The Chapter House
The chapter house was a formal meeting chamber where the canons gathered every day.
The room was divided into two by decorated arches with polished marble shafts. One end of the room was probably used as a lobby, a place where visitors and young novices might stand during chapter meetings.
Beyond was the chapter house, where canons would have met each morning. The abbot and his senior officers sat on a raised platform at the end of the room, and the other canons would have occupied stone benches against the walls.
Following the reading of a chapter from the Rule of St. Augustine (the guide for the Premonstratensian way of life), the canons confessed their sins, discussed business and daily work tasks.
Abbots were often buried in or near chapter houses. A stone coffin lies in the floor of the Chapter House and there are two further burials in the adjacent cloister.
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