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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
… spatial organization is a function of the form of social solidarity; and different forms of social solidarity are themselves built on the foundations of a society as both a spatial and a transpatial system.
The almonries of English religious houses are among the least understood of monastic buildings and spatial areas. Unlike the main ritual areas of church and cloister and the domestic ranges, very few monastic sites retain any structural remains of almonry buildings, and those that do have been much altered in the five and a half centuries since they last performed their original function as outlets of social welfare. Only two Benedictine houses, Ely Cathedral Priory (Cambridgeshire) and Evesham Abbey (Worcestershire), contain extant substantial structural elements from what were their almonry halls, and even here nineteenth- and twentieth-century additions obscure much of the original appearance of the fabric at both places. The Benedictine Glastonbury Abbey (Somerset) retains structural remains of a late medieval date within the precinct inside the west gate, which belonged to the complex of buildings constituting the almonry. It is unclear, however, how the arrangement of this almonry was altered when a row of almshouses (St Patrick’s Almshouses) was built slightly to the east, extending over the site of the present museum, in c. 1517. Recently it has also been suggested that a small single-storey building on the precinct periphery of the Premonstratensian abbey at Titchfield (Hampshire) was an almonry schoolhouse.
1 Hillier, Bill and Hanson, Julienne, The Social Logic of Space (Cambridge, 1984), p. 142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 Atkinson, T. D., An Architectural History of the Benedictine Monastery of St. Etheldreda at Ely (Cambridge, 1933), pp. 140–42Google Scholar, pl. 32, and sheet 18 in the attached portfolio of plans entitled, Monastic Buildings of Ely; May, G., A Descriptive History of the Town of Evesham (London, 1845), pp. 41–43 Google Scholar; Cox, D. C., ‘The Building, Destruction, and Excavation of Evesham Abbey: A Documentary History’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 12 (1990), pp. 123–46Google Scholar; the uncredited The Almonry Museum, The Vale of Evesham Historical Society (1975), pp. 10–16 Google Scholar, summarizes the history of the building.
3 The almonry complex inside the west gate at Glastonbury was described in 1335 in an agreement between the abbot and convent involving administrative procedures throughout the abbey. At this time the almonry consisted of an almonry hall, a granary, a well, a kitchen, stables and a chapel. See The Great Chartulary of Glastonbury, ed. Watkin, A., Somerset Record Society 64, 3 vols (Frome, 1956), vol. 3, pp. 727–28.Google Scholar
4 Rahtz, Philip, Glastonbury (London, 1993), p. 103.Google Scholar
5 Roberts, Edward, ‘Two Dated Monastic Buildings at Titchfield’, Hampshire Studies, 55 (2000), pp. 10–20 (pp. 13–18).Google Scholar
6 Coppack, Glyn, “Thornholme Priory: The Development of a Monastic Outer Court’, in The Archaeology of Rural Monasteries, ed. Gilchrist, R. and Mytum, H., British Archaeological Reports 203 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 185–222.Google Scholar
7 Cox, , “The Building, Destruction, and Excavation of Evesham Abbey’, p. 136.Google Scholar
8 Collinson, P., Ramsay, P. W. and Sparks, M. (eds), A History of Canterbury Cathedral (Oxford, 1995), pp. xxiv–xxv Google Scholar; Tatton-Brown, Tim, ‘The Abbey Precinct, Liberty and Estate’, in St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, ed. Gem, Richard (London, 1997), pp. 123–42 (p. 124).Google Scholar
9 For instance, Atkinson, An Architectural History of Ely.
10 Rosser, Gervase, Medieval Westminster 1200–1540 (Oxford, 1989), p. 43.Google Scholar
11 Morgan, William, London Etc. Actually Surveyed — Including a Prospect of London and Westminster (1682). This map is held in the Guildhall Library, London.Google Scholar
12 The almoners’ account rolls are archived in the Westminster Abbey Muniment Room [hereafter WAM], index numbers 18962–19154. All other manuscript evidence from the abbey used in this study is also housed in this collection.
