Although the histories of the double orders have recently been reassessed, our knowledge of their physical characteristics remains incomplete. The only synthetic work on Gilbertine sites remains that of Rose Graham (1903;1940). Arrangements for the Fontevraultine house at Amesbury, Wiltshire, have recently been re-evaluated (RCHME 1987). The history of the English Fontevraultine houses is contained in Chettle (1942).
The 12th century double houses can be divided into two categories, those established by orders specifically devoted to double foundations, and the few brief, unsuccessful double houses founded by male orders. The latter were normally short-lived. Benedictine houses, like Blackborough and Blithbury, Norfolk, were soon given over to monks only. The Augustinian double house of Marton, Yorkshire, founded a nunnery at nearby Moxby, where the sisters were installed by 1167.
A recent detailed survey at Marton may provide some information on the provision made for nuns at these establishments. The interior of the canons' precinct measures approximately 170m by 250m bounded by substantial banks to the north and east and watercourses to the west and south. Projecting beyond the southern boundary of the canons' precinct is a moated enclosure, c.50m by 15m, set high into a valley side. The moated rectangular enclosure was separate from the spur of land on which the canons' cloister was situated, but near a point where a ford or causeway may have linked the two areas. In its northeast corner is a building platform with stone rubble foundations. This small self-contained area would have been inaccessible from the outer court. Access would have been over a bridge or causeway from the canons' cloister. The moated area apparently fell into disuse during monastic occupation of the site. A tentative hypothesis is that the secluded, self-contained area adjacent to the canons' cloister may have provided appropriate quarters for the nuns, who were removed to the moated site of Moxby before 1167.
The Gilbertine and Fontevraultine double houses followed a more formal arrangement. They adopted the general monastic form of a central complex of buildings aggregated around a cloister, or courtyard. Three ranges of buildings abut the church to form a cloister yard flanked by walkways which run concentrically within and provide access to the ranges.
The components of the monument class double house may include: churches, cloisters, detached lodgings, infirmaries, kitchens and outer courts, gatehouses, precinct walls, ditches or moats, and outlying fishponds.
The most distinctive feature of a double house is the arrangement of the church. It was necessary to provide separate areas of worship for the nuns, canons, lay-sisters, lay-brothers, and perhaps secular guests or a parochial congregation. Within one precinct area it was possible to have up to three churches, all aligned east to west. At Watton, Humberside, separate churches were provided for the nuns and canons; the parish church stood to the south. The relationship between Gilbertine conventual churches and nearby parish churches may not always be clear. An example is the two overlapping churchyards which can be observed at Alvingham, Lincolnshire. Gilbertine churches were normally stone-built, aisleless parallelograms with no western doorways. They were bisected by a median wall into two wide aisles. This was done in order to preclude any visual contact between the nuns and canons. This arrangement has been verified by excavations at Sempringham (Lincolnshire) and Watton, and by aerial photography at Bullington (Lincolnshire).
Arrangements made by the order of Fontevrault varied, although they seem to have preferred cruciform churches with crossing towers to aisleless parallelograms. At Nuneaton, Warwickshire, it appears that one church was shared by the nuns, canons and parochial congregation. In a reversal of the usual arrangements the parish was associated with the east end of the church, probably the north transept, and the nave served conventual purposes (Andrews 1981, Fig 3). The church was transected laterally, in contrast to the longitudinal division of the Gilbertine churches. The nuns occupied the four eastern bays of the nave, which measured 29m by 5.4m, and the canons had the two western bays. There was no western doorway to the church, and no additional aisles. At Amesbury, the nuns occupied their own cruciform, long-naved church. The canons shared the parish church, which was almost identical in plan to that of the nuns, and located some 275m SSE of the nuns' cloister, astride the southern boundary of the precinct. In the late 15th century a south aisle was built as an autonomous structure to house the parochial congregation. It had it own entrance and communicated with the nave only through a two bay arcade towards the east end and an arch at the west end.
The Bridgettines had a single church with segregation of the sexes achieved by split-level worship. The canons served altars at the ground-floor level and the nuns occupied first floor galleries (Gilyard-Beer 1958,44).
Arrangements for the churches of the "quasi-double houses" are not clear. Excavation at Swine (Humberside), however, has apparently shown that a nuns' church without aisles (23.16m in length) lay west of the existing parish church, which formed a parochial eastern appendage to it (Pevsner 1972,353). From the standing west tower of the parish church it is clear that the nuns' church did not abut or adjoin the parish church. In the south wall of the north aisle of the parish church is a blocked arched opening. This (at one time) external doorway perhaps served as an entrance to a gallery to seat the nuns, if this was the church shared by the parish and the canons. A detached church for the nuns may have been provided west of the standing structure.
