medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
> Perhaps I'm very misinformed or unenlightened, but I
> don't think there's any such thing as "Benedictine
> architecture." True, there was Cluny and houses it
> inspired. But I'd have a tough time describing
> something as general as "Benedictine." Depends on the
> date, the area of the world and many other factors.
> I'll be interested in any other responses to this
A long time ago, I did my MA thesis on Benedictine building in
England in the later Middle Ages, and this was certainly one of my
conclusions. There were general principles of planning that could be
widely found in Europe after the Carolingian reforms (the ideal St
Gall plan, etc.), but they were applied quite loosely, depending on
regional traditions and all sorts of other factors, from
specificities of site to institutional differences between
"Benedictine" monasteries in various parts of Europe. Until the
Fourth Lateran Council, I don't believe there were any provincial
regulations applicable to all "Benedictine" houses, which never
formed anything as organized as an order -- like the Cistercians, who
promulgated regulations concerning their churches and exercised no
little centralized control in the building of new monasteries. About
the only thing that "Benedictine" monasteries had in common was the
Benedictine rule. There was a great deal of variation in the way
that was manifested architecturally. There have been all sorts of
rather specialized studies of various aspects of Benedictine
monasteries over the past few decades, but most of the general books
mention something like a "Benedictine plan" for monasteries far too
flippantly.
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag
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