Come,
my son, this is the way to the chapel."
If the reader has visited the old colleges in Oxford or Cambridge,
he will easily conceive a fair idea of the general appearance of
the abbey of Abingdon.
There were the same quadrangles (vulgarly called "quads"), the same
cloisters, open to the air, but sheltered from sun and rain; which
find their fairest modern example, perhaps, in Magdalene College,
Oxen. The cells of the monks resembled in size and position the
rooms of the undergraduates at the olden colleges, although they
were far less luxuriously furnished.
Nor was the element of learning wanting. The Benedictines were
indeed the scholars of Europe, and some hundred boys were educated,
free of cost, at Abingdon--the cloisters in summer serving as their
classrooms. And let me tell my schoolboy readers, the fare and the
discipline were alike very hard.
But the chapel in great abbeys--like the one we are writing
about--resembled a cathedral rather than a college chapel. And he
who has the general plan of a cathedral in his mind can easily
imagine the abbey church of St. Mary's at Abingdon.
The choir was devoted to the monks alone; the nave and aisles
apportioned to the laity; the side chapels contained altars
dedicated to special saints, and occasional services.
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