13 See Appendix for explanation of the reconstructions of the almonry complex in Figures 3, 4 and 6.
14 The only extended discussion of monastic charitable provision (until the papers listed in notes 15 and 16), which attempts to question the prevailing consensus, is chapter 1 in Harvey, Barbara, Living and Dying in England 1100–1540: The Monastic Experience (Oxford, 1993), pp. 7–33.Google Scholar
15 Snape, R. H., English Monastic Finances in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1926), pp. 117–18Google Scholar. For the historiographical consensus see Rushton, Neil S., ‘Monastic Charitable Provision in Tudor England: Quantifying and Qualifying Poor Relief in the Early Sixteenth Century’, Continuity and Change, 16 (2001), pp. 9–44 (pp. 9–12).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
16 Rushton, , ‘Monastic Charitable Provision in Tudor England’; Neil S. Rushton and Wendy Sigle-Rushton, ‘Monastic Poor Relief in the Sixteenth Century’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 16 (2001), pp. 193–216 (p. 215).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17 Beier, Alan, The Problem of the Poor in Tudor and Early Stuart England (London, 1983), pp. 19–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18 This is touched upon in Silber, Iiana F., ‘Monasticism and the Protestant Ethic: Ascetism, Rationality and Wealth in the Medieval West’, British Journal of Sociology, 44 (1993), pp. 103–23 (p. 113).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19 Tierney, Brian, ‘The Decretists and the “Deserving Poor”’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1 (1958–59), pp. 360–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tierney, Brian, Medieval Poor Law: A Sketch of Canonical Theory and its Application in England (Los Angeles, 1959), pp. 44–67 Google Scholar; Backer, Larry Catá, ‘Medieval Poor Law in Twentieth Century America: Looking Back towards a General Theory of American Poor Relief’, Case Western Reserve Law Review, 44 (1995), pp. 871–1041.Google Scholar
20 Aers, David, Community, Gender and Individual Identity: English Writing 1360–1430 (London, 1988), pp. 20–72 Google Scholar; Scase, Wendy, Piers Plowman and the New Anti-Clericalism (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 71–78.Google Scholar
21 WAM 18962*–18980. There are also, for this period, surviving account rolls for the almoners’ manors of Paddington and Claygate, and other documents that do not include building expenses.
22 ‘In making of an embankment (fossa) 43 perches in length next to Tothulle … in making a hedge (haica) above the said embankment’ (WAM 18962*). A pertica is one perch, which was usually 16 feet for the purposes of ditching and enclosing. See Zupko, Ronald Edward, A Dictionary of Weights and Measures (London, 1968), p. 120 Google Scholar. It can be no coincidence that 216 m would fit almost exactly the length of the almonry on the Tothill Street frontage as far as St Mary Magdalen’s chapel on the corner of the road leading south, and which later became known as Stretton Ground. This chapel later had its dedication changed to St Armil. For this see, Rosser, , Medieval Westminster, pp. 70 and 241 Google Scholar, and Robbins, Michael, ‘A Site in Westminster; or, Whoever was St. Ermin?’, London Topographical Record, 24 (1980), pp. 113–30.Google Scholar
23 In 1394–95 seventeen perches of hedging was either put up or repaired at the western end of the almonry — enough to partially enclose the meadow — and in 1395–96 the ‘great fence (magne fence)’ next to the meadow was repaired. WAM 19001 and 19002.
24 Hillier, and Hanson, , Social Logic of Space, pp. 143–75Google Scholar. Definitions of ‘spatial solidarity’ and ‘transpatial solidarity’ can be found at p. 145. See also Hillier, Bill, Space is the Machine: A Configurational Theory of Architecture (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 22–24.Google Scholar
25 Hillier, and Hanson, , Social Logic of Space, p. 145.Google Scholar
26 See Hillier, and Hanson, , Social Logic of Space, p. 259 Google Scholar for a definition of the logic of social boundaries.
27 Somner, R., ‘Spatial Invasion’, in Man, Space and Environment: Concepts in Contemporary Human Geography, ed. English, P. W. and Mayfield, R. C. (London, 1972), pp. 251–60 (p. 252)Google Scholar, discusses the concept of carrying public space, in the form of a portable territory, into a private world and thereby accentuating the importance of the boundary and access control.
