One of these diminutive convents is appropriated to the "oblati" or novices (Q), the other to the sick monks as an "infirmary" (R).
After an education at St Andrews, and acting as tutor to the children of Lord Darcy, the English warden of the North, he became a Dominican, but was soon in trouble as a heretic. In 1536 he made his way to England, but failing to obtain the preferment he desired at Cambridge, he went on to Italy, where the influence of Cardinal Pole, who was himself accused of heresy, secured him the post of master of the novices in the Dominican convent at Bologna.
He was in high favour with that sovereign, but renounced the prospect of a bishopric to enter the Cistercian house of Rievaulx in Yorkshire, which was founded in 1131 by Walter Espec. Here Ælred remained for some time as master of the novices, but between the years 1142 and 1146 was elected abbot of Revesby in Lincolnshire and migrated thither.
He wrote a chronicle of the monastery and several biographies - the life of Gerhard Groot, of Florentius Radewyn, of a Flemish lady St Louise, of Groot's original disciples; a number of tracts on the monastic life - The Monk's Alphabet, The Discipline of Cloisters, A Dialogue of Novices, The Life of the Good Monk, The Monk's Epitaph, Sermons to Novices, Sermons to Monks, The Solitary Life, On Silence, On Poverty, Humility and Patience; two tracts for young people - A Manual of Doctrine for the Young, and A Manual for Children; and books for edification - On True Compunction, The Garden of Roses, The Valley of Lilies, The Consolation of the Poor and the Sick, The Faithful Dispenser, The Soul's Soliloquy, The Hospital of the Poor.
They use interactivity to enable the participation of novices in the scientific process just as expert astronomers do on a daily basis.
