Refectory

Webster's Dictionary

(n.) A room for refreshment; originally, a dining hall in monasteries or convents.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

the dining-hall of a monastery, college, etc. The internal arrangements and fittings were very similar to those of the ordinary domestic halls, except that it was usually provided with a raised desk or pulpit, from which on some occasions one of the inmates of the establishment read to the others during meal-time. There are remains of old English refectories at Chester and Worcester now used as a schoolhouse, at Carlisle and Durham as a library, and at Beaulieu as a church. Portions of the beautiful arcaded walls of one remain at Peterborough. It was usually as at Lanercost and Rievalle, raised upon cellarage, which at Cluigny contained the bath-rooms; and in Benedictine friars' and regular canons' houses it lay parallel to the minster, in order that the noise and fumes of dinner might not reach the sanctuary; but in most Cistercian houses, as Beaulieu, Byland, Ford, Netley, Tintern, Rievalle, Furness, and Kirkham, Maulbronn, Clairvaux, Braisne, Savigny, and Bonport, it stood at right angles to the cloister, as it did in the Dominican convents of Toulouse and Paris. A few foreign monastic refectories were of two alleys, as Tours, Alcobaga, the Benedictines', and St. Martin des Champs at Paris.

At St. Alban's an abbot, on his resignation, went to reside in a chamber which he had fitted up under the refectory. The usual dinner-hour was three P. M. The small bell rang and the monks came out from the parlor and washed at the lavatory, and then entered the hall, two and two, taking their appointed places at the side-tables. At the high- table on the dais the superior sat, in the centre of the east wall, under a cross, a picture of the Doom, or the Last Supper, having the squilla-bell on his right hand, which he rang at the beginning and end of dinner. Usually the number of each mess varied between three and ten persons. Each monk drew down his cowl and ate in silence. While the hebdomadaries or servers of the week laid the dishes, the reader of the week be gan the lection from Holy Writ or the lives of saints in the wall pulpit. During dinner all the gates were closed, and no visitors were admitted. After dinner the broken fragments were sent down to the almonry for the poor and sick, and the brethren either took the meridian sleep, talked in the calefactory, read, or walked, but in some houses went in procession to the cemetery and prayed a while bareheaded among the graves of the brotherhood. At Durham the frater-house was used only on great occasions. It was fitted with benches and mats. The ordinary fare was pulse, fruit, vegetables, bread, fish, eggs, cheese, wine, or ale; and the evening meal, the biberes, collation, mistum, or caritas, consisted of bread and wine, and was followed by prayer in church before bedtime. The dinner-hour at length became put back to noon, and the supper was continued at the old time, about five P. M. At the entrance of the hall there was a large ambry for the mazers, cups, and plate. The Clugniacs distributed the unconsecrated hosts in hall. The Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci, painted for the Dominicans of Milan, represents the high-table of a refectory of the order. French or Latin only was allowed to be spoken in hall or cloister, and in 1337 meat was not eaten on Wednesdays and Saturdays during Advent, or from Septuagesima to Easter-day. The hall of a guest-house was lined with beds at Clugny and Farfa, for men on one side and for women on the other, while movable tables down the centre were laid out at mealtime.