roxburgh-1956-vol-2/-05_051

Transcription

No. 567 -- MELROSE PARISH -- No. 567

should be removed,1 the fragments of tiling seen here
must be dated to some considerably later period.
These fragments, and those of another pavement in
the conversi cloister (p. 286), are the finest examples
of mediaeval tiled pavements remaining in situ in
Scotland.2
To the N. of the chapter-house there is a narrow
cell in which rose the original day-stair to the choir-
monks' dorter. On the rearrangement of the cloister,
this compartment became a passage and was provided
with a drain running E. North of this passage there
is a wider cell having a stone bench at either side,
evidently the parlour, the only apartment in which
converse was permitted. The long pillared hall
beyond the parlour is the northernmost compartment
on the ground floor of the E. range. This was the
cella novitiorum, or novice-house. As it stood in the
12th century it measured 40 ft. long and 26 ft. 6 in.
wide ; but in the 13th century it was rebuilt and
extended some 50 ft. 6 in. farther N., the junction
between old and new being easily traced on the W.
wall, where it is seen immediately S. of a 13th-century
doorway and buttress. The new 13th-century gable
overrode the main sewer, and had corner buttresses
together with a central flying-buttress which sprang
across the sewer. The novice-house or dorter-
undercroft, thus enlarged, was covered with a quad-
ripartite rib-vault, two bays in width and seven in
length, which received intermediate support from a
central row of six circular pillars ; the bases of these,
where still extant, show the " double-roll " section
current for a century after 1250. This vault must
have fallen at some time, as one of the rib-inter-
sections can be seen re-used in a late refacing on the
outer side of the W. wall of this undercroft. At the
S. end of the apartment there were two doorways ;
the one to the W. has been altered twice and that to
the E. three times. Another alteration has been
the introduction of partitions shutting off the E.
halves of the second, third, and fourth bays ; the
enclosure so formed was entered from two doorways
broken out through the E. wall, the one on the S.
opening to the sanitary wing on the E. (infra) while
the one on the N. gave admission to a lobby situated
within the re-entrant angle formed by the sanitary
wing and the novice-house.
The compartment into which this lobby led has
been almost entirely demolished. When the part of
the undercroft which lies under Cloisters Road comes
to be excavated it will probably be found that the
undercroft has been divided by a cross-partition ;
and if that proves to be the case, the N. division will
represent the later novice-house, while the S. division
would be a day-room-possibly the auditorium, a
place where the choir-monks assembled to receive
instructions for manual work and where the necessary
tools were given to them.
The sanitary wing, or " reredorter ", extends to
the E. at right angles to the novice-house, so that it
formed the NW. corner of the " farmery " (in-
firmary) court ; that court, however, has not yet been
explored. The N. side of the sanitary wing overrides
the main sewer, over which the latrines on the first
floor were placed. The wing has been reduced in
width from the S., a change accounting for one of the
three alterations upon the E. doorway of the novice-
house. The sewer which runs below has a width of
about 5 ft. and is exposed for a length of 62 ft. 6 in. ;
it is built of ashlar, the lower part dating from the
second half of the 12th century and the upper part
rebuilt in the 13th century. It is flushed by a stream
which takes a course best apprehended from the plan
(Fig. 328). The reredorter proper, situated on the
upper floor of this wing, no longer exists ; it was
entered by way of the dorter.
The upper floor of the E. range was devoted to the
choir-monks' dorter, which originally had a length
of 124 ft. but which, after extension in the 13th
century, measured 174 ft. by 26 ft. 6 in. The dorter
was served by two separate stairs-one, which is
referred to below, being intended for use by day, and
the other for access to the church during the night
offices. The latter has already been mentioned in
connexion with the N. transept (p. 278). Its door-
way, round-arched towards the church, has a seg-
mental rear-arch ; its threshold is a re-used grave-
slab. This slab, which dates from either the 13th
or the 14th century, bears a circular floriated cross-
head of penannular type surmounting the upper part
of a sword with bulbous pommel and straight quillons.
On the sinister side of the sword there is a shield
charged : A sword bendwise, point downwards, a
mullet in sinister chief-arms almost identical with
those of Symonds Toune (Symington) of that Ilk as
illustrated in the Lindsay MSS., p. 117, where the
sword is shown point upwards. This doorway, the
communication between church and dorter, is con-
siderably higher than the extrados of the wax-cellar
vault (p. 283) ; that vault is of late date, however,
and the one that it replaced rose to the level of the
threshold of this doorway. On the dorter side of the
doorway the remains of a newel-stair may be seen
at the SE. corner of the dorter ; this stair, which
still ascends to the clearstorey level of the church,
originally continued upwards as an access to the high
roofs of both dorter and transept. Beneath the
lowest step a secret receptacle, thought to be a
repository for valuables,3 was discovered in 1730.4

1 Paris, Nomasticon Cisterciense, 282.
2 Cf. P.S.A.S., lxiii (1928-9), 284, 293, and 295 for
further particulars and illustrations.
3 In some monasteries a treasury was associated with the
dorter and in some instances it was situated over the E. bay
of the chapter-house. Bishop Pococke (A Tour through
Scotland 1760, 339) also records this discovery but states
that, on removal of the first step of the stair, entry was
had to " a private vault " above the wax-cellar. As the
present vault of the wax-cellar is a post-monastic insertion
the " private vault " may simply have been a void space
which it was felt unnecessary to fill in.
4 Wade, A history of St. Mary's Abbey, Melrose, 304.

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