the orders differed somewhat, some being stricter than
others; and likewise the arrangements of the buildings were not all
based upon one plan. The Carthusian monasteries differ widely from those
of the other orders, owing to the rule that each monk should have his
separate cell, wherein he lived and had his food, and only met his
brethren in church and in the chapter-house. We will examine the usual
plan of a monastery, the main buildings of which clustered round the
cloister-court. This was called the paradise, around which was a covered
ambulatory. Here the monks read and wrote, and sometimes had little
spaces partitioned off for studies, with bookstands and cupboards. It
was the great centre of the monastic life. The earlier ambulatories were
open, but in the fourteenth century they had windows looking on to the
cloister-court, filled with stained glass. The monks must have found the
open cloister a somewhat chilly place for writing, and although their
fingers were endured to hardness, had sometimes to abandon their tasks.
Orderic Vitalis tells us that his fingers were so numbed by the cold in
a hard winter that he was obliged to leave his writing until a more
congenial season.

On the north of the cloister-court stood the monastic church, the
grandest and noblest of the monastic buildings, adorned with shrines,
and tombs, and altars. Several of our cathedrals were monastic churches,
and afford us some idea of the splendour and magnificence of these
stately buildings. Many other churches built by the monks, quite as
large and noble as any of our cathedrals, are now in ruins, with only a
wall or a buttress remaining to mark the site of the once noble minster.
The church was usually cruciform, with nave and aisles. East of the
high altar in the choir stood the lady-chapel, and round the choir a
retro-choir, or presbytery. There was a door on the south side of the
church, opposite the eastern ambulatory, for the entrance of the monks.
The south transept formed part of the eastern side of the cloister. On
the same side stood the chapter-house, a large chamber richly ornamented
with much architectural detail, and adorned with mural paintings.
Between the chapter-house and the church there is a narrow room, which
was the sacristy, and on the south of the chapter-house a building in
two stories, the ground floor being the frater-house, where the monks
retired after meals to converse, the upper room being the dortor, or
dor