persons was sometimes entertained in the monasteries. The abbey of Glastonbury once received 200 knights and their retainers; and the abbey of Bury had stables for 300 horses' within its hospitable walls. The abbot and prior, it is believed, alone graced the hall on these days of licence, while the monks and novices retired to another apartment; where, though some indulgence more than common was permitted, the monastick discipline was still preserved under the vigilant eye of the claustral prior. Of this once spacious hall, with the exception of the reader's pulpit, nothing remains.

The

The plan of this PULPIT is octagonal; some broken steps lead, through a narrow door with its arched head nearly flat, to the interior. southern half rests on the ruined wall, and looked outward, in the form of a small bay window; the corresponding moiety, which was within the hall, rests on a bracket encircled with delicate mouldings, which springs from a corbel, carved as a head, but now defaced. This part projects considerably over the wall, forming the basement, about five feet from the ground. An obtusely pointed, or rather conical roof of stone, is suspended twelve feet above the floor, on six narrow pointed arches, which have been decorated with trefoil heads. The western side is a blank wall, and that opposite contains the door. The roof internally ascends to a Gothick dome, vaulted on eight delicate ribs, which spring out of the wall without corbels or pilasters. In the centre, at the intersection of the ribs, is a very fine boss, representing an open flower, on which is displayed a representation of the Crucifixion very delicately sculptured, with St. John and the Virgin Mary at the foot of the cross. This is still quite perfect, and must be deemed a singularly rare and curious specimen in its kind, when we recollect that almost universal destruction of every symbol or ornament which bore the Cross during the Reformation, and continued for more than a century after it. And it is the more remarkable in the present instance, as this sculpture has probably lain within the reach of every wild fanatic or wanton schoolboy who may have approached the pulpit. The spaces of the three northern arches looking inwards, are filled up with stone embattled pannels, to the height of two feet from the floor, over which they are now entirely open. On the centre pannel are two crocketed tabernacles, with a small buttressed division surmounted by a pinnacle. In one of them is the figure of an angel; in the other, a female, whom he is addressing they seem to have represented the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. The right-hand pannel bears the figures of St. Peter and St. Paul, with their respective symbols; and that on the left, a monk and a female in the monastick habit, probably St. Wenefrede and the abbot Beuno.

! Willis. At the priory of Norwich 5500 quarters of malt were annually consumed, and 800 quarters of

wheat. Tanner's Pref. N. B. Norwich valued at 10611. per ann., Shrewsbury Abbey 5221.; half its

HE

We

No pannels ornament the south side, the arches of which are open. are inclined to refer this elegant structure to the fifteenth century, but it may be earlier. Like the other portions of the abbey where sculpture was employed as a decoration, this fragment was of the fine grey stone of Grinshill quarry, which is of a firmer texture, and more fit for statuary and nichework, than the soft red sandstone of the other the fabrick.

parts of

Present height from ground to corbel, whence basement springs

5 0

We have denominated this building the pulpit of the refectory; by Mr. Pennant and others it has been called an oratory, and by some a preaching cross; but it accords, neither in form nor position, with either of these. In terming it the reader's pulpit, we are borne out by its situation, and the analogy it bears with other similar remains. It rested on the wall of the refectory, from whence it sprung, in the manner of ancient stone pulpits still existing; half of the octagon having been glazed, as appears by the grooves in the stone, while the corresponding half, which was within the hall, and probably over the middle table, has no such appearance; this side is highly ornamented, while the other, which looked into an obscure court of the abbey, is plain. The original entrance was by a door from the hall through a narrow staircase, worked within the wall, the opposite face of the octagon being left blank, because it formed a continuation of the building. There are several remains of this kind in the refectories of monasteries that have been spared, which were undoubtedly pulpits. In the noble hall of the abbey of St. Werburgh, now the cathedral of Chester, is a handsome stone structure projecting from the wall, very similar to this in situation, form, and dimensions; another in the refectory of Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire, now used as the parochial church, equally according with it; and there are also evident indications of such a structure in that of the great abbey of Fountains, and of the cathedral priory of Worcester. The approach to these is, as in the instance before us, within the thickness of the walls, from whence the two first project, lighted behind with small external windows, a stone canopy being suspended over the reader's head. The custom of reading at meals was of very great antiquity, and probably had its origin in the more refined and learned ages of the

Romans, when it was usual at the suppers of great or literary men, for a person to read or recite some philosophical or poetical composition. That this was a part of the etiquette, even of courts, during the lower empire, is proved by a curious circumstance recorded by Mr. Gibbon. Luitprand, bishop of Cremona, who was ambassador from Otho II. in the tenth century, to the emperor Basilius II., in his account of the reception given him at Constantinople, relates, that at one of the royal feasts, where he was present, a homily of St. Chrysostom on the Acts of the Apostles was read during dinner, by a priest with a loud voice. (V. v. 395). St. Benedict, in his famous rule, adopted the same custom. "In the beginning of dinner and supper let one read, out of a pulpit (è suggesto), some chapter out of the Holy Bible, to which may be added, the reading of some pious book, which they (the monks) shall all diligently hear, that whilst the body is refreshed with food, the mind may never be idle." Even on the most festive occasions, this ordinance was never omitted in the monastick refectories. In a MS. in the library of Corpus Christi, Oxford, cited by Mr. Green in his History of Worcester, is a description of the inthronization dinner of a bishop of Rochester, in the refectory of that cathedral priory, which has this passage. "When the Lorde and the Halle were served of the firste couvre, immediately ther cam in oon lyke unto a doctour, clothyd in scarlet, standynge before the tabel, seyinge a collacion made by metre in rhetorical terms; the theme triplicat; furst of John the Baptist, seconde of John Evangeliste, thurd of John the Bushope present'."

Of the architecture or dimensions of the refectory, no correct estimate can now be made, though the extent of it may in some sort be conjectured, by the length of the south side of the cloister, which, corresponding with the opposite nave of the church, would be about an hundred feet; and, as conventual halls, with very few exceptions, adjoined that side in nearly its whole length, after allowing twenty feet for the vestibule and buttery, eighty feet will remain for the refectory, which is rather less than the size usually found in those which remain of other abbies. The breadth, however, appears to have been about twenty-three feet; and if this is correct, we must reduce the length considerably, or suppose the room to have been of very preposterous proportions.

Beyond the site of the refectory southward, is a large range of red-stone building ending on the west side, with a high gable, surmounted by a flower. This may have been the GUEST HALL, for the reception and entertainment of strangers. Previous to some late alterations, it was a long room; and when incorporated with the abbey-house after it became lay property, was denominated the gallery, and long used as a warehouse for

'Hist. Worcester, vol. ii. Appendix, p. 35.