or more open courts,
   usually surrounded with cloisters. The usual Eastern arrangement is
   exemplified in the plan of the convent of the Holy Laura, Mount Athos.

                   CAPTION: Monastery of Santa Laura, Mount Athos (Lenoir)

          image:abbey_01.png

                             A. Gateway
                             B. Chapels
                             C. Guest-house
                             D. Church
                             E. Cloister
                             F. Fountain
                             G. Refectory
                             H. Kitchen
                             I. Cells
                             K. Storehouses
                             L. Postern Gate
                             M. Tower

   This monastery, like the oriental monasteries generally, is surrounded
   by a strong and lofty blank stone wall, enclosing an area of between 3
   and 4 acres (12,000 and 16,000 m²). The longer side extends to a length
   of about 500 feet. There is only one main entrance, on the north side
   (A), defended by three separate iron doors. Near the entrance is a
   large tower (M), a constant feature in the monasteries of the Levant.
   There is a small postern gate at L. The enceinte comprises two large
   open courts, surrounded with buildings connected with cloister
   galleries of wood or stone. The outer court, which is much the larger,
   contains the granaries and storehouses (K), and the kitchen (H) and
   other offices connected with the refectory (G). Immediately adjacent to
   the gateway is a two-storied guest-house, opening from a cloister (C).
   The inner court is surrounded by a cloister (EE), from which open the
   monks' cells (II). In the centre of this court stands the catholicon or
   conventual church, a square building with an apse of the cruciform
   domical Byzantine type, approached by a domed narthex. In front of the
   church stands a marble fountain (F), covered by a dome supported on
   columns. Opening from the western side of the cloister, but actually
   standing in the outer court, is the refectory (G), a large cruciform
   building, about 100 feet (30 m) each way, decorated within with
   frescoes of saints. At the upper end is a semicircular recess,
   recalling the triclinium of the Lateran Palace at Rome, in which is
   placed the seat of the hegumenos or abbot. This apartment is chiefly
   used as a hall of meeting, the oriental monks usually taking their
   meals in their separate cells.

   The annexed plan of a Coptic monastery, from Lenoir, shows a church of
   three aisles, with cellular apses, and two ranges of cells on either
   side of an oblong gallery.

   CAPTION: Plan of Coptic Monastery

   image:abbey_02.png

                             A. Narthex
                             B. Church
                             C. Corridor, with cells on each side
                             D. Staircase

Benedictine monasteries

   Monasticism in the West owes its extension and development to Benedict
   of Nursia (born A.D. 480). His rule was diffused with miraculous
   rapidity from the parent foundation on Monte Cassino through the whole
   of western Europe, and every country witnessed the erection of
   monasteries far exceeding anything that had yet been seen in
   spaciousness and splendour. Few great towns in Italy were without their
   Benedictine convent, and they quickly rose in all the great centres of
   population in England, France and Spain. The number of these
   monasteries founded between A.D. 520 and 700 is amazing. Before the
   Council of Constance, A.D. 1415, no fewer than 15,070 abbeys had been
   established of this order alone. The buildings of a Benedictine abbey
   were uniformly arranged after one plan, modified where necessary (as at
   Durham and Worcester, where the monasteries stand close to the steep
   bank of a river) to accommodate the arrangement to local circumstances.

   We have no existing examples of the earlier monasteries of the
   Benedictine order. They have all yielded to the ravages of time and the
   violence of man. But we have fortunately preserved to us an elaborate
   plan of the great Swiss monastery of St Gall, erected about A.D. 820,
   which puts us in possession of the whole arrangements of a monastery of
   the first class towards the early part of the 9th century. This curious
   and interesting plan has been made the subject of a memoir both by
   Keller (Zürich, 1844) and by Professor Robert Willis (Arch. Journal,
   1848, vol. v. pp. 86-117). To the latter we are indebted for the
   substance of the following description, as well as for the plan,
   reduced from his elucidated transcript of the original preserved in the
   archives of the convent. The general appearance of the convent is that
   of a town of isolated houses with streets running between them. It is
   evidently planned in compliance with the Benedictine rule, which
   enjoined that, if possible, the monastery should contain within itself
   every necessary of life, as well as the buildings more intimately
   connected with the religious and social life of its inmates. It should
   comprise a mill, a bakehouse, stables, and cow-houses, together with
   accommodation for carrying on all necessary mechanical arts within the
   walls, so as to obviate the necessity of the monks going outside its
   limits.
   Abbey of Jumièges, Normandy
   Abbey of Jumièges, Normandy

