buildings which are still extant must be visited on the way out. A
narrow doorway opposite Telford's grave leads immediately into the
cloisters, which formed the central part of the monastery. Here it was
that the busy daily life of a Benedictine brotherhood was carried on: in
this, the west walk, the monks kept a school, where the novices and boys
from the neighbourhood received the only education obtainable in England
before the grammar schools were founded. The adjacent north walk was
used as a library in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and divided
off by screens at either end. In this part used to be the Prior's seat,
and around him were bookcases containing parchment rolls and illuminated
missals, to which, after Caxton's time, printed volumes were added. The
Consuetudines of Abbot Ware, the Litlington Missal, the Liber Regalis,
and the Islip Roll are still extant, but most of the precious manuscripts
which the Westminster brethren illuminated and copied with such loving
care in this library, each scribe seated in his own alcove, were
destroyed or carelessly lost after the Dissolution, when the monks had
all been {122} dispersed, and printed books were rapidly superseding the
written folios. In the eastern walk beyond this the Abbot sat enthroned
on special days, in order to hear complaints and redress grievances.
There also it was that he held his Maundy on the Thursday before Good
Friday, and washed the feet of beggars. Towards the west in the southern
part, which completes the square and was used as a passage-way, is the
entrance to the great refectory where the brethren dined. Nothing of the
hall is left save the ancient wall, but outside the door are remains of
the niches which were used for towels; the lavatory itself was round the
corner in the west cloister. The cloisters, and the monastic buildings
which surround them, were built at different periods, chiefly by the
generosity and energy of the Abbots. The Norman monastery remained
intact long after Henry the Third's time, but the new cloister, which was
begun by Abbot Byrcheston, was gradually built as the church progressed,
and the north end of the eastern arm was practically part of the south
transept. Both the east and north walks were completed under Edward I.
in the same style, the Early English; but the other two were not begun
till Langham's abbacy in the fourteenth century, {123} and the cloister
was not entirely finished till the