Espacios y funciones en los claustros monásticos del año Mil en Cataluña

Around the year one thousand most of the monasteries in the Catalan counties, as also of other European territories, had almost completely renewed their constructions. In most cases, the planning was composed of a set of monastic buildings that were arranged according to a central space, the cloister, which was both organizer and centre of the monastic life. Although from the twelfth century many of the structures were replaced, particularly the church and the cloistered galleries with the introduction of the sculptural decoration, the organization and overall dimensions of the monasteries did not change. In most cases, the space corresponding to the cloister of the eleventh century has been preserved along with some of the dependencies, despite the fact that new galleries were built in subsequent periods. The aim of this work is to try to acknowledge the spaces and functions of these cloisters as they were in their initial stages by using, however with caution, the preserved structures and the documentary data.