File:The English Dominicans (1921) (14781159761).jpg

Identifier: englishdominic00jarr (find matches)
Title: The English Dominicans
Year: 1921 (1920s)
Authors: Jarrett, Bede, 1881-1934
Subjects: Dominicans
Publisher: London : Burns, Oates and Washbourne
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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Text Appearing Before Image:
ging and crowded homes of these
earlier sons of St. Dominic.
The outward appearance of such a priory would have been
largely hidden from a visitor by a considerable precinct, en-
closed by a high stone wall, pierced by gates. This larger
enclosure circled the whole site, and marked off completely
the actual boundary of the religious establishment. Sometimes
it appears to have been so large in extent as to have included
within it the cemetery; but ordinarily this would have been
outside the precinct. Within this wider limit would be a
smaller and stricter enclosure, which consisted simply of the
monastic buildings pure and simple, even to the exclusion of
the guest house, where in the more important priories even
women were sometimes lodged. This narrower enclosure had,
by canonical decree, but one entrance and exit, so that each
who came and went would have to pass the scrutiny of the
brother porter. His dwelling was a cell by the south-west
corner of the church, so constructed that he could from
24
Text Appearing After Image:

DOMICAN PRIORY AT IPSWICH IN 1746
[To face p. 24

The Priory 25
his place of daily work attend to such callers as rang at
the bell and yet witness the various functions and ceremonies
in the church, for though not destined to say the Divine
Office in choir, being what is called a lay-brother, he had to
be present at Mass, Compline, and the greater liturgical
offices, as part of the effective expression of the Dominican
spirit. After the dissolution part of the Ludgate Blackfriars was
granted to Lord Cobham, and in the deed mention is made of
a certain window called the Closet-window looking" out into
the Church there.¹ This was evidently the look-out from the
porter's cell. In Ludgate, too, a long corridor ran down from
his cell to the gate, which gave on to the road, so that he had
a corridor of about fifty feet along which to pass to answer
the bell.² At Ipswich, in 1746, there still remained a consider-
able passage across an open space between the precinct wall
and what had been the porters lodge, for though the priory
by then had become a hospital it kept untouched the full plan

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