   The general distribution of the buildings may be thus described:-The
   church, with its cloister to the south, occupies the centre of a
   quadrangular area, about 430 feet square. The buildings, as in all
   great monasteries, are distributed into groups. The church forms the
   nucleus, as the centre of the religious life of the community. In
   closest connection with the church is the group of buildings
   appropriated to the monastic line and its daily requirements---the
   refectory for eating, the dormitory for sleeping, the common room for
   social intercourse, the chapter-house for religious and disciplinary
   conference. These essential elements of monastic life are ranged about
   a cloister court, surrounded by a covered arcade, affording
   communication sheltered from the elements between the various
   buildings. The infirmary for sick monks, with the physician's house and
   physic garden, lies to the east. In the same group with the infirmary
   is the school for the novices. The outer school, with its headmaster's
   house against the opposite wall of the church, stands outside the
   convent enclosure, in close proximity to the abbot's house, that he
   might have a constant eye over them. The buildings devoted to
   hospitality are divided into three groups,--one for the reception of
   distinguished guests, another for monks visiting the monastery, a third
   for poor travellers and pilgrims. The first and third are placed to the
   right and left of the common entrance of the monastery,---the hospitium
   for distinguished guests being placed on the north side of the church,
   not far from the abbot's house; that for the poor on the south side
   next to the farm buildings. The monks are lodged in a guest-house built
   against the north wall of the church. The group of buildings connected
   with the material wants of the establishment is placed to the south and
   west of the church, and is distinctly separated from the monastic
   buildings. The kitchen, buttery and offices are reached by a passage
   from the west end of the refectory, and are connected with the
   bakehouse and brewhouse, which are placed still farther away. The whole
   of the southern and western sides is devoted to workshops, stables and
   farm-buildings. The buildings, with some exceptions, seem to have been
   of one story only, and all but the church were probably erected of
   wood. The whole includes thirty-three separate blocks. The church (D)
   is cruciform, with a nave of nine bays, and a semicircular apse at
   either extremity. That to the west is surrounded by a semicircular
   colonnade, leaving an open "paradise" (E) between it and the wall of
   the church. The whole area is divided by screens into various chapels.
   The high altar (A) stands immediately to the east of the transept, or
   ritual choir; the altar of Saint Paul (B) in the eastern, and that of
   St Peter (C) in the western apse. A cylindrical campanile stands
   detached from the church on either side of the western apse (FF).

   The `cloister court', (G) on the south side of the nave of the

                      CAPTION: Ground plan of St. Gall

   image:st_gall_plan.jpg
                          CHURCH.
                          A. High altar.
                          B. Altar of St Paul.
                          C. Altar of St Peter.
                          D. Nave.
                          E. Paradise.
                          FF. Towers.
                          MONASTIC BUILDINGS
                          G. Cloister.
                          H. Calefactory, with dormitory over.
                          I. Necessary.
                          J. Abbot's house.
                          K. Refectory.
                          L. Kitchen.
                          M. Bakehouse and brewhouse.
                          N. Cellar.
                          O. Parlour.               (over.
                          P1. Scriptorium with library  k,
                          P2. Sacristy and vestry.
                          Q. House of Novices--1.chapel;
                          2. refectory; 3. calefactory;
                          4. dormitory; 5. master's room
                          6. chambers.
                          R. Infirmary--1--6 as above in
                          the house of novices.
                          S. Doctor's house.
                          T. Physic garden.
                          U. House for blood-letting.
                          V. School.
                          W. Schoolmaster's lodgings.
                          X1X1. Guest-house for those of superior rank
                          X2X2. Guest-house for the poor.
                          Y. Guest-chamber for strange monks.

