eastern transept, the work of Abbot John of Kent, 12201247, and to the tower (D), added not long before the dissolution by Abbot Huby, 1494-1526, in a very unusual position at the northern end of the north transept. The abbot's house, the largest and most remarkable example of this class of buildings in the kingdom, stands south to the east of the church and cloister, from which it is divided by the kitchen court (K), surrounded by the ordinary domestic offices. A considerable portion of this house was erected on arches over the Skell. The size and character of this house, probably, at the time of its erection, the most spacious house of a subject in the kingdom, not a castle, bespeaks the wide departure of the Cistercian order from the stern simplicity of the original foundation. The hall (2) was one of the most spacious and magnificent apartments in mediæval times, measuring 170 feet by 70 feet. Like the hall in the castle at Winchester, and Westminster Hall, as originally built, it was divided by 18 pillars and arches, with 3 aisles. Among other apartments, for the designation of which we must refer to the ground-plan, was a domestic oratory or chapel, 46 feet by 23 feet, and a kitchen (7), 50 feet by 38 feet. The whole arrangements and character of the building bespeak the rich and powerful feudal lord, not the humble father of a body of hardworking brethren, bound by vows to a life of poverty and self-denying toil. In the words of Dean Milman, "the superior, once a man bowed to the earth with humility, care-worn, pale, emaciated, with a coarse habit bound with a cord, with naked feet, had become an abbot on his curvetting palfrey, in rich attire, with his silver cross before him, travelling to take his place amid the lordliest of the realm." (Lat. Christ., vol. iii. p. 330.)

The buildings of the Austin Canons or Black Canons Black or (so called from the colour of their habit) present few Austin distinctive peculiarities. This order had its first seat in Canons. England at Colchester, where a house for Austin Canons was founded about A.D. 1105, and it very soon spread widely. As an order of regular clergy, holding a middle position between monks and secular canons, almost resembling a community of parish priests living under rule, they adopted naves of great length to accommodate large congregations. The choir is usually long, and is sometimes, as at Llanthony and Christ Church (Twynham), shut off from the aisles, or, as at Bolton, Kirkham, &c., is destitute of aisles altogether. The nave in the northern houses, not unfrequently, had only a north aisle, as at Bolton, Brinkburn, and Lanercost. The arrangement of the monastic buildings followed the ordinary type. The prior's lodge was almost invariably attached to the S.W. angle of the nave. The annexed plan of the Abbey of St Augustine's at Bristol, now the cathedral church of Bristol.

Premons

that city, shows the arrangement of the buildings, which departs very little from the ordinary Benedictine type. The Austin Canons' house at Thornton, in Lincolnshire, is remarkable for the size and magnificence of its gate-house, the upper floors of which formed the guest-house of the establishment, and for possessing an octagonal chapter

house of Decorated date.

The Premonstratensian regular canons, or White Canons, tratensian. had as many as 35 houses in England, of which the most perfect remaining are those of Easby, Yorkshire, and Bayham, Sussex. The head house of the order in England was Welbeck. This order was a reformed branch of the Austin canons, founded, A.D. 1119, by Norbert (born at Xanten, on the Lower Rhine, c. 1080) at Prémontré, a secluded marshy valley in the forest of Coucy, in the diocese of Laon. The order spread widely. Even in the founder's lifetime it possessed houses in Syria and Palestine. It long maintained its rigid austerity, till in the course of years wealth impaired its discipline, and its members sank into indolence and luxury. The Premonstratensians were brought to England shortly after A.D. 1140, and were first settled at Newhouse, in Lincolnshire, near the Humber. The ground-plan of Easby Abbey, owing to its situation on the edge of the steeply-sloping banks of a river, is singularly irregular. The cloister is duly placed on the south side of the church, and the chief buildings occupy their usual positions round it. But the cloister garth, as at Chichester, is not rectangular, and all the surrounding buildings are thus made to sprawl in a very awkward fashion. The church follows the plan adopted by the Austin canons in their northern abbeys, and has only one aisle to the nave-that to the north; while the choir is long, narrow, and aisleless. Each transept has an aisle to the east, forming three chapels.

