11 



They were chiefly settled in towns, and built long naves, into which they ad- 

 mitted the people, Llanthony Priory was an exception as regards the site, and 

 was never a successful establishment. 



The friars differed from the monks, in having no dignitaries amongst them, 

 they were "brethren," as the name implies. They were vowed to strict povertj', 

 even as a community ; but in later times became enriched by benefactions. They 

 endeavoured to influence the people by preaching, and therefore settled in towns, 

 where they built some of the finest of churches. Their residential buildings were 

 very mean, and cooped up b}' the nature of the sites. They have mostly been 

 destroyed through modern improvements. But the monastery of the Dominicans 

 or Black Friars at Hereford is a very interesting example so far as it remains. 



The Carthusian Monks differed from others, in having no common living, 

 eating, or sleeping rooms. Each had his private apartment, opening into a 

 cloister, something like the cloister of the Vicars' College at Hereford. They 

 lived like hermits, meeting seldom in church or in chapter, their food being passed 

 to them through a secret trap in the wall. 



At the dissolution, the buildings of the various orders met with widely 

 different treatment. Those which had clung to the town were either preserved as 

 parish churches, made into cathedrals, or turned to secular uses. Vast numbers of 

 them were entirely destroyed. The most remarkable fate was reserved for the 

 monasteries of this order. The Cistercians — and, we may almost say, they only — 

 had selected the wilderness and the solitary place for their retreat. Tlieir lands 

 being at the dissolution granted to private persons, the buildings were found to 

 be useless, whether for ecclesiastical or for agricultural purposes. They were 

 hardly worth pulling down. Allowed to fall into decay, the lead work, the timber, 

 and more or less of the stone were taken for use in the buildings of the neighbour- 

 hood. It is said that at Tintern, the lead roof remained until the time of 

 the Commonwealth ; but time, more than the hand of man, has made the ruin 

 what it is. As the palieographer tries to decipher a blurred and tattered manu- 

 script, written in a strange hand, and in a language that is dead — as the geologist 

 studies in the dihris of a quarry the conditions of things before the ages were 

 reckoned, so we peer back through the dim medium of five centuries into this secret 

 corner of the mediaeval world. 