                          MENIAL DEPARTMENT.
                          Z. Factory.
                          a. Threshing-floor
                          b. Workshops.
                          c, c. Mills.
                          d. Kiln.
                          e. Stables.
                          f Cow-sheds.
                          g. Goat-sheds.
                          h. Pig-sties. i. Sheep-folds.
                          k, k. Servants' and workmen's sleeping-chambers.
                          l. Gardener's house
                          m,m. Hen and duck house.
                          n. Poultry-keeper's house.
                          o. Garden.
                          q. Bakehouse for sacramental

                          s, s, s. Kitchens.
                          t, t, t. Baths.

   church has on its east side the " pisalis" or " calefactory", (H), the
   common sitting-room of the brethren, warmed by flues beneath the floor.
   On this side in later monasteries we invariably find the chapter house,
   the absence of which in this plan is somewhat surprising. It appears,
   however, from the inscriptions on the plan itself, that the north walk
   of the cloisters served for the purposes of a chapter-house, and was
   fitted up with benches on the long sides. Above the calefactory is the
   " dormitory" opening into the south transept of the church, to enable
   the monks to attend the nocturnal services with readiness. A passage at
   the other end leads to the " necessarium" (I), a portion of the
   monastic buildings always planned with extreme care. The southern side
   is occupied by the "refectory" (K), from the west end of which by a
   vestibule the kitchen (L) is reached. This is separated from the main
   buildings of the monastery, and is connected by a long passage with a
   building containing the bake house and brew house (M), and the
   sleeping-rooms of the servants. The upper story of the refectory is the
   "vestiarium," where the ordinary clothes of the brethren were kept. On
   the western side of the cloister is another two story building (N). The
   cellar is below, and the larder and store-room above. Between this
   building and the church, opening by one door into the cloisters, and by
   another to the outer part of the monastery area, is the "parlour" for
   interviews with visitors from the external world (O). On the eastern
   side of the north transept is the " scriptorium" or writing-room (P1),
   with the library above.

   To the east of the church stands a group of buildings comprising two
   miniature conventual establishments, each complete in itself. Each has
   a covered cloister surrounded by the usual buildings, i.e. refectory,
   dormitory, etc., and a church or chapel on one side, placed back to
   back. A detached building belonging to each contains a bath and a
   kitchen. One of these diminutive convents is appropriated to the "
   oblati" or novices (Q), the other to the sick monks as an " infirmary"
   (R).
   Shrewsbury Abbey
   Shrewsbury Abbey

   The "residence of the physicians" (S) stands contiguous to the
   infirmary, and the physic garden (T) at the north-east corner of the
   monastery. Besides other rooms, it contains a drug store, and a chamber
   for those who are dangerously ill. The "house for bloodletting and
   purging" adjoins it on the west (U).

   The "outer school," to the north of the convent area, contains a large
   schoolroom divided across the middle by a screen or partition, and
   surrounded by fourteen little rooms, termed the dwellings of the
   scholars. The head-master's house (W) is opposite, built against the
   side wall of the church. The two " hospitia" or guest-houses for the
   entertainment of strangers of different degrees (X1 X2) comprise a
   large common chamber or refectory in the centre, surrounded by
   sleeping-apartments. Each is provided with its own brewhouse and
   bakehouse, and that for travelers of a superior order has a kitchen and
   storeroom, with bedrooms for their servants and stables for their
   horses. There is also an "hospitium" for strange monks, abutting on the
   north wall of the church (Y).

   Beyond the cloister, at the extreme verge of the convent area to the
   south, stands the "factory" (Z), containing workshops for shoemakers,
   saddlers (or shoemakers, sellarii), cutlers and grinders,
   trencher-makers, tanners, curriers, fullers, smiths and goldsmiths,
   with their dwellings in the rear. On this side we also find the farm
   buildings, the large granary and threshing-floor (a), mills (c),
   malthouse (d). Facing the west are the stables (e), ox-sheds (f),
   goatstables (gl, piggeries (h), sheep-folds (i), together with the
   servants' and labourers' quarters (k). At the south-east corner we find
   the hen and duck house, and poultry-yard (m), and the dwelling of the
   keeper (n). Hard by is the kitchen garden (o), the beds bearing the
   names of the vegetables growing in them, onions, garlic, celery,
   lettuces, poppy, carrots, cabbages, etc., eighteen in all. In the same
   way the physic garden presents the names of the medicinal herbs, and
   the cemetery (p) those of the trees, apple, pear, plum, quince, etc.,
   planted there.

Cells

   Every large monastery had depending upon it smaller foundations known
   as cells or priories. Sometimes these foundations were no more than a
   single building serving as residence and farm offices, while other
   examples were miniature monasteries for 5 or 10 monks. The outlying
   farming establishments belonging to the monastic foundations were known
   as villae or granges. They were usually staffed by lay-brothers,
   sometimes under the supervision of a single monk.

