 Fig. 7. Fig. 7. Reconstructed Plan of the twelfth-century Church. Doorways c, d and e are conjectural and also the siting of the pulpitum which is based on the contemporary arrangement at Fountains Abbey, Yorks. Position of rood screen inferred from indirect evidence found in excavation. Screens separating aisles from nave and enclosing west end of lay brothers' quire are assumed, as conforming to normal Cistercian practice. A Lay brothers' quire, terminating eastward at rood screen with central altar. B Retro-quire, with altars on each side of pulpitum opening. C Pulpitum, consisting of loft supported on parallel screens. D Monks' quire, open towards presbytery and high altar. a West door. b Lay brothers' entrance. c Monks' entrance. d Door to sacristy. e Door to cemetery. |
offices, with altars on either side of the pulpitum opening. The allocation
of half the length of the nave to the lay brothers is matched at Kirkstall,
the westernmost bay forming a transverse passage between the aisles.
Screen-walls between the piers, shutting off a large part of the aisles from
the nave, were usual features of which direct evidence survives at Tintern
and elsewhere. In the late-twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Cistercians departed from their early ideal of architectural austerity, and often extended their churches to resemble those of the Benedictines and other orders. Boxley appears to have been unaffected by this movement, not only in regard to its church but also in retaining its east-west refectory on the south side of the cloister when elsewhere this building was almost invariably rebuilt on a north-south alignment. Such conservatism cannot have been due to poverty for this is certainly not evident in the |
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