Carthusian.

The church at Bayham was destitute of aisle either to nave or choir. The latter terminated in a three-sided apse. This church is remarkable for its exceeding narrowness in proportion to its length. Extending in longitudinal dimensions 257 feet, it is not more than 25 feet broad. To adopt the words of Mr Beresford Hope-"Stern Premonstratensian canons wanted no congregations, and cared for no processions; therefore they built their church like a long room."

The Carthusian order, on its establishment by St Bruno, about A.D. 1084, developed a greatly modified form and arrangement of a monastic institution. The principle of | this order, which combined the cœnobitic with the solitary life, demanded the erection of buildings on a novel plan. This plan, which was first adopted by St Bruno and his twelve companions at the original institution at Chartreux, near Grenoble, was maintained in all the Carthusian establishments throughout Europe, even after the ascetic severity of the order had been to some extent relaxed, and the primitive simplicity of their buildings had been exchanged for the magnificence of decoration which characverises such foundations as the Certosas of Pavia and Florence. According to the rule of St Bruno, all the members of a Carthusian brotherhood lived in the most absolute solitude and silence. Each occupiel a small detached cottage, standing by itself in a small garden surrounded by high walls and connected by a common corridor or cloister. In these cottages or cells a Carthusian monk passed his time in the strictest asceticism, only leaving his solitary dwelling to attend the services of the Church, except on certain days when the brotherhood assembled in the refectory.

The peculiarity of the arrangements of a Carthusian monastery, or charter-house, as it was called in England, from a corruption of the French chartreux, is exhibited in

divided by the main buildings of the monastery, including the church, the sanctuary (A), divided from (B), the monks' choir, by a screen with two altars, the smaller cloister to the south (S) surrounded by the chapter-house (E), the refectory (X) these buildings occupying their normal position-and the chapel of Pontgibaud (K). The kitchen with its offices (V) lies behind the refectory, accessible from the outer court without entering the cloister. To the north of the church, beyond the sacristy (L), and the side chapels (M), we find the cell of the sub-prior (a), with its garden. The lodgings of the prior (G) occupy the centre of the outer court, immediately in front of the west door of the church, and face the gateway of the convent (O). A small raised court with a fountain (C) is before it. This outer court also contains the guest-chambers (P), the stables, and lodgings of the lay brothers (N), the barns and granaries (Q), the dovecot (H), and the bakehouse (T). At (Z) is the prison. (In this outer court, in all the earlier foundations, as at Witham, there was a smaller church in addition to the larger church of the monks.) The outer and inner court are connected by a long passage (F), wide enough to admit a cart laden with wood to supply the cells of the brethren with fuel. The number of cells surrounding the great cloister is 18. They are all arranged on a uniform plan. Each little dwelling contains three rooms a sitting-room (C), warmed with a stove in winter; a sleeping-room (D), furnished with a bed, a table, a bench, and a bookcase; and a closet (E). Between the cell and the cloister gallery (A) is a passage or corridor (B), cutting off the inmate of the cell from all sound or movement which might interrupt his meditations. The superior had

Friars.

ABBON OF FLEURY. or ABBO FLORIACENSIS, a learned Frenchman, born near Orleans in 945. He distinguished himself in the schools of Paris and Rheims, and was a proficient in science, as known in his time. After spending two years in England, assisting Archbishop Oswald of York in restoring the monastic system, he returned to France, and was made Abbot of Fleury (970). He was twice sent to Rome by Robert the Wise (986, 996), and on each occasion succeeded in warding off a threatened papal interdict. He was killed in 1004, in endeavouring to quell a monkish revolt. He wrote an epitome of the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs, besides controversial treatises, letters, &c.