Westminster Abbey

   Westminster Abbey is another example of a great Benedictine abbey,
   identical in its general arrangements, so far as they can be traced,
   with those described above. The cloister and monastic buildings lie to
   the south side of the church. Parallel to the nave, on the south side
   of the cloister, was the refectory, with its lavatory at the door. On
   the eastern side we find the remains of the dormitory, raised on a
   vaulted substructure and communicating with the south transept. The
   chapter-house opens out of the same alley of the cloister. The small
   cloister lay to the south-east of the larger cloister, and still
   farther to the east we have the remains of the infirmary with the table
   hall, the refectory of those who were able to leave their chambers. The
   abbot's house formed a small courtyard at the west entrance, close to
   the inner gateway.

   Considerable portions of this remain, including the abbot's parlour,
   celebrated as "the Jerusalem Chamber," his hall, now used for the
   Westminster King's Scholars, and the kitchen and butteries beyond.

York

   St Mary's Abbey, York, of which the ground-plan is annexed, exhibits
   the usual Benedictine arrangements. The precincts are surrounded by a
   strong fortified wall on three sides, the river Ouse being sufficient
   protection on the fourth side. The entrance was by a strong gateway to
   the north. Close to the entrance was a chapel, where is now the church
   of St Olaf, in which the new-comers paid their devotions immediately on
   their arrival. Near the gate to the south was the guest-hall or
   hospitium. The buildings are completely ruined, but enough remains to
   enable us to identify the grand cruciform church, the cloister-court
   with the chapterhouse, the refecrefectory, the kitchen-court with its
   offices and the other principal apartments. The infirmary has perished
   completely.

Cluny

   The history of monasticism is one of alternate periods of decay and
   revival. With growth in popular esteem came increase in material
   wealth, leading to luxury and worldliness. The first religious ardour
   cooled, the strictness of the rule was relaxed, until by the 10th
   century the decay of discipline was so complete in France that the
   monks are said to have been frequently unacquainted with the rule of St
   Benedict, and even ignorant that they were bound by any rule at all.

   The reformation of abuses generally took the form of the establishment
   of new monastic orders, with new and more stringent rules, requiring a
   modification of the architectural arrangements. One of the earliest of
   these reformed orders was the Cluniac. This order took its name
   from,the little village of Cluny, 12 miles N.W. of Macon, near which,
   about A.D. 909, a reformed Benedictine abbey was founded by William,
   duke of Aquitaine and count of Auvergne, under Berno, abbot of Beaume.
   He was succeeded by Odo, who is often regarded as the founder of the
   order. The fame of Cluny spread far and wide. Its rigid rule was
   adopted by a vast number of the old Benedictine abbeys, who placed
   themselves in affiliation to the mother society, while new foundations
   sprang up in large numbers, all owing allegiance to the "archabbot,"
   established at Cluny.

   By the end of the 12th century the number of monasteries affiliated to
   Cluny in the various countries of western Europe amounted to 2000. The
   monastic establishment of Cluny was one of the most extensive and
   magnificent in France. We may form some idea of its enormous dimensions
   from the fact recorded, that when, in A.D. 1245, Pope Innocent IV,
   accompanied by twelve cardinals, a patriarch, three archbishops, the
   two generals of the Carthusians and Cistercians, the king ( St Louis),
   and three of his sons, the queen mother, Baldwin, count of Flanders and
   emperor of Constantinople, the duke of Burgundy, and six lords, visited
   the abbey, the whole party, with their attendants, were lodged within
   the monastery without disarranging the monks, 400 in number. Nearly the
   whole of the abbey buildings, including the magnificent church, were
   swept away at the close of the 18th century. When the annexed
   ground-plan was taken, shortly before its destruction, nearly all the
   monastery, with the exception of the church, had been rebuilt.

