Chapter and Verse

Chapter and Verse. Abbey Quarter. This is the chapter house. Senior monks met here every day to discuss abbey business and order punishments for monks who had broken the abbey rules. Every meeting began with a reading of a chapter from the Bible, so the room became known as the chapter house., Like other important parts of the abbey the chapter house was designed to be beautiful as well as useful. The walls were clad in smooth limestone, decorated with blind arcading The ceiling was barrel-vaulted. The vault was built with a light weight stone called tufa, ideal for a ceiling. , blind arcading - overlapping semi-circular arches creating a decorative pattern , barrel-vaulted - a continuous semi-circular stone roof, The song 'Sumer is i-cumen in' is a round (like 'London's burning'). It's the oldest known round in English and may be the oldest known song to include the word 'fart'. It pops up in this verse:, The ewe bleats for her lamb. , The cow bleats for her calf. , The bullock leaps. , The stag farts., Spelt 'uerteth' in the original manuscript, this word probably only means 'leap' or 'turn' but this may be a deliberate joke.