In addition to the special requirements of the conventual churches of double houses, it was necessary to provide domestic buildings which ensured sexual segregation. The 12th century foundations of the Gilbertines and Fontevraultines seem to have favoured the construction of two discrete cloisters. The larger main cloister would house the nuns and lay-sisters, the second would accommodate the attending canons and lay-brothers.
The relationship of the cloisters to the conventual church(es) and adjacent parish church (where relevant) varied. At Nuneaton, of the order of Fontevrault, a cloister was located immediatly south of the church, measuring 41.14m square. Its east range, which probably accommodated the nuns and lay-sisters, extended beyond the south range of the cloister. There is no clear indication of whether a second canons' cloister or lodging existed. Detailed contour, auger and geophysical survey of the earthworks to the east of the nuns' cloister, however, have revealed that buildings probably stood to the north (near the conventual church) and that a courtyard or cloister was positioned immediately southeast of the nuns' east range (Andrews 1981, 62). This enclosed area is 25m square with walls on all sides, a ditch to the south side and bank to the east. To the north of the enclosure is an E/W running ridge which respects the represent the edge of a building (ibid, 61). To the immediate north of this ridge are features which appear to have respected the main drain of the nuns' reredorter. It is possible that monks' lodgings would have been positioned to the east of the nuns' cloister (as at Watton). The enclosed area to the southeast of the nuns' east range would have been favourable for the use of the reredorter drain by a monk's dorter, or an infirmary or abbess's lodging. It is certain that the Fontevraultine brothers would have occupied separate domestic quarters to the nuns, and the area to the east of nuns' cloister may be a likely position.
At the house of Amesbury, of the same order, it is possible to reconstruct the domestic arrangements with more certainty. Excavations carried out in the 19th century located the site of the conventual buildings of the nuns, to the north of the standing prioress's lodge. A rectangular building with a stone bench around the walls and a richly tiled floor, might be identified as the chapterhouse. It seems that the nuns occupied a standard self-contained cloister. The canons were accommodated in buildings adjoining the parish church, 275m SSE of the nuns' cloister. The canons seemed to have had their lodgings to the north of the chancel. Evidence for a pentice visible on the north wall of the nave may have given the canons covered access to an entrance in the west wall of the north transept (RCHME 1987,235).
At Gilbertine double houses the nuns' cloister was normally abutting the main conventual church, so that nuns would have direct access to their aisle in the church. The nuns' cloisters were generally to the north (Sempringham i, Watton) or the south (Sempringham ii, Bullington, Chicksands, Bedfordshire) of the church, whereas the canons' cloister was some distance away and oriented along any of the cardinal points in relation to the church. The canons' cloister had its own chapel. The two claustral complexes were divided by a wall and ditch. At Watton the nuns' cloister was cut off from the rest of the precinct by ditches on all four sides.
To a great extent the specific arrangements within the ranges of the nuns' and canons' cloister followed a general monastic pattern. It may be informative to review the excavated Gilbertine site of Watton, where functions have been attributed to the buildings surrounding the two cloisters. Watton, however, was the wealthiest Gilbertine house at the Dissolution and cannot, therefore, represent a typical example. The excavation was conducted in the late 19th century by St. John Hope. To some degree it seems that building dimensions and function were assigned from a surviving survey of the site made at the Dissolution.
The precinct area at Watton measures 457.2m by 304.8m and is bounded to the east by a moat. The nuns' cloister (29.9m x 34.4m) was to the north of the main conventual church, which was 62.8m in length and transected by a median wall. Communicating with the south aisle of the canons was a processional arch and a turn, used to pass pax and holy water without the recipient being seen. A possible position for the nuns' nightstair is suggested by additional buttresses at the northeast angle of the presbytery and the northwest corner of the north transept. An earlier church of similar plan and dimensions was located beneath the late 12th century church. Documentary evidence confirms that an earlier church was destroyed by fire. It may have had stone foundations and a timber superstructure.
At ground level the east range of the nuns' cloister contained the chapter house (20.1 x 7m) which had been lengthened in the 14th century to break forward beyond the limit of the range. At the upper storey would have been the dormitory (dorter) of the nuns with a garderobe (reredorter) at the northern limit.
The upper storey of the north range housed the refectory (frater) which would have been 27.4m by 6m internally. Below this was the undercroft. It was ten bays long, divided into two alleys by a central row of pillars. At the western end of the range was a detached kitchen (9.1 x 5.8m).
The west range measured 34.1m by 7.3m and returned westwards at is southern limit. This L-shaped block did not abut the church, which was connected to the range by a separate thin-walled building. Doorways in the east and west walls of this building were located at their northern limit. A possible nightstair in the building linking the range with the church would have given the lay-sisters access to the west end of the nuns' aisle of the church. An entrance from the outer court was located at the north end of the west wall; two doors from basement chambers communicated with the cloister. This range may have housed lay-sisters and guests.
