Hortus Artium Medievalium

This paper begins with a survey and presentation of the main insular monasteries in North-Western Europe during the Early Middle Ages, from the British Isles to the West of France (including Iona, Lindisfarne, Skellig Michael, Crowland, Noirmoutier and the Mont-Saint-Michel). Then, it shows how hagiography presents the islands like small wilderness areas that the sole presence of the holy men (and their disciples) tend to sanctify. But, precisely because of their reputation for holiness, some of them became important places of wealth, culture and power, which made them the main targets of Viking raids. The main consequence was that in the long run most of the early medieval insular monasteries disappeared from the map, and that, although the monks were able to save their spiritual treasures, i.e. their relics, their material riches were lost in the process.

This paper considers how island monasteries may have been perceived by ordinary people in early medieval Ireland. It is suggested that perceptions of island monasteries were not structured exclusively by Judeo-Christian ideas. They may also have been coloured by the fact that island monasteries share certain characteristics with other sacred islands, including royal crannogs and the Otherworld islands that were a prominent topos of contemporary Irish literature. Other