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The changes and additions which have metamorphosed the frater are somewhat more obscure. But it may be safely affirmed that the original hall cannot, as has been sometimes stated, have run east and west, because this would have been an intolerable breach of Cistercian uniformity. Neither can the calefactorium, or common warming-house, have been west of the frater-the obvious situation for the kitchen. What has happened to the frater is in reality this. Originally it was perfectly normal. Then it was divided into two stories, of which the lower was used as a misericorde.1 The new kitchen to the south of the open yard, or garth, was the natural accompaniment of this alteration.

Between the cellarium and the west walk of the cloister was a wide passage communicating directly with the church, and used, no doubt, by the conversi, whose intercourse with the outer world was necessarily more frequent than that of the fratres clerici. Similar passages exist at Beaulieu and Byland. The arrangement seems to have been adopted from the original houses of Citeaux and Clairvaux.

1 See Mr. S. John Hope's “Report,” which has been confirmed by recent excavation.

2 Mr. Hope has also found evidence of the original existence of one at Fountains.

But it is time to say a few words about the infirmary, or, to use the monk's own name for it, “ farmery.” This was the building which it was the habit of the Cistercians to erect last of all; and it was also the one in respect of which their usage underwent the most important change. The infirmary was not only the temporary refuge of the sick, but the permanent home of the old and feeble. The Cistercians differed from the unreformed Benedictines in demanding that the infirm should, as long as possible, continue to attend the services in the church, and they naturally attached less importance to the Infirmary Chapel; but we should have expected to find it, as in the Benedictine plan, under the same roof, and in direct communication with the main building, if only for the sake of those who were absolutely disabled. This, however, was not the case, and hence, probably, the failure of antiquaries, until very lately, to identify the infirmary at all. But at Kirkstall, as well as at Fountains, there is evidence of a process of change and development in the building at the extreme east so long known as the Abbot's Hall, precisely analogous to that which is known to have taken place in many Benedictine infirmaries. In both cases we start with a large hall, divided by columns into the semblance of a nave and

aisles,1 and in both there seems to have been, as early as the fourteenth century, an effort to make things more comfortable by partitioning off these aisles and dividing them into separate living rooms. At Fountains, not only this hall, but the chapel and kitchen to the east of it, can be clearly traced, as well as a smaller hall communicating by a private staircase with the chapel, and very probably inhabited by the "Pater Abbas," on his visitations, when he is known to have lodged in the Infirmary.

This system of visitation was, as has been explained in a former chapter, a special feature of the Cistercian "Carta Caritatis," promulgated by Stephen Harding in 1119. Not the more, but perhaps all the less, on this account does it escape the pitiless mockery of Walter Mapes. "When the 'Pater Abbas," he says, in one of his poems, "proposes to visit his daughter (i.e. a daughter-house of the order), he takes care to give ample notice, and then there is a running to meet him with bread and wine and fish. He is conducted into a building strewn with rushes and flowers, the cloth is laid, and, having washed his hands, he reclines at the table. It is a day of no small expense. Then, to begin his inspection he rides to the Abbey, he enters the infirmary,

1 Vide plan.

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