Cloister

First Appearance and Context

The Cloister is presented as the literal and symbolic center of a math. It comes into focus when an avout moves from workrooms into the Old Library and out onto the covered walkway encircling the garden, or when groups circulate around it after the curfew bell on their way between chalk halls and the refectory.

Structure and Features

The Cloister is the covered walkway and central garden that form the heart of a math. It consists of a roofed gallery running around a rectangular garden. The inner edge opens to the weather between a row of columns, while the outer edge is bounded by a wall pierced by openings that lead into adjacent buildings. Noted examples opening onto the Cloister include the Old Library, the Refectory, and various chalk halls.

Stone floors worn smooth by generations, carved woodwork, forged hinges, and column capitals reflect centuries of craftsmanship. The garden interweaves grass, gravel paths, herb beds, shrubs, and occasional trees; cultivation is governed by the community’s Discipline, which regulates what plants may be grown in such spaces. In places, the gallery widens into functional spaces such as a Chapter house; a back exit from such a widened section can lead into a covered alley between chalk halls and workshops, whose walls hold niches for works in progress. Routes from these passages and stairs connect onward toward major complexes such as the Mynster.

Benches along the gallery face into the garden; older fraas and suurs are sometimes seen seated there performing small labors—such as assembling sandals—while observing traffic in the Cloister.

Relationships and Functions

The Cloister serves both as a quiet, contemplative space and as a thoroughfare connecting key buildings. Avout regularly traverse it moving between work, study, meals, and observances, and its arcade provides sheltered circulation in all weather. It also functions as a communal area where avout pause, converse, or undertake light tasks on the benches facing the garden. From the Cloister and its garden, paths and passages can lead toward major complexes such as the Mynster.

In one discussion, a Grandsuur warned that fids who failed to demonstrate sufficient preparedness would be kept within the Cloister during Apert for their own safety rather than permitted to go extramuros—underscoring the Cloister’s role as a safe internal space when external conditions or readiness dictate.

Term and usage in Orth

According to The Dictionary, the meaning of the word has shifted across forms of Orth: - In Old Orth, any closed or locked-up space. - In Early Middle Orth, the math as a whole. - In Late Middle Orth, specifically a garden or court surrounded by buildings, conceived as the heart of the math. - In New Orth, any quiet, contemplative space insulated from distractions.

Current Status

Within the narrative so far, the Cloister is an actively used, well‑maintained central space where avout pass, work is tended in the garden, and adjacent halls and libraries open toward it.