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Visitors to Kirkstall
(8/8)
The General
Chapter discouraged lay visitors to Cistercian abbeys and forbade
their attendance at the Canonical
Hours, Mass and Communion,
but it was officially recognised that on great occasions such as
Palm Sunday, Ash Wednesday, Easter and the Purification of Mary
(2 February), guests might be present. There were initially strict
rulings against the admittance of women, but by the mid-twelfth
century external pressure forced the General Chapter to compromise
and it was conceded that all women, except those who were breastfeeding,
might enter the church on the day of its dedication or within the
octave. In 1401 the abbot
of Fountains, in his
capacity as Father Abbot, notified the abbot of Kirkstall of a papal
receipt permitting women to enter the church at Kirkstall on those
days when access was permitted to men, although they were strictly
prohibited from entering any other buildings in the precinct.(5)
It is not clear where visitors were accommodated
when they attended the services; they may have taken their place
in the area beyond the lay-brothers choir, the furthest point
from the High Altar, or in the North Galilee, a porch that extended
some fifty metres northwards from the north door of the church.
Whilst it was not uncommon to have a galilee situated to the west
of the church, as at Byland,
Fountains and Rievaulx,
its position to the north of the church of Kirkstall and the
use
of the north door as a major point of access, is unusual;
this is probably an original feature.
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