242 
The Groundzplan of Burton Abbey. 
By Henry A. Rye. 
Read before the Society, February 13th, 1896. 
@" are indebted to a writer whose name is unknown, 
but whose work is dated 1593, for the key to 
the knowledge we possess as to the life in, and the various 
uses of the monastic offices. The work I refer to is ‘‘ The 
Ancient Rites and Monuments of Durham,” published by 
Davies in 1672, and Canon Raine in 1844. 
Nearly all the monastic orders of the West built on the 
plan adopted by the Benedictines, which had become fixed 
early in the gth century. This plan seems to have been 
taken from that of a Roman country house, the key note 
of the monastic plan, like the villa, being the square enclosed 
court with porticos round, which formed the general living 
place, and also the approach to the various apartments of 
special use, which were grouped round it. 
From the first an Abbey was laid down according to a 
regular plan: it often took many years to build, and, in 
some cases, the work round the cloister spread over one 
hundred years or more. 
The ordinary course was for the Monks, on settling in 
any spot, to make a temporary wooden building or shelter, 
clear the ground, and set out their future house as they 
hoped to build it, setting up temporary wooden buildings 
in the place of the permanent ones, which were then built 