28 For these studies see Foster, Sally M., ‘Analysis of Spatial Patterns in Buildings (Access Analysis) as an Insight into Social Structure: Examples from the Scottish Atlantic Iron Age’, Antiquity, 63 (1989), pp. 40–50 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fairclough, Graham, ‘Meaningful Constructions — Spatial and Functional Analysis of Medieval Buildings’, Antiquity, 66 (1992), pp. 348–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hillier, and Hanson, , The Social Logic of Space, pp. 167–75.Google Scholar
29 Locock, Martin, ‘Spatial Analysis of an Eighteenth-Century Formal Garden’, in Meaningful Architecture: Social Interpretations of Buildings, ed. Locock, Martin (Avebury, 1994), pp. 231–52.Google Scholar
30 Johnstone, H., ‘Poor Relief and the Royal Households of Thirteenth-Century England’, Speculum, 4 (1929), pp. 149–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Taylor, A., ‘Royal Alms and Oblations in the Later Thirteenth Century’, in Tribute to an Antiquary: Essays Presented to Marc Fitch by some of his Friends, ed. Emmison, F. and Stephens, R. (London, 1976), pp. 93–125 Google Scholar; Dixon-Smith, Sally, ‘The Image and Reality of Alms-Giving in the Great Halls of Henry III’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 152 (1999), pp. 79–96 (pp. 85-89).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
31 Johnstone, , ‘Poor Relief and the Royal Households’, p. 156.Google Scholar
32 Harvey, , Living and Dying, p. 27.Google Scholar
33 Harvey, , Living and Dying, p. 27 Google Scholar. The pre-Black Death accounts of the wardens and treasurers are WAM 23627–23692. The account for 1315 is WAM 23643.
34 There are constant references to ditch digging in the meadow within the almonry throughout the period, and the construction of gates in the fence at its eastern perimeter and an embankment at the western end (both in the later fourteenth century) establish its general location. It is only, however, when buildings and gardens begin to be erected in its space in the fifteenth century that it becomes possible to gauge the extent of the meadow, which became split into a plot called Goose Mead and an area retained in demesne by the almoner. See Rosser, , Medieval Westminster, p. 86.Google Scholar
35 The first explicit mention of the almoner’s hall is in 1320–21 (WAM 18965*) as the aula elemosinarius. It can be located precisely by later rentals, which place it (with yard) directly behind the fourth to seventh shops built along Tothill Street by the almoner Walter de Warfeld in 1361 (WAM 18988). The accounts also refer to an almoner’s domus (e.g. in 1320–21, WAM 18965*), which could have simply been another term for the whole building or to the almoner’s living quarters within the structure. The larder, store, stairs and hall itself in the almonry all undergo repairs before 1350, although there is no descriptive evidence of the appearance of any of them in the accounts.
36 WAM 18976.
37 Salzman, L. F., Building in England Down to 1540 (Oxford, 1952), pp. 229–34.Google Scholar
38 The almonry granaries usually received over 100 quarters of various grains per annum in the pre-Black Death period (see note 43). There is also slender evidence for a sub-almonry within the complex before the Black Death. In 1318–19 the sub-almoner was given a gratuity by the almoner of 6s. 8d. (WAM 18965), but there is no further evidence to show that this sub-official had his own premises as can be demonstrated in the post-Black Death period.
39 WAM 18986. In 1373–74 (WAM 18996) stonemasons were employed in various repairs to the chapel’s structure costing over £5.
40 The chapel is first mentioned in the accounts in 1339 (WAM 18976).
41 For example see the collections contained in Visitations of Religious Houses in the Diocese of Lincoln, ed. Thompson, A. H., Lincoln Record Society 7, 4 and 21 (1914–29)Google Scholar, where frequent reference is made to almonries developing (illegally) into separate households. The most explicit example was at Ramsey Abbey in 1439 where two separate households had been nurtured by the almoner, John Lavenham. The lure of these distinct households had proved too much for many monks who were discovered to have spent time at one or the other place ‘with the almoner in drinking, feasting and other irregular doings until midnight.’ Visitations of Religious Houses, III, pp. 301–19 (pp. 303–04).Google Scholar
42 The chapel is located by references in the post-Black Death period to the building of and repair of a wall between the north corner of the chapel and the Tothill entrance, and constant references in rentals from 1407–08 onwards of the two largest shops built by Walter de Warfeld in 1361 as backing onto the chapel or the chapel yard (WAM 19012ff.).
43 WAM 18971–18974 are four accounts for the manors of Claygate and Paddington for the period 1328–36 showing receipts and expenditure. The almoners’ accounts up until 1447–48 (WAM 19056) contain a section on the dorse of the roll listing the amounts of grain stored throughout the year. In the pre-Black Death period this averaged c. 109 quarters per annum (WAM 18962*–18979).