Mendicant oblong, destitute of aisles, 123 fect long by only 26 feet | wide. The cloisters are to the south, with the chapterhouse, &c., to the east, with the dormitory over. The prior's lodge is placed to the west of the cloister. The guest-houses adjoin the entrance gateway, to which a chapel was annexed on the south side of the conventual area. The nave of the church of the Austin Friars or Eremites in London is still standing. It is of Decorated date, and has wide centre and side aisles, divided by a very light and graceful arcade. Some fragments of the south walk of the cloister of the Grey Friars exist among the buildings of Christ's Hospital or the Blue-Coat School. Of the Black Friars all has perished but the name. Taken as a whole, the remains of the establishments of the friars afford little warrant for the bitter invective of the Benedictine of St Alban's, Matthew Paris :-" The friars who have been founded hardly 40 years have built residences as the palaces of kings. These are they who, enlarging day by day their sumptuous edifices, encircling them with lofty walls, lay up in them their incalculable treasures, imprudently transgressing the bounds of poverty, and violating the very fundamental rules of their profession." Allowance must here be made for jealousy of a rival order just rising in popularity.

Cells.

Every large monastery had depending upon it one or more smaller establishments known as cells. These cells were monastic colonies, sent forth by the parent house, and planted on some outlying estate. As an example, we may refer to the small religious house of St Mary Magdalene's, a cell of the great Benedictine house of St Mary's, York, in the valley of the Witham, to the south-east of the city of Lincoln. This consists of one long narrow range of building, of which the eastern part formed the chapel, and the western contained the apartments of the handful of monks of which it was the home. To the east may be traced the site of the abbey mill, with its dam and milllead. These cells, when belonging to a Cluniac house, were called Obedientiæ.

ABBOT, the head and chief governor of a community of monks, called also in the East Archimandrita, from mandra, "a fold," or Hegumenos. The name abbot is derived from the Hebrew, Ab, or father, through the Syriac Abba. It had its origin in the monasteries of Syria, whence it spread through the East, and soon became accepted generally in all languages as the designation of the head of a monastery. At first it was employed as a respectful title for any monk, as we learn from St Jerome (in Epist. ad Gal. iv. 6, in Matt. xxiii. 9), but it was soon restricted to the Superior.

The name abbot, though general in the West, was not universal. Among the Dominicians, Carmelites, Augustines, &c., the superior was called Præpositus, "Provost," and Prior; among the Franciscans, Custos, "Guardian ;" and by the monks of Camaldoli, Major.

Monks, as a rule, were laymen, nor at the outset was the abbot any exception. All orders of clergy, therefore, even the "doorkeeper," took precedence of him. For the reception of the sacraments, and for other religious offices, the abbot and his monks were commanded to attend the nearest church.-(Novellæ, 133, c. ii.) This rule naturally proved inconvenient when a monastery was situated in a desert, or at a distance from a city, and necessity compelled the ordination of abbots. This innovation was not introduced without a struggle, ecclesiastical dignity being regarded as inconsistent with the higher spiritual life, but, before the close of the 5th century, at least in the East, abbots seem almost universally to have become deacons, if not presbyters. The change spread more slowly in the West, where the office of abbot was commonly

These Cluniac obedientiæ differed from the ordinary Benedictine cells in being also places of punishment, to which monks who had been guilty of any grave infringement of the rules were relegated as to a kind of penitentiary. Here they were placed under the authority of a prior, and were condemned to severe manual labour, fulfilling the duties usually executed by the lay brothers, who acted as farm-servants.

The outlying farming establishments belonging to the monastic foundations were known as ville or granges. They gave employment to a body of conversi and labourers under the management of a monk, who bore the title of Brother Hospitaller-the granges, like their parent institutions, affording shelter and hospitality to belated travellers.

Authorities:-Dugdale, Monasticon; Fosbrooke, British Monachism; Helyot, Dictionnaire des Ordres Religieux; Lenoir, Architecture Monastique; Viollet le Duc, Dictionnaire Raisonnée de l'Architecture Francaise; Walcott, Conventual Arrangement; Willis, Abbey of St Gall; Archæological Journal, vol. v., Conventual Buildings of Canterbury; Curzon, Monasteries of the Levant. (E. V.)

