A dictionary of the architecture and archaeology of the middle ages: including words used by ancient and modern authors in treating of architectural and other antiquities ... also, biographical notices of ancient architects / By John Britton ... Illustrated by numerous engravings by J. Le Keux.

  • John Britton
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dictionary of the architecture and archaeology of the middle ages: including words used by ancient and modern authors in treating of architectural and other antiquities ... also, biographical notices of ancient architects / By John Britton ... Illustrated by numerous engravings by J. Le Keux. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    religious houses of the largest class, had seldom fewer than fifty monks on the establishment; as at St. Alban’s, Tewkes- bury, and St. Mary, York ; but Bury St. Edmund’s had eighty, and Gloucester above one hundred ; — those of the second class numbered about twenty, as Bath, Tavistock, Selby; — the third class from eight to twelve; — and the smaller convents from three to six. There was likewise a proportionate number of servants : Tewkesbury had one hundred and forty-four, and Evesham sixty-five, besides grooms, porters, and farming men.— [Given and Blakeway's Shreivsbnry, vol. ii. p. 48—50.] The larger abbeys, accord- ing to Dr. Whitaker, [Hist, of Whalley^ ed. 1806, p. 105], usually consisted of buildings surrounding two quadrangular courts, of different dimensions. One of them, termed the clausum, or close, comprised an area of from fifty to ninety acres, was enclosed by a high, and sometimes embattled wall, and entered by one or two gate-ways. It included all the appendages of a large domain, as a grange, or farm-house, barns, stables, mill, &c. Around the principal quadrangle were disposed the church and its appendages, the hall, refec- tory, almonry, chapter-house, locutory or parlour, infirmary, scriptorium, kitchen, and other domestic offices. The same author says, This great mass of irregular, but doubtless, in general, stately buildings, when all standing, must have presented the appearance of a small fortified town, with its embattled wall and turreted gate, surmounted by the great church shooting high above the roofs.” That of St. Ed- munds-bury “ has been generally supposed to have exceeded, in magnificent buildings, splendid decorations, important privileges, valuable immunities, and arriple endowments, all other ecclesiastical and monastic establishments in England, Glastonbury alone excepted.”—[Yates’s Hist, of Bury St. Edmund’s.li The abbeys, of which the churches remain in the most complete state, are those of Westminster, St* Alban’s, and Tewkesbury ; and numerous interesting and important specimens of Christian architecture are to be met with in the extensive ruins of those of Fountain, Kirkstall, Glastonbury, St. Mary at York, Tintern, Netley, Bury St* Edmund’s, Rievaulx, Roche, Shrewsbury, &c. By statute, 27 Henry VIII. (1535) cap. 28, all monastic houses, whose annual revenues were under 200/. were seized by the