I 



By Harold Brakspear, F.S.A. 561 



north aisle, and there would be doorways in the north wall in the 

 first and last bays. 



As the part of the church eastward of the imlintum was for the 

 use of the monks, so that westward was for the lay-brothers, and 

 the nave formed their quire. This conclusion was ai-rived at some 

 years ago by Mr. Hope,^ who has also pointed out that the lay- 

 brothers' stalls were placed against the solid screen walls usual 

 beneath the nave arcades of Cistercian churches. The aisles served 

 merely as passages. Towards the middle of the fourteenth century, 

 when the lay-brothers had become much reduced in numbers, if 

 not altogether done away with, the screen walls were generally 

 removed and the aisles divided into chapels, as at Fountains, 

 Eievaulx, Kirkstall, Hayles, and other places. At Stanley nothing 

 was found to indicate the existence of these walls at any time, but 

 the tomb in the third bay on the north shows that if they existed 

 they had been done away with by the fifteenth century. 



The Cloister. 



The cloister may be called the centre of tlie monastery, and was 

 a square court surrounded by the buildings necessary for the daily 

 use of the convent. Covered alleys round the four sides formed 

 passages of communication with all these buildings, and the alley 

 next the church was usually the place where the inmates studied 

 during their leisure time. 



The buildings surrounding the cloister of a Cistercian house are 

 enumerated in order in the direction for the Sunday procession in 

 the Cormcetudims," and were the chapter-house, parlour, dorter and 

 rere-dorter, warming-house, frater, kitchen, and the cellarer's 

 building, each of which had to be visited in turn and sprinkled 

 with holy water. 



' Yorkshire Archceological Journal, xv. 310. 



= Nomasticon Cisterciense (Solesme, 1892), 133. 

 " Interim vero minister recipiat aquam in quolibet vase de urceolo in quo 

 est aqua benedicta, et habens sparsorium aliud, claustrum aspergat et officinas, 

 scilicet capitulum, auditorium, dormitorium, et dormitorii necessaria, cale- 

 factorium, refectorium, coquinam, cellarium." 

 VOL. XXXV.— NO. ex. 2 