ABBIATE GRASSO, a town in the north of Italy, near the Ticino, 14 miles W.S.W. of Milan. It has silk manufactures, and contains about 5000 inhabitants.

partially so up to the 11th. Ecclesiastical Councils were, however, attended by abbots. Thus, at that held at Constantinople, A.D. 448, for the condemnation of Eutyches, 23 archimandrites or abbots sign, with 30 bishops, and, cir. A.D. 690, Archbishop Theodore promulgated a canon, inhibiting bishops from compelling abbots to attend councils. Examples are not uncommon in Spain and in England in Saxon times. Abbots were permitted by the Second Council of Nicæa, A.D. 787, to ordain their monks to the inferior orders. This rule was adopted in the West, and the strong prejudice against clerical monks having gradually broken down, eventually monks, almost without exception, belonged to some grade of the ministry.

Originally no abbot was permitted to rule over more than one monastic community, though, in some exceptional cases, Gregory the Great allowed the rule to be broken. As time went on, violations of the rule became increasingly frequent, as is proved by repeated enactments against it. The cases of Wilfrid of York, cir. A.D. 675, who held the abbacy of the monasteries he had founded at Hexham and Ripon, and of Aldhelm, who, at the same date, stood in the same double relation to those of Malmesbury, Frome, and Bradford, are only apparent transgressions of the rule. We find more decided instances of plurality in Hugh of the royal Carlovingian house, cir. 720, who was at the same

In Egypt, the first home of monasticism, we find abbots in chief or archimandrites exercising jurisdiction over a large number of communities, each of which had its own abbot. Thus, Cassian speaks of an abbot in the Thebaid who had 500 monks under him, a number exceeded in other cases. In later times also, general jurisdiction was exercised over the houses of their order by the abbots of Monte Cassino, St Dalmatius, Clugny, &c. The abbot of Cassino was styled Abbas Abbatum. The chiefs of other orders had the titles of Abbas Generalis, or Magister, or Minister Generalis.

Abbots were originally subject to episcopal jurisdiction, and continued generally so, in fact, in the West till the 11th century. The Codex of Justinian (lib. i. tit. iii. de Ep. leg. xl.), expressly subordinates the abbot to episcopal oversight. The first case recorded of the partial exemption of an abbot from episcopal control is that of Faustus, Abbot of Lerins, at the Council of Arles, A.D. 456; but the oppressive conduct, and exorbitant claims and exactions of bishops, to which this repugnance to episcopal control is to be traced, far more than to the arrogance of abbots, rendered it increasingly frequent, and, in the 6th century, the practice of exempting religious houses partly or altogether from episcopal control, and making them responsible to the Pope alone, received an impulse from Gregory the Great. These exceptions, though introduced with a good object, had grown into a wide-spread and crying evil by the 12th century, virtually creating an imperium in imperio, and entirely depriving the bishop of all authority over the chief centres of power and influence in his diocese. In the 12th century the abbots of Fulda claimed precedence of the Archbishop of Cologne. Abbots more and more aped episcopal state, and in defiance of the express prohibition of early councils, and the protests of St Bernard and others, adopted the episcopal insignia of mitre, ring, gloves, and sandals. A mitre is said to have been granted to the Abbot of Bobbio by Pope Theodorus I., A.D. 643, and to the Abbot of St Savianus by Sylvester II., A.D. 1000. Ducange asserts that pontifical insignia were first assigned to abbots by John XVIII., A.D. 1004-1009; but the first undoubted grant is said to be that to the Abbot of St Maximinian at Treves, by Gregory VII. (Hildebrand), A.D. 1073-1085. The mitred abbots in England were those of Abingdon, St Alban's, Bardney, Battle, Bury St Edmund's, St Augustine's Canterbury, Colchester, Croyland, Evesham, Glastonbury, Gloucester, St Benet's Hulme, Hyde, Malmesbury, Peterborough, Ramsey, Reading, Selby, Shrewsbury, Tavistock, Thorney, Westminster, Winchcombe, St Mary's York. Of these the precedence was originally yielded to the Abbot of Glastonbury, until in A.D. 1154 Adrian IV. (Nicholas Breakspear) granted it to the Abbot of St Alban's, in which monastery he had been brought up. Next after the Abbot of St Alban's ranked the Abbot of Westminster.