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of a Gilbertine house was the "window house" which linked the nuns' cloister to that of the canons. At Watton a doorway located in the east wall of the nuns' dorter subvault entered a covered passage. This passage was 1.5m wide and led eastwards for 24.4m to a small building located midway between the cloisters. St. John Hope suggested that this was a window house, constructed to contain the small window and turning window which the Gilbertine Rule advocated for communication between the nuns and canons.
The canons' cloister was 30.5m square, surrounded by vaulted alleys 4.3m wide. On the south side was the canons' chapel, an aisleless parallelogram 34.9m by 7.4m. A thickening in the north end of the east wall may have indicated the site of the canons' night stair. On the basis of a springer in the south wall, it has been suggested that a vaulted ante-chapel in the western end supported a gallery for secular guests. A first-storey doorway indicated that the gallery communicated with the detached guest house and prior's lodging to the southwest. In the east side of this block along the south wall of the chapel were traces of a late 15th- early 16th century gallery or ambulatory (3.7m wide) which provided access to the door of the gallery.
At the southern limit of the east range was the chapter house, for which no western doorway was located. The upper storey dormitory stood on a vaulted undercroft with a central row of pillars. This area was divided into four apartments.
In the sixth bay of the north alley was a richly painted washing place (lavatory) locatd near the entrance to the refectory (frater) which was situated over a cellar. Entry to the cloister was through a doorway in the northwest corner.
The Bridgettines generally had a single church on opposite sides of which the domestic buildings of the nuns and canons were placed. This order rarely placed its buildings around a cloister (Gilyard-Beer 1958,44).
From our present knowledge of the morphology of postConquest double houses a provisional classification can be attempted. This typology lists the possible church and cloister arrangements:
- Two standard monastic cloisters and two churches, one of which was conventual (divided longitudinally by a median wall into parallel aisles, one for the nuns and lay-sisters, the other for the canons) and the other was a canons' chapel, perhaps with a gallery for secular guests.
- A standard cloister for the nuns accompanied by a more casual arrangement of buildings or lodges nearby for the canons. The canons shared their church with the parish, which may have been housed in an autonomous aisle or transept.
- One cloister, or perhaps more, associated with one church which is divided laterally to accommodate the nuns, the canons and the parochial congregation.
- One church, with split-level worship achieved through the use of galleries, flanked by two discrete complexes of buildings (not necessarily arranged around a cloister).
In addition to these four broad groupings of church and domestic buildings, the orientation of the nuns' and canons' cloisters in relation to the church varies (whether north, south, east or west) as does the groundplan of the church building (whether cruciform or parallelogram).
Beyond the cloister, but within the monastic precinct of a double house, there may have been several other components. At Amesbury the prioress had a detached lodging to the south of the nuns' cloister, whereas the priors of Watton had a detached lodging to the south of that of the canons. Presumably separate infirmaries would have been provided for both sexes, although none have been located archaeologically. The outer courts must have housed outbuildings similar to those recorded at other monastic houses (dairy, brewery, malthouse, bakehouse, granary, etc). Excavations at Haverholme, Lincolnshire, located a series of stone outbuildings south of the presumed claustral area. Tile kilns associated with Haverholme and Shouldham, Norfolk, have been excavated. Excavations by Brakstear at Nuneaton may have revealed the infirmary kitchen (misericord) and an intact medieval vat associated with the brewhouse or malthouse (Medieval Archaeology 1982,211). The vat may be described as a round mortar-lined feature sunken below ground level, located in the southeast corner of the brewhouse (Andrews 1981, 64). A gatehouse probably marked the entrance to the precinct, which in the case of Amesbury was located at the southern boundary near the parish church.
The churches, cloisters and outbuildings of the double house would have been bounded by a moat, bank or wall. Beyond this were its appurtenances which often included fishponds (Sempringham ii, Haverholme, Catley, Alvingham, Shouldham, Nuneaton). "Quasi-double houses" may have been more substantially endowed than nunneries. The presence of lay-brothers may have made estate management easier. Swine had three areas of fishponds; Stixwould (Lincolnshire) possessed eight granges and eleven water mills and was active in the production of grain, livestock, wool, salt and fish (Graves 1984,224).
Dimensions of double house buildings varied according to the status of the foundation. The nuns' cloister at Chicksands, for example, was 14.63 m square in contrast to the 29.9m by 34.4m cloister at Watton. The church at Watton was of considerable length (62.8m) but the church of the mother house at Sempringham (ii), perhaps the most important to the order, had a final length of 99m.