Braies – Medieval term for underpants – made of linen, loose-fitting, with a drawstring or belt.
Calefactory – Also called the “warming room”. The abbey’s common room, with a big fireplace, for the community’s relaxation in the hour before Compline.
Clepsydra – Water clock.
Custumals – Documents of medieval England, relating to such settlements as towns, manors, and monasteries, setting out their social, economic, and political customs and traditions, creating precedents which others could study and learn from.
Dorter – A dormitory, though by this point in the Middle Ages, monks slept in individual cells – retro-fitted wooden cubicles in the case of monasteries built back in the old days when they all shared one big room.
Horarium – Latin for “hours” – the occasions of liturgical worship dispersed through the monastic day.
Lavatorium – Though we take our modern word “lavatory” from here, and by it we mean “toilet”, this word comes from the Latin for washing, and is not a toilet but a washroom.
Midden – Compost pile; general household dump.
Prie-dieu – Prayer-desk for private devotions.
Reredorter – Literally, “behind where we sleep”: the toilets.
Vigils – The night Offices, sometimes called Nocturns. The Office of Vigils concludes with Matins, so in the course of time the night Office came to be known as Matins, and the daybreak Office, once Matins, became Lauds.