To distinguish abbots from bishops, it was ordained that their mitre should be made of less costly materials, and should not be ornamented with gold, a rule which was soon entirely disregarded, and that the crook of their pastoral staff should turn inwards instead of outwards, indicating that their jurisdiction was limited to their own house. The adoption of episcopal insignia by abbots was followed by an encroachment on episcopal functions, which had to be specially but ineffectually guarded against by the Lateran Council, A.D. 1123. In the East, abbots,

as we have seen, permitted by the Second Nicene Council, A.D. 787, to confer the tonsure and admit to the order of reader; but they gradually advanced higher claims, until we find them authorised by Bellarmine to be associated with a single bishop in episcopal consecrations, and permitted by Innocent IV., A.D. 1489, to confer both the subdiaconate and diaconate. Of course, they always and everywhere had the power of admitting their own monks, and vesting them with the religious habit. In the first instance, when a vacancy occurred, the bishop of the diocese chose the abbot out of the monks of the convent, but the right of election was transferred by jurisdiction to the monks themselves, reserving to the bishop the confirmation of the election and the benediction of the new abbot. In abbeys exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, the confirmation and benediction had to be conferred by the Pope in person, the house being taxed with the expenses of the new abbot's journey to Rome. By the rule of St Benedict, the consent of the laity was in some undefined way required; but this seems never to have been practically enforced. It was necessary that an abbot should be at least 25 years of age, of legitimate birth, a monk of the house, unless it furnished no suitable candidate, when a liberty was allowed of electing from another convent, well instructed himself, and able to instruct others, one also who had learned how to command by having prac tised obedience. In some exceptional cases an abbot was allowed to name his own successor. Cassian speaks of an abbot in Egypt doing this; and in later times we have another example in the case of St Bruno. Popes and sovereigns gradually encroached on the rights of the monks, until in Italy the Pope had usurped the nomination of all abbots, and the king in France, with the exception of Clugny, Prémontré, and other houses, chiefs of their order.

The election was for life, unless the abbot was canonically deprived by the chiefs of his order, or, when he was directly subject to them, by the Pope or the bishop.

The ceremony of the formal admission of a Benedictine abbot in medieval times is thus prescribed by the consuetudinary of Abingdon. The newly elected abbot was to put off his shoes at the door of the church, and proceed barefoot to meet the members of the house advancing in a procession. After proceeding up the nave, he was to kneel and pray at the topmost step of the entrance of the choir, into which he was to be introduced by the bishop or his commissary, and placed in his stall. The monks, then kneeling, gave him the kiss of peace on the hand, and rising, on the mouth, the abbot holding his staff of office. He then put on his shoes in the vestry, and a chapter was held, and the bishop or his commissary preached a suitable sermon.

The power of the abbot was paternal but absolute, limited, however, by the canons of the church, and, until the general establishment of exemptions, by episcopal control. As a rule, however, implicit obedience was enforced; to act without his orders was culpable; while it was a sacred duty to execute his orders, however unreasonable, until they were withdrawn. Examples among the Egyptian monks of this blind submission to the commands of the superiors, exalted into a virtue by those who regarded the entire crushing of the individual will as the highest excellence, are detailed by Cassian and others,-e.g., a monk watering a dry stick, day after day, for months, or endeavouring to remove a huge rock immensely exceeding his powers. St Jerome, indeed, lays down, as the principle of the compact between the abbot and his monks, that they should obey their superiors in all things, and perform whatever they commanded.-(Ep. 2, ad Eustoch. de custod,