A staircase in the southern range of the cloister provided access to the dormitory during the day, but when the monks woke during the night to celebrate Vigils in their choir, they used the night stairs that linked their dormitory with the church. In accordance with chapter 22 of the Rule of St Benedict the monks slept fully clothed ‘as if to prepare for the Lord’. This was in part for reasons of modesty but also meant that when the bell for the night office of Vigils sounded the monks did not have to waste time dressing but could simply climb out of bed and make their way to the choir stalls in the church. The monks lay on mattresses filled with straw, which were arranged around the room; there would have been a closet of sorts in the centre. Bedclothes were to be either black or white and pillows of a moderate size. At first all the monks slept in the dormitory, but later on it was common for Cistercian abbots to have their own lodgings. The sacrist may also have had a private chamber since he had to rise before the others to sound the bell for Vigils, and keep an eye on the goings on in church. In the fourteenth century the General Chapter conceded that priors and sub-priors might construct cells within the dormitory (i.e. rooms furnished with a lock) to give them greater privacy, and it is likely that at this time the other monks had some kind of a partition.