   The church, the ground-plan of which bears a remarkable resemblance to
   that of Lincoln Cathedral, was of vast dimensions. It was 656 ft. high.
   The nave had double vaulted aisles on either side. Like Lincoln, it had
   an eastern as well as a western transept, each furnished with apsidal
   chapels to the east. The western transept was 213 ft. long, and the
   eastern 123 ft. The choir terminated in a semicircular apse, surrounded
   by five chapels, also semicircular. The western entrance was approached
   by an ante-church, or narthex, itself an aisled church of no mean
   dimensions, flanked by two towers, rising from a stately flight of
   steps bearing a large stone cross. To the south of the church lay the
   cloister-court, of immense size, placed much farther to the west than
   is usually the case. On the south side of the cloister stood the
   refectory, an immense building, 100 ft (30 m) long and 60 ft (18 m)
   wide, accommodating six longitudinal and three transverse rows of
   tables. It was adorned with the portraits of the chief benefactors of
   the abbey, and with Scriptural subjects. The end wall displayed the
   Last Judgment. We are unhappily unable to identify any other of the
   principal buildings. The abbot's residence, still partly standing,
   adjoined the entrance-gate. The guest-house was close by. The
   bakehouse, also remaining, is a detached building of immense size.

English Cluniac houses

   The first English house of the Cluniac order was that of Lewes, founded
   by the earl of Warren, c. A.D. 1077. Of this only a few fragments of
   the domestic buildings exist. The best preserved Cluniac houses in
   England are Castle Acre, Norfolk, and Wenlock, Shropshire. Ground-plans
   of both are given in Britton's Architectural Antiquities. They show
   several departures from the Benedictine arrangement. In each the
   prior's house is remarkably perfect. All Cluniac houses in England were
   French colonies, governed by priors of that nation. They did not secure
   their independence nor become "abbeys" till the reign of Henry VI. The
   Cluniac revival, with all its brilliancy, was but short-lived. The
   celebrity of this, as of other orders, worked its moral ruin. With
   their growth in wealth and dignity the Cluniac foundations became as
   worldly in life and as relaxed in discipline as their predecessors, and
   a fresh reform was needed.

Cistercian abbeys

   Cistercian Abbey of Senanque
   Cistercian Abbey of Senanque

   The next great monastic revival, the Cistercian, arising in the last
   years of the 11th century, had a wider diffusion, and a longer and more
   honourable existence. Owing its real origin as a distinct foundation of
   reformed Benedictines to Stephen Harding (a native of Dorset, educated
   in the monastery of Sherborne), in the year 1098, it derives its name
   from Citeaux (Cistercium), a desolate and almost inaccessible forest
   solitude, on the borders of Champagne and Burgundy. The rapid growth
   and wide celebrity of the order are undoubtedly to be attributed to the
   enthusiastic piety of St Bernard, abbot of the first of the monastic
   colonies, subsequently sent forth in such quick succession by the first
   Cistercian houses, the far-famed abbey of Clairvaux (de Clara Valle),
   A.D. 1116.

   The rigid self-abnegation, which was the ruling principle of this
   reformed congregation of the Benedictine order, extended itself to the
   churches and other buildings erected by them. The characteristic of the
   Cistercian abbeys was the extremest simplicity and a studied plainness.
   Only one tower--a central one --was permitted, and that was to be very
   low. Unnecessary pinnacles and turrets were prohibited. The triforium
   was omitted. The windows were to be plain and undivided, and it was
   forbidden to decorate them with stained glass. All needless ornament
   was proscribed. The crosses must be of wood; the candlesticks of iron.
   The renunciation of the world was to be evidenced in all that met the
   eye.

   The same spirit manifested itself in the choice of the sites of their
   monasteries. The more dismal, the more savage, the more hopeless a spot
   appeared, the more did it please their rigid mood. But they came not
   merely as ascetics, but as improvers. The Cistercian monasteries are,
   as a rule, found placed in deep well-watered valleys. They always stand
   on the border of a stream; not rarely, as at Fountains, the buildings
   extend over it. These valleys, now so rich and productive, wore a very
   different aspect when the brethren first chose them as the place of
   their retirement. Wide swamps, deep morasses, tangled thickets, wild
   impassable forests, were their prevailing features. The "bright
   valley," Clara Vallis of St Bernard, was known as the "valley of
   Wormwood," infamous as a den of robbers. "It was a savage dreary
   solitude, so utterly barren that at first Bernard and his companions
   were reduced to live on beech leaves."-(Milman's Lat. Christ. vol. iii.
   p. 335.)

Clairvaux Abbey

   See Clairvaux Abbey.

Citeaux Abbey

   See Citeaux Abbey.

