arrel-vaults springing from chamfered imposts on each
side. In the northern chamber the vault is kept low and
segmental, on account of the passage above it of the
dorter stair to the church.... The southern chamber has
a high pointed vault. Neither chamber has had doors, but
the northern has holes in the inner jamb, suggestive of
a grate of some kind, of uncertain date.

The chambers just described probably contained the
library, in wooden presses arranged round the
walls[184].

To illustrate this description a portion of Mr Hope's plan of Furness
Abbey (fig. 23) is appended. Each room was about 13 ft. square.

[Illustration: Fig. 23. Groundplan of part of Furness Abbey.]

[Illustration: Fig. 24. Arches in south wall of Church at Beaulieu Abbey,
Hampshire, once possibly used as book-presses.]

Rooms in a similar position are to be seen at Calder Abbey[185] in
Cumberland, a daughter-house to Furness; and at Fountains Abbey there are
clear indications that the western angles of the Chapter-House were
partitioned off at some period subsequent to its construction, probably
for a similar purpose. As the Chapter-House was entered from the cloister
through three large round-headed arches, each of the rooms thus formed
could be entered directly from the cloister, the central arch being
reserved for the Chapter-House itself. The arrangement therefore became
exactly similar to that at Furness. Mr Hope thinks that the series of
arches in the church wall at Beaulieu in Hampshire, two of which are here
shewn (fig. 24), may have been used for a like purpose[186]. There is a
similar series of arches at Hayles, a daughter-house to Beaulieu; and in
the south cloister of Chester Cathedral there are six recesses of early
Norman design, which, if not sepulchral, may once have contained books.

The use of the Chapter-House and its neighbourhood as the place in which
books should be kept is one of the most curious features of the Cistercian
life. The east walk of the cloister, into which the Chapter-House usually
opened, must have been one of the most frequented parts of the House, and
yet it seems to have been deliberately chosen not merely for keeping
books, but for reading them. At Clairvaux, so late as 1709, the authors of
the _Voyage Litteraire_ record the following arrangement:

Le grand cloitre ... est voute et vitre. Les religieux y
doivent garder un perpetuel silence. Dans le cote d