Fountains Abbey: History
• Origins
• Sources
• Foundation
• Consolidation
• Trials and Tribulations
• Strength and Stability
• End of Monastic Life

Fountains Abbey: Buildings
• Precinct
• Church
• Cloister
• Sacristy
• Library
• Chapter House
• Parlour
• Dormitory
• Warming House
• Day Room
• Refectory
• Kitchen
• Lay Brothers' Range
• Abbots House
• Infirmary
• Outer Court
• Gatehouse
• Guesthouse

Fountains Abbey: Lands

Fountains Abbey: People

The chapter meeting (continued)

(3/3)

Lectern base from Byland Abbey
© Cistercians in Yorkshire Project
<click to enlarge>

After the necessary disciplinary measures had been taken, business matters were discussed. Announcements were made, letters read out, officials appointed and novices or lay-brothers professed. On certain feast days a sermon was given and on such occasions the lay-brothers might join the monks in the chapter-house. If there was a shortage of space, the lay-brothers were expected to listen at the door.(46) At the close of the chapter meeting the monks stood facing eastwards for the recitation of Psalm 129 (De Profundis) and prayers.(47)

Monastic protocol
The twelfth-century customary of the Order [Ecclesiastica Officia] stipulated that if a bishop, abbot of monks or regular canons, or even the king himself, entered the chapter meeting, the community should rise in his honour as he passed. If the visitor sought fraternity the monks should rise and offer him the book; once the ceremony had been concluded the visitor was led to the guesthouse and entertained.
If any monk, cleric or layman sought fraternity the community remained seated and the visitor was escorted out by one of the monks.
[Ecclesiastica Officia 70: 78-82 (p. 208). ]

The community welcomed distinguished visitors to the chapter-house, such as royalty and prelates. Here they received the blessing and heard a reading, and might then address the community.(48) Those conducting a visitation of the abbey would have read out their injunctions in the chapter-house, benefactors formalised their grants here or were received into the confraternity of the house. It was in the chapter-house at Fountains – as at other religious houses in England and Wales – that the community gathered for the last time and surrendered its abbey to Henry VIII’s commissioners.

Excavation of the chapter-house in the late eighteenth century revealed just how the building had been destroyed following the Dissolution. The marble piers were cut to make wedges which were then used to hack at the stone, causing it to crack. Ropes attached to the stone columns were pulled down by oxen or horses. This same technique was used to destroy Rievaulx Abbey.(49)