Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/37

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carthusian.]
ABBEY
21

rmont.

free access to this corridor, and through open niches was able to inspect the garden without being seen. At (I) is the hatch or turn-table, in which the daily allowance of food was deposited by a brother appointed for that purpose, affording no view either inwards or outwards. (H) is the garden, cultivated by the occupant of the cell. At (K) is the wood-house. (F) is a covered walk, with the necessary at the end. These arrangements are found with scarcely any variation in all the charter-houses of Western Europe. The Yorkshire Charter-house of Mount Grace, founded by Thomas Holland the young Duke of Surrey, nephew of Richard II., and Marshal of England, during the revival of the popularity of the order, about A.D. 1397, is the most perfect and best preserved English example. It is characterised by all the simplicity of the order. The church is a modest building, long, narrow, and aisleless. Within the wall of enclosure are two courts. The smaller of the two, the south, presents the usual arrangement of church, refectory, &c., opening out of a cloister. The buildings are plain and solid. The northern court contains the cells, 14 in number. It is surrounded by a double stone wall, the two walls being about 30 feet or 40 feet apart. Between these, each in its own garden, stand the cells; low-built two-storied cottages, of two or three rooms on the ground-floor, lighted with a larger and a smaller window to the side, and provided with a doorway to the court, and one at the back, opposite to one in the outer wall, through which the monk may have conveyed the sweepings of his cell and the refuse of his garden to the "eremus" beyond. By the side of the door to the court is a little hatch, through which the daily pittance of food was supplied, so contrived by turning at an angle in the wall that no one could either look in or look out. A very perfect example of this hatch—an arrangement belonging to all Carthusian houses exists at Miraflores, near Burgos, which remains nearly as it was completed in 1480.


Carthusian Cell, Clermont.

A. Cloister Gallery. B. Corridor. C. Living Room. D. Sleeping Room. E. Closets. F. Covered Walk. G. Necessary. H. Garden. I. Hatch. K. Wood-house.

There were only nine Carthusian houses in England. The earliest was that at Witham in Somersetshire, founded by Henry II., by whom the order was first brought into England. The wealthiest and .most magnificent was that of Shene or Richmond in Surrey, founded by Henry V. about A.D. 1414. The dimensions of the buildings at Shenei are stated to have been remarkably large. The great court measured 300 feet by 250 feet; the cloisters were a square of 500 feet; the hall was 110 feet in length by CO feet in breadth. The most celebrated historically is the Charter-house of London, founded by Sir Walter Manny A.D. 1371. the name of which is preserved by the famous public sckool established on the site by Thomas Suttoa A.D. 1611.

An article on monastic arrangements would be incom plete without some account of the convents of the Mendicant or Preaching Friars, including the Black Friars or Friars. Dominicans, the Grey or Franciscans, the White or Carmelites, the Eremite or Austin Friars. These orders arose at the beginning of the 13th century, when the Benedictines, together with their various reformed branches, had terminated their active mission, and Christian Europe was ready for a new religious revival. Planting themselves, as a rule, in large towns, and by preference in the poorest and most densely populated districts, the Preaching Friars were obliged to adapt their buildings to the requirements of the site. Regularity of arrangement, therefore, was not possible, even if they had studied it. Their churches, built for the reception of large congregations of hearers rather than worshippers, form a class by themselves, totally unlike those of the elder orders in ground-plan and character. They were usually long parallelograms unbroken by transepts. The nave very usually consisted of two equal bodies, one containing the stalls of the brotherhood, the other left entirely free for the congregation. The constructional choir is often wanting, the whole church forming one uninterrupted structure, with a continuous range of windows. The east end was usually square, but the Friars Church at Winchelsea had a polygonal apse. We not unfrequently find a single transept, sometimes of great size, rivalling or exceeding the nave. This arrangement is frequent in Ireland, where the numerous small friaries afford admirable exemplifications of these peculiarities of ground-plan. The friars " churches were at first destitute of towers; but in tho 14th and 15th centuries, tall, slender towers were commonly inserted between the nave and the choir. The Grey Friars at Lynn, where the tower is hexagonal, is a good example. The arrangement of the monastic buildings is equally peculiar and characteristic. We miss entirely the regularity of the buildings of the earlier orders. At the Jacobins at Paris, a cloister lay to the north of the long narrow church of two parallel aisles, while the refectory—a room of immense length, quite detached from the cloister—stretched across the area before the west front of the church. At Toulouse the nave also has two parallel aisles, but the choir is apsidal, with radiating chapels. The refectory stretches northwards at right angles to the cloister, which lies to the north of the church, having the chapter-house and sacristy on the east. As examples of English friaries, the Dominican house at Norwich, and those of the Dominicans and Franciscans at Gloucester, may be mentioned. The church of the Black Friars of Norwich departs from the original type in the nave (now St Andrew's Hall), in having regular aisles. In this it resembles the earlier examples of the Grey Friars at Reading. The choir is long and aisleless; an hexagonal tower between the two, like that existing at Lynn, has perished. The cloister and monastic buildings remain tolerably perfect to the north. The Dominican convent at Gloucester still exhibits the cloister-court, on the north side of which is the desecrated church. The refectory is on the west side, and on the south the dormitory of the 13th century. This is a remarkably good example. There were 18 cells or cubicles on each side, divided by partitions, the bases of which remain. On the east side was the prior's house, a building of later date. At the Grey or Franciscan Friars, the church followed the ordinary type in having two equal bodies, each gabled, with a continuous range of windows. There was a slender tower between the nave and choir. Of the convents of the Carmelite or White Friars we have a good example in the Abbey of Hulme, near Alnwick, the first of the order in England, founded A.D. 1240. The church is a narrow