572 Stanley Ahhey. 



as the monks themselves, and like them had taken the three 

 monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The main 

 difference, in fact, between them and the quire monks was, that 

 the lay-brothers were illiterate, and the monks could read and 

 write. They had charge of all the external affairs of the house 

 and performed the manual labour generally.^ This particular 

 class of religious appears to have died out about the middle of the 

 fourteenth century, owing doubtless to the increase of education 

 amongst the better classes, and was superseded by mere hired 

 servants of the same standing as in other Orders. In some 

 abbeys their buildings were changed to other purposes, and new 

 ones erected elsewhere for the new class, but in many cases the 

 new servants seem to have occupied the quarters of their pre- 

 decessors.^ 



The court dividing the cellarer's building from the cloister was 

 a peculiarity of the Cistercians, though by no means common in 

 this countiy, where, besides Stanley, it is only known to have 

 existed at Kirkstall, Sibton, and Byland among early and at 

 Beaulieu and Whalley among the later foundations. It usually 

 liad a pentise on the west side. Its use is very uncertain, though 

 it may have been a cloister for the lay-brothers, but if so in such 

 cases as Byland and Beaulieu, which were mere lanes, it must 

 have been both dark and uncomfortaljle.^ 



At Stanley the cellarer's building was 148 feet long by 29 1 

 feet wide, and was less destroyed than the rest of the work. Its 



' Ibid. X. 503 — 510 ; with the excellent note upon the chapter by the Kev. 

 J. T. Fowler, M.A., F.S.A. 



- Ford and Hayles followed the example of Cisteaux and converted the 

 cellarer's building into lodginj^s for their abbots, whereas, at Fountains, 

 Kirkstall, and Beaulieu, the building appears to have lasted practically un- 

 touched to the Suppression, but it may have been used as a granary as at 

 Clairvaulx. 



^ At Cisteaux and Clairvaulx it was in later days entirely covered over. 

 Generally the lay-brothers' cloister appears to have been a pentise along the 

 west side of the cellarium and had, as at Fountains and Jervaulx, a doorway 

 at the end into the church. At Kirkstall there were both a court and a 

 pentise, but a doorway to the church only from the former. 



I 



