The Refectory and Chapter House
The refectory and the chapter house were the two principal conventual spaces of the convent castle, and the two rooms in which the liturgical and administrative life of the Order were most fully expressed. The refectory, in German Remter, was the place in which the brethren took their meals; the chapter house, in German Kapitelhaus, was the place in which the brethren conducted their daily business and observed the public faults of the Order. The two rooms were, in architectural terms, the most elaborately decorated interior spaces of the convent castle, and the two rooms in which the building programme of the Order was most fully realised.
The Refectory: Form and Function
The refectory was, in the canonical monastic tradition, a long rectangular hall placed on the south side of the cloister garth, and was designed to accommodate the whole convent seated at a single table or at a series of parallel tables. The refectory of the Teutonic convent castle followed this basic arrangement, but was substantially enlarged. The mature refectory of the early fourteenth century was a hall of considerable size, typically twenty to thirty metres long and ten to fifteen metres wide, divided by columns or piers into a central nave and two aisles, and roofed with a ribbed vault.
The refectory was the principal communal space of the convent, and the place in which the brethren took their meals in silence, while one of their number read aloud from a devotional text. The reader was seated in a pulpit, in German Lesekanzel, placed in the body of the hall at a height of some three to four metres above the floor, and accessible by an internal staircase. The most impressive surviving example of a refectory pulpit in the Order’s buildings is the pulpit of the Middle Castle of Marienburg, attached to one of the columns of the great hall.
The refectory was entered from the cloister garth by a single door, typically placed at the end of the hall nearest the kitchen. The kitchen was, in the larger convent castles, a substantial building in its own right, and communicated with the refectory by a serving hatch, in German Speisebrücke, through which the cooked food was passed. The most impressive surviving example of a Teutonic refectory is the great hall of the Middle Castle of Marienburg, one of the largest medieval refectory interiors in Europe.
The Chapter House: Form and Function
The chapter house was, in the canonical monastic tradition, a smaller rectangular hall placed on the east side of the cloister garth, in which the daily chapter meeting of the convent was held. The chapter meeting was the occasion on which the business of the convent was transacted, the faults of the brethren were corrected, and the liturgical commemorations of the day were observed. The chapter house of the Teutonic convent castle followed the basic arrangement of the Cistercian and Premonstratensian traditions, but was substantially elaborated.
The chapter house was, in the mature type of the early fourteenth century, a rectangular hall of moderate size, typically ten to fifteen metres long and six to ten metres wide, with a ribbed vault supported on a regular grid of responds. The hall was typically heated by a fireplace and lit by pointed-arched windows. The most impressive surviving example is the chapter house of the High Castle of Marienburg, substantially rebuilt in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.
The chapter house was, in the Teutonic Order, the seat of an unusually elaborate constitutional life. The chapter meeting was held daily, attended by the Komtur, the senior brethren, the priest-brothers, and — in the larger convents — the representatives of the great officers. The proceedings were recorded by the chancellor in the Statutenbuch, the register of the convent. The chapter meeting was also the occasion on which the faults of the brethren were publicly corrected, in accordance with the customary culpa.
The Architectural Setting
The refectory and the chapter house were, in the mature convent castle, the two most elaborately decorated interior spaces. Their decoration was, a deliberate echo of the great princely halls of the contemporary German secular tradition. The Komtur’s table was placed on a raised dais at one end of the refectory, typically decorated with a mural painting of the Virgin Mary or of the Order’s patron saints. The walls were typically decorated with a series of mural paintings representing scenes from the life of Christ, the Virgin, or the legends of the Order’s patron saints. The most impressive surviving programme is that of the great hall of the Marienburg, of which substantial fragments survive.
The chapter house entrance was typically framed by a monumental portal, decorated with sculpture of the Virgin, the Order’s patron saints, and the heraldic devices of the Order. The interior was typically decorated with programmes of wall paintings, often of the Last Judgement or of the life of St Mary.
Sources
- Boockmann, Hartmut. Der Deutsche Orden: Zwölf Kapitel aus seiner Geschichte. Munich: Beck, 1981.
- Biskup, Marian, and Janusz Trupinda. Das Marienburger Konventsbuch 1399–1412. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 2003.
- Rohde, Hans. Macht und Pracht der Marienburg. Königstein: Langewiesche, 1952.
Related Reading
The architectural setting of the refectory and the chapter house is treated in the parent article on the convent castles of the Teutonic Order, and the broader architectural logic of the convent is treated in the article on the design of convent castles. The great hall of the Middle Castle of Marienburg is the most impressive surviving example of a Teutonic refectory. The daily life of the convent is treated in the chapter on the Order’s structure and daily life, and the constitutional life of the Order in the chapter on the hierarchy of the Order.