The undercroft of the monks’ dormitory
was probably used as a day-room. It occupied the southern end of
the east range and dates to the mid-twelfth century.(52) The day
room would have provided space for the brethren to work and perhaps
also to copy manuscripts, although there is evidence that at Fountains
the chapter-house might occasionally be used for this skilful work.
The novices’ house
The cell where the tyros
of Christ are proven.
[Walter Daniel, Life of Aelred, p. 17]
Anyone who wished to become
a monk had to first undergo a year-long period of instruction in
the monastic life, as stipulated in chapter
58 of the Rule
of
St Benedict. This was known as the novitiate and the newcomer was called
a novice.
The novices usually had their own separate quarters where they lived after an
initial four days spent in the guest-house. Here they meditated under the tutelage
of the novice-master, whose duty it was to offer encouragement and support during
times of self-doubt, and to make the novices ‘worthy vessels of God and
acceptable to the Order.’(53) The novices’ quarters
at Fountains were
located underneath the monks’ toilet block (the reredorters).
The undercroft was barrel-vaulted and there was probably a fire here, to provide
some comfort
for these newcomers who followed a less austere regime than the monks.(54) The
fifteenth-century ‘Bursar’s
Account Book’ records that in 1457-8 four pennies were spent on making
ten nails for the novices’ house (probatorium).(55)