Also 9 fratory. [app. f. FRATER1 + -Y.] = FRATER1.
1538. Leland, Itin., III. 119. This John Chinok buildid the Cloyster, the Dormitor, the Fratery.
1572. R. H., trans. Lauaterus’ Ghostes (1596), 31. He willed them to serche in ye halowed place for the scroule, which at the last they found in the Fratry (as they term it) where they had laide it before.
1611. Cotgr., Refectouër, a Refectuarie, or Fratrie: the roome wherein Friers eat together.
1883. Norfolk Directory, 486. The [Grammar] School was originally kept in the fratory of the Blackfriars.
attrib. 1708. Motteux, Rabelais, V. v. (1737), 18. He led us into a spacious delicate Refectuary, or Fratrie-room.
b. By some modern writers applied (through etymological association with FRATRY2) as the name of a room in monastic establishments supposed to have served as the common-room of the ‘brethren’; also to the chapter-house.
1786. W. Gilpin, Lakes Cumberld. (1808), II. xx. 95. The fratry, as it is called, or chapter-house in the abbey, is the only building that deserves notice.
1874. E. Sharpe, Archit. Cistercians, 18. The Fratry, the ordinary day-room of the monks.
