The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

Middle Ages: churches, castles and monasteries
• 241 •
Beyond the cloister, an inner court housed stables, store houses, laundries, gardens and ancillary
structures. An outer court contained larger scale industrial and storage buildings and work areas
that were subject to frequent remodelling, including dovecotes, kilns, malthouses, breweries and
granaries, as shown by excavations at Thornholme, Lincolnshire. At Fountains, a masonry-built
woolhouse has been excavated that underwent six phases of development, including conversion
to a watermill for fulling and finishing cloth (Figure 13.8) (Coppack 1986). At Bordesley Abbey,
Worcestershire, a series of timber-built mills had hearths located near the wheel. Associated with
this complex were metal offcuts, but very little slag, indicative of water-powered metalworking
(Astill 1989). Fishponds were common on the outer edges of the precinct, and some sites included
elaborate pond complexes for management of fish, such as Marton, North Yorkshire. Some
orders, in particular the Cistercian, also held specialized farms (granges) located some distance
from the monastery. The plagues of the mid-fourteenth century caused a shortage of labour and
recruits to serve as lay-brothers. As a result, such farms were increasingly leased out to tenant
farmers.
The vocation of the friars to
preach and educate the urban poor
affected the form and location of
their houses. Because they were
relative latecomers to towns, they
sometimes occupied the outer
fringes, such as the Austin Friars at
Leicester. Wherever possible,
however, they would acquire a more
central site, even if this meant
moving when a new site could be
purchased. The vocation to preach
initiated the lofty preaching nave, a
hall-like structure in which visibility
and audibility were the priorities
(e.g. the extant Dominican church
at Norwich). The preaching nave
was open to the public, and
separated from the friars’ choir in
the eastern arm of the church by a
screened space known as the
‘walking place’, which was often
surmounted by a tower. Friaries
followed the model of the cloister
plan, but placed less emphasis on
the regular ordering of space,
requiring flexibility to fit their
accommodation into more cramped
Figure 13.8 Fountains Abbey, North Yorkshire, reconstruction of fifteenthcentury
wool-house excavated on the site of the outer court.
Source: Coppack 1986, Fig. 19
urban environments. A second, or ‘little’, cloister provided additional functions, including
infirmaries, guest houses, industry or school rooms and almonries.
Monasteries of the military orders, the Templars and Hospitallers, are known as preceptories
or commanderies. These acted principally as large agricultural holdings, amassing wealth to fund
the Crusades to regain Jerusalem for the Christian West. The larger preceptories had churches
with round naves, an unusual form of iconographic architecture that made a direct symbolic