Kirkstall Abbey

   See Kirkstall Abbey.

Fountains Abbey

   See Fountains Abbey.

Loc-Dieu Abbey

   See Loc-Dieu.

Rievaulx Abbey

   See Rievaulx Abbey.

Austin Canons

   The buildings of the Austin canons or Black canons (so called from the
   colour of their habit) present few distinctive peculiarities. This
   order had its first seat in England at Colchester, where a house for
   Austin canons was founded about A.D. 1105, and it very soon spread
   widely. As an order of regular clergy, holding a middle position
   between monks and secular canons, almost resembling a community of
   parish priests living under rule, they adopted naves of great length to
   accommodate large congregations. The choir is usually long, and is
   sometimes, as at Llanthony and Christchurch (Twynham), shut off from
   the aisles, or, as at Bolton, Kirkham, etc., is destitute of aisles
   altogether. The nave in the northern houses, not unfrequently, had only
   a north aisle, as at Bolton, Brinkburn and Lanercost. The arrangement
   of the monastic buildings followed the ordinary type. The prior's lodge
   was almost invariably attached to the S.W. angle of the nave.

Bristol Cathedral

   CAPTION:

   image:bristol_abbey.png
                          FIG. 11.--St Augustine's Abbey,
                          Bristol (Bristol
                          A. Church.
                          B. Great cloister.
                          C. Little cloister.
                          D. Chapter-house.
                          E. Calefactory.
                          F. Refectory.
                          G. Parlour.
                          H. Kitchen.
                          I. Kitchen court.
                          K. Cellars.
                          L. Abbot's hall.
                          P. Abbot's gateway.
                          R. Infirmary.
                          S. Friars' lodging.
                          T. King's hall.
                          V. Guest-house.
                          W. Abbey gateway.
                          X. Barns, stables, etc
                          Y. Lavatory.

   The above plan of the Abbey of St Augustine's at Bristol, now the
   cathedral church of that city, shows the arrangement of the buildings,
   which departs very little from the ordinary Benedictine type. The
   Austin canons' house at Thornton, in Lincolnshire, is remarkable for
   the size and magnificence of its gate-house, the upper floors of which
   formed the guest-house of the establishment, and for possessing an
   octagonal chapter-house of Decorated date.

Premonstratensians

   The Premonstratensian regular canons, or White canons, had as many as
   35 houses in England, of which the most perfect remaining are those of
   Easby, Yorkshire, and Bayham, Kent. The head house of the order in
   England was Welbeck. This order was a reformed branch of the
   Augustinian canons, founded, A.D. 1119, by Norbert of Xanten, on the
   Lower Rhine, c. 1080) at Premontre, a secluded marshy valley in the
   forest of Coucy in the diocese of Laon. The order spread widely. Even
   in the founder's lifetime it possessed houses in Syria and Palestine.
   It long maintained its rigid austerity, until in the course of years
   wealth impaired its discipline, and its members sank into indolence and
   luxury. The Premonstratensians were brought to England shortly after
   A.D. 1140, and were first settled at Newhouse, in Lincolnshire, near
   the Humber. The ground-plan of Easby Abbey, owing to its situation on
   the edge of the steeply sloping banks of a river, is singularly
   irregular. The cloister is duly placed on the south side of the church,
   and the chief buildings occupy their usual positions round it. But the
   cloister garth, as at Chichester, is not rectangular, and all the
   surrounding buildings are thus made to sprawl in a very awkward
   fashion. The church follows the plan adopted by the Austin canons in
   their northern abbeys, and has only one aisle to the nave--that to the
   north; while the choir is long, narrow and aisleless. Each transept has
   an aisle to the east, forming three chapels.

   The church at Bayham was destitute of aisles either to nave or choir.
   The latter terminated in a three-sided apse. This church is remarkable
   for its exceeding narrowness in proportion to its length. Extending in
   longitudinal dimensions 257 ft., it is not more than 25 ft. broad.
   Stern Premonstratensian canons wanted no congregations, and cared for
   no possessions; therefore they built their church like a long room.

   The Premonstratension order still exists and a small group of these
   Chanones de Premontre now run the former Benedictine Abbey at Conques
   in southwest France, which has become well known as a refuge for
   pilgrims travelling the Way of Saint James, from Le Puy en Velay in
   Auvergne, to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain.

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