By the later Middle Ages the community
was also purchasing cloths and garments. The mid-fifteenth
century ‘ Bursar’s Account Book’ includes
payments for linen, silk, fur and other cloths.
The Cistercians’ desire for self-sufficiency
meant that each community sought to make its own clothing, blankets
and other such necessities. Wool from the abbey’s flocks was
prepared in the wool-house, an aisled storeroom which, at Fountains,
was situated beside the malt-house and the brew-house. This vast
warehouse was at one time the largest building in the outer court,
a visible testimony to the importance of wool production and the
wool industry.(1) Excavation of
the woolhouse from 1977 until 1980 showed that although this dates
from the mid-twelfth century, it was altered and reconstructed about
six times in accordance with the community’s changing needs
and developments in technology.
A fulling mill seems to have been added in the
west aisle in the late thirteenth century, and dye-vats and a hot
water supply added in the fourteenth century.(2)
This would have meant that the manufacture of cloth could have been
completed here. The woolhouse was not simply used for storage, and
the obedientiary
in charge of its management had an office here, in the north-east
corner of the building.(3) In
the late fifteenth century the decline of the wool trade and the
need for workshops to serve the restoration of the abbey church,
meant that the woolhouse was converted into a smithy, glaziers and
other workshops. Once the alterations in the church had been completed,
the building was demolished.(4)