The guesthouse

1. Cistercian abbots at first dined in the guesthouse with all visitors, but there is evidence that by the late twelfth century some dined with more distinguished guests in private chambers while the other visitors dined in the guesthall.
2. See D. Williams, The Cistercians in the Early Middle Ages (Leominster, 1998), p. 206.
3. Coppack maintains that ‘prominent earthworks’ mark the spot of this building; G. Coppack, ‘Description of Rievaulx Abbey in 1538-9’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 139 (1986), pp. 101-133. .
4. Walter Daniel, Vita Aelredi, The Life of Aelred of Rievaulx, ed. and tr. F. M. Powicke (Oxford, 1950), p. 16.
5. ‘Letter to Maurice’, in Walter Daniel, Life of Aelred, p. 77.