232 Lacock Abbey. 
dais, upon which was the high table of the president, and along 
the side walls would be seats and tables for the convent.! At 
some 15 feet from the west wall would be the screens dividing off 
the staircase of approach and the buttery, and above would be a 
loft or gallery. Evidence of the existence of this gallery is yet 
shown by the western part, above the subvault, being of two 
stories and the eastern part only one. 
On the north side externally is a bold projection originally con- 
taining the pulpit for the use of the reader at table—who during 
dinner and supper, but not collation, read passages from the 
Scriptures, in accordance with the rule of the order :—“ Nec sole 
vobis fauces sumant cibum sed et aures esuriant Dei verbum.” 
The archway of entrance to the pulpit still remains, and has 
continuous moulded jambs and arch with a label over the latter. 
Inside the west jamb are the remains of the niche for the books 
for the use of the reader, and it was the duty of the librarian to 
see it was supplied with the necessary books ordered to be read at 
the different seasons of the year. The steps and pulpit itself 
were destroyed after the suppression by the insertion of a large 
fireplace. 
Externally the whole of the north wall of the frater has been 
re-cased, and all old features obliterated, but on the south side 
over the cloister roof are some remains of medieval work. These 
consist of part of the outer rings of two circular windows of 
different sizes. The walls were raised in the 15th century, like those 
of the dorter, when the small circular windows,which were apparently 
the original ones, were superseded by the larger ones. Although 
1 Tn the freytour at each end or els in the myddes of the hyghe table schal 
hange a belle and the abbes sete shal be in the myddes honestly arrayed under 
the ymage of our lady where she schal sytte alone so that none felyschop withe 
her . . . other sustres schall sytte at the syde tables in ther order as 
they be professyd, two and two togyder at oo messe, save the pryores schal 
sytte in the left syde above alle, alone, at oo messe. . . . Alsosytting at 
the table al schal kepe hyghe sylence and ther syghte from wanderyng aboute, 
and none schal stretche her handes to receyve any bodyly fode, tyl the soule 
be refresched with spiritual fode.’”—Aungier’s Hist. of Sion, p. 377, appendix. 
2 J. W. Clark, The Observances in use at the Priory of Barnwell, p. 66. 