44 In 1321–22 (WAM 18966) the wall between these granaries and the vineyard was capped or covered (cooptura) in some way: ‘in covering the wall between the two granaries of the almonry and the outside wall next to the vineyard (vinea) 16d.’ In 1349 these granaries were in need of repair, as was the lock on the gate between them leading to the vineyard (WAM 18980). In 1430–31 the groundsilling was repaired with ragstone, and the granaries are described as to the west of the lay-brethrens’ hall (WAM 19036). The location of the vineyard can also be derived from 1356–57 (WAM 18985) when a postern gate is made next to ‘La Vynes’ leading to the abbey precinct south of the Great Gate.
45 Harvey, , Living and Dying, p. 215.Google Scholar
46 The lay brethren are present throughout the period from the first account in 1293 (WAM 18962*). The aula of the lay brethren is described as being repaired in 1320–21 (WAM 18965*). The wall of their garden is not described as such until it is repaired in 1393–94 (WAM 50733). The lay brethren’s dormitory was probably always on an upper storey, but this is not confirmed until 1416–17 (WAM 19020) when three new camerae were constructed on the first floor, suggesting that by this date allowances were beginning to be made for the privacy of at least three of the brethren. There were usually six brethren throughout the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the construction of three more chambers may well have happened in a year in which an account roll does not survive. When, in the sixteenth century, a further three brethren were installed, all nine had private quarters on the upper storey of their hall.
47 This was first called a hospicia in 1339, when it was stocked with pots and bowls (WAM 18976). There is another building called the longhous, which is mentioned occasionally from 1365–66 (WAM 18992) (when 1,000 lathenayles were purchased for its repair) onwards but never in the same account roll as the hospicia. This may well suggest that they are one and the same building, and in the absence of any further evidence for two separate buildings Figures 3,4 and 6 show them as a single building.
48 ‘Newly made’ in 1339 (WAM 18976).
49 The meadows were described as being in the west of the complex (see note 34), but it is unclear whether they were fenced off internally in the pre-Black Death period. By at least 1321–22 there was a ‘alterius et interius’ wall all around the vineyard, (WAM 18966), but the pre-1350 account rolls only mention ditches being made or repaired around the meadow; for example in 1320–21 (WAM 18965*) and 1321–22 (WAM 18966) when the meadow (pratum) was separated from a curtilage and barn on its eastern periphery by ditches of twenty-eight and seven perches.
50 Harvey, , Living and Dying, p. 30.Google Scholar
51 Harvey, , Living and Dying, pp. 28–30.Google Scholar
52 The almoners’ account rolls for this period are WAM 18981–19059.
53 Rosser, , Medieval Westminster, pp. 69–74 Google Scholar, discusses the construction of these premises in some detail.
54 WAM 18999.
55 WAM 19043.
56 Schofield, John, Medieval London Houses (New Haven, 1994), pp. 34–60 Google Scholar; Schofield, John, ‘Social Perceptions of Space in Medieval and Tudor London Houses’, in Meaningful Architecture: Social Interpretations of Buildings, ed. Locock, Martin (Avebury, 1994), pp. 188–206 (pp. 191–201).Google Scholar
57 WAM 18983. ‘New gate (porta) adjacent to Tothull, newly made 20s.’
58 WAM 19087.
59 WAM 19019.
60 WAM 19056.
61 WAM 19075.
62 WAM 19019.
63 WAM 18983 (for 1355–66, as above). Due to the contraction of the Latin words for bolt and key in the account roll (sarura and clavis) it is not possible to know whether the 2s. spent on them were for one or more sets.
64 1359–60 (WAM 18986); ‘in one wall newly made next to the chapel 10s.’ 1362–63 (WAM 18989); ‘in a wall made for six perches next to the gate of the meadow (porta prati) 4s.’ The ‘meadow gate’ can be located as within the Tothill gate when it was repaired at a cost of 24s. in 1387–88 (WAM 18999). The wall next to the chapel of St Anne was either replaced or moved to allow for the new tenements built in 1362–63 by the almoner Walter de Moredon: ‘in the new construction a certain wall between the almonry and the tenement next to the chapel of St. Anne 40s.’ (WAM 18989).
65 These figures are based on a chapter covering Westminster Abbey in my thesis, Neil S. Rushton, ‘Monastic Charitable Provision in Later Medieval England c. 1260–1540’, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge, 2002, chapter 3. In the pre-Black Death period the distributions by the almoner were augmented by large anniversary and weekly distributions derived from the estates of Queen Eleanor of Castile, as well as expenditure on charitable provision by other obedientiaries. From the later fourteenth century royal estates granted by Richard II provided extra funds, which were added to by an exponential increase in the almoners’ spending on various types of outdoor and indoor relief.
