566 Stanley Ahhey. 



monastic date, though there was no direct evidence that any 



post-Suppression alterations had been made in this part of the 



building. Unfortunately in all cases the western parts of the 



cross walls had been grubbed up, so that no remains existed of 



the doors of communication which must have been there and 



wliich would have indicated the dates of their erection.^ 



The use of these long subvaults under Cisterciair dorters has 



never been satisfactorily explained, though Mr. Hope many years 



ago suggested as a result of argument by exhaustion that tliey 



were for the use of the novices. At Clairvaulx this building was 



certainly for that purpose in 1517, for in the account of the Queen 



of Sicily's visit there in that year,- after having been shown the 



buildings round the great cloister 



" The said lady was taken to the lodging of the novices. The novicery [La 

 novisserie) is a great hall of stone of cut vaulting, and at the end has a 

 chimney, where the novices study their psalter and other things. At the 

 right side are the privies over the water. Following is the dorter of the said 

 novices, vaulted as the said novicery, which has several beds, and at the end 

 the chamber of their master, made of woodwork, in which there is a window 

 by which he sees all that which the said novices do. After is the infirmary 

 of the said novices, to which one goes by a little gallery in which is a beautiful 

 fountain, bordering on this gallery on one side are the chambers where thej^ 

 put the sick novices, which are three in number two below and one above 



' At Jervaulx the eastern side of the dorter subvault was in later times 

 divided into separate rooms, and at Quarr it was divided by cross walls into 

 at least four chambers. 



- Didron, j4«waZe.j ^rcAeo/o^?2'«es (1845), iii. 231. " Ce faict, ledicte dame 

 fust menee en logis des novisses. La novisserie est une grande salle de piere 

 de taille voulsee, et au bout y a cheminee ou lea novisses estudient leur 

 Psaultier et autres choses. 



" Au coste dextre sont les salles privees sur I'eaue. 



" Consequement est le dortoir desdicts novisses, voulse comme ladicte 

 novissarie, ou y a plusieurs licts ; et au bout la chambre de leur maistre, 

 fete de menuiserie ou il y a une fenestre, par laquel il voit tout ce que font 

 lesdicts novisses. 



"Apres est I'anfermerie desdicts novisses, a laquelle Ton vat par une petite 

 gallerie ou il y a uno belle fontaine, tirant icelle gallerie d'ung coste ez 

 chambres ou Ton meet les novisses malades, qui sont du nouibre de trois ; 

 deux basses et une haulte, et ont les retraictz lesdictes chambres bien 

 acoustrees, et a I'autre bout de ladicte gallerie est ung beau jardin pour eulx 

 esbattre, et passe la riviere entre ledict logis et le jardin pour vyder lesdicts 

 retraictz." 



