York Guides

The Cistercians made special provision for lay brothers, and the plans of their monasteries show this, not only by the lay brothers' quire west of the monks' quire in the church, but in the arrangement and scale of the buildings on the west side of the cloister, which were the lay brothers' quarters. The monks occupied the cast and south sides of the cloister, and in order to provide all the essential accommodation in these two ranges the Cistercian frater or refectory was set at right angles to the cloister, instead of parallel to it as in the houses of other orders.

The level of the cloister floor at Byland is much below that of the quire of the church, and the doorway at the north-east angle of the cloister has a flight of steps leading to it. The lay brothers' buildings, as has been said, were built before the nave of the church, and the doorway from the 'lane', the long passage west of the monastic cloister, was designed to open to the church at the cloister level. But when the nave came to be built, its floor was laid out only one step below the level of the monks' quire, so that a flight of steps became necessary at the lay brothers' entrance. To have these steps in the south aisle would have been very inconvenient, and if this was ever done it was soon abandoned, and steps provided in the cloister, although this entailed the blocking of the passage through the north end of the western range.

There is another door from the church to cloister, a narrow opening also at cloister level; this is blocked with masonry, and is in any case abnormal for a Cistercian plan.

The cloister was rebuilt in the fifteenth century with solid walls and traceried windows, but the original cloister had open arches on twin shafts after the usual fashion.