66 Greatrex, Joan, ‘The Almonry School of Norwich Cathedral Priory in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries’, in The Church and Childhood, Studies in Church History 31, ed. Wood, D. (Oxford, 1994), pp. 169–81Google Scholar; Bowers, Roger, ‘The Almonry Schools of the English Monasteries, c. 1265–1540’, in Monasteries and Society in Medieval Britain, ed. Thompson, Ben, Harlaxton Medieval Studies 6 (1999), pp. 177–222.Google Scholar
67 WAM 18964. Bowers, , “The Almonry Schools of the English Monasteries’, p. 191.Google Scholar
68 WAM 19026. It is described as the ‘new schoolhouse with four rooms’.
69 WAM 19048. It was described as the ‘latrinum dormitorii’.
70 An almoner’s rental from 1443–44 (WAM 19053) describes two leased tenements next to a grange near the entrance gate of the meadow, and then describes the grange as being next to ‘le scolehous’.
71 WAM 19055. This resulted in the loss of 10s. in rent for the building, its last recorded lessee being John Mynehede in 1445–46 (WAM 19054). It is first explicitly called a dormitory in 1448–49, when it was retiled (WAM 19057).
72 WAM 19067. ‘Shipmen et sowdiers’ had apparently plundered (spoliabant) Westminster town in this year. This could have been either Yorkist forces during the Westminster parliament of October 1460, or the Lancastrian army after the second Battle of St Albans in February 1461, or both (see Rosser Medieval Westminster, p. 299). The new school and sub-almonry built in 1460–61 are described in a very detailed custus domorum section of the almoner’s account for this year (WAM 19067). It was a pre-fabricated timber-framed structure, erected on stone foundations and plinth, and cost a little over £45 to construct, including all labouring and carting costs.
73 Rosser, , Medieval Westminster, pp. 298–99Google Scholar. In 1318–19 the households of the king and the Earl of Oxford were paid 3s. in what sounds like protection money, ‘so they do not destroy things’ in the almonry (WAM 18965). In 1403–04 repairs were made to various buildings within the almonry which were ‘damaged during the time of the parliament’, inferring the unwelcome incursion into the complex by the retinues of lords attending parliament (WAM 19009).
74 Rosser, , Medieval Westminster, pp. 84–86 Google Scholar (quote at p. 86).
75 The almoners’ account rolls for this period are WAM 19060–19154. The last roll is for 1538–39.
76 WAM 17970 is a deed for two shops first built by William de Moredon prior to 1387 (when they first appear in the rental, WAM 18999), which describes the shops as backing onto Wystow’s Rents.
77 Rosser, , Medieval Westminster, pp. 84–86 Google Scholar.
78 WAM 19080. Most of this year’s expenditure of over £12 was spent on building these houses, but most of the expenses were met by the abbot’s household. Richard Harwden was abbot of Westminster 1420–40.
79 Hillier, and Hanson, , Social Logic of Space, pp. 147–55Google Scholar; Hillier, , Space is the Machine, pp. 29–42.Google Scholar
80 Nevertheless, some, at least, do not seem to have had private lavatories until 1499–1500, when seven were inserted into four separate tenements, WAM 19111.
81 Schofield, , ‘Social Perceptions of Space’, pp. 191–94.Google Scholar
82 Schofield, , ‘Social Perceptions of Space’, p. 194.Google Scholar
83 WAM 19138.
84 WAM 19140.
85 WAM 32003. The survival of these paper lists is fortuitous as they were evidently not intended for posterity. This may suggest that similar lists were made at earlier or later dates.
86 Rosser, , Medieval Westminster, pp. 168–82Google Scholar. The population of Westminster seems to have remained stagnant until this time, matching the national demographic trend, see Hatcher, John, Plague, Population and the English Economy 1348–1530 (Basingstoke, 1977), pp. 55–62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and graph on p. 71.
87 WAM 19151A. This paper account is attached to the main account for this year, WAM 19152.
88 Rosser, , Medieval Westminster, p. 177.Google Scholar
89 The almoner’s hall and rooms, the kitchen buildings, the lay-brethrens’ hall and dormitories, the latrine, the chapel, the gate, the hospicia and the granaries are all recorded as having received continuous expenditure upon their maintenance until at least 1518, when the custus domorum section of the accounts ceases to record details of expenditure. There was also an attempt to keep the roads within the almonry in serviceable condition. In 1486–87 184 ‘lodes de rubissh’ and 132 ‘lodes de gravell’ were carted into the almonry and spread over the ‘via’ of the complex (WAM 19095). This was evidently an attempt to introduce hardcore paving into the almonry, perhaps at the behest of those occupants with tenements within the, by now, crowded almonry site.
90 A full discussion of the administration of this relief will be found in my thesis: Rushton, ‘Monastic Charitable Provision in Later Medieval England’, chapter 3.
91 Harvey, , Living and Dying, pp. 214–15Google Scholar provides a breakdown of expenditure on charity, which by the sixteenth century was in the region of £400 in total.
92 Harvey, , Living and Dying, pp. 31–32.Google Scholar
93 WAM 19113, ‘In payment to one carpenter for working in the house (domus) of the lay brethren making partitions between the rooms there, for ten days, 6s. 8d.’ The partitions were made up of fifty feet of wood planks and faced with 150 ‘elmybord’ costing 3s. 6d. The new chambers were constructed in 1502–03 (WAM 19113), but the king’s payment of £5 to fund the new inmates does not show up in the accounts until 1513–14 (WAM 19117*).
94 The sub-almonry at the east end of the site had been removed with the school in 1461, WAM 19067.
95 WAM 5398. This is a double-sided two-leaf paper document described as ‘the covenent of the making of the kynges elmeshouse at Westminster’. The following two paragraphs are based on its contents.
96 The sketch plan is WAM 18410 (Fig. 7). Henry Keene’s map is WAM 34508A-J. A version of this map is reproduced in Westlake, H. F., Westminster: A Historical Sketch (London, 1919)Google Scholar, inside back cover. A summary of these documents and description of the almshouse can be found in Colvin, H. M., Ransome, D. R. and Summerson, John, The History of the King’s Works, vol. 3, 1485–1660 (part 1) (London, 1975), pp. 206–10.Google Scholar
97 Calendar of Close Rolls 1500–09, pp. 146-47.
98 Colvin, Ransome and Summerson, , History of the King’s Works, p. 209.Google Scholar
99 Godfrey, Walter Hindes, The English Almshouse (London, 1955)Google Scholar; Howson, Brian, Houses of Noble Poverty: A History of the English Almshouse (London, 1993), pp. 39–50 Google Scholar. The design of the almshouse may well have been based directly upon Cardinal Beaufort’s range at St Cross, Winchester; Colvin, Ransome and Summerson, , History of the King’s Works, p. 209.Google Scholar
100 The account rolls of the wardens of Henry VII’s estate run from 1502–33.
101 Cleaning and repair of the communal latrine was the responsibility of the almoner throughout the period. The kitchen parlour attached to the almonry hall stood adjacent to the communal latrine, and in 1443–44 had to be provided with curtains and shutters because of ‘the horrible smell (horribiles olfatus)’ from the latrine (WAM 19053). The latrine in the lay-brethrens’ hall had been installed by 1464–65, when it was repaired with 400 tiles (WAM 19073), but there is nothing in previous accounts to suggest when they first received private lavatorial facilities in their hall.
102 Acts of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster 1543–1609, 2 vols, ed. Knighton, C. S., Westminster Abbey Record Series 1 and 2 (Woodbridge, 1997 and 1999), 1, pp. xviii–xx.Google Scholar
103 In actual fact the almshouse was not quite fully operational. In 1547 the ancillary buildings and four of the almsmens’ rooms were alienated to Richard Cecil, who then sold them to one David Vincent, formerly an officer belonging to ‘ye wardrobb of beddes’, who evicted some of the almsmen before selling them, sometime before 1558, to Nicholas Brigham. According to a complaint made by the almsmen, Brigham ‘converted ye same to a dwelling house for hym selfe and to his use and to take away ye armes standing and fixed over ye gate.’ Queen Elizabeth instigated an enquiry, but the ancillary buildings were not restored to the sole use of the almsmen until 1604, and even then some rooms were not fully restored: WAM 5325. See also L. E. Tanner, ‘The Queen’s Almsmen’, Westminster Abbey Occasional Papers (December 1969), pp. 9–10. Documents relating to the demolition of the almshouse are at WAM 65988–66022 and 66000–66003 (1777–79).
104 Rosser, , Medieval Westminster, pp. 84–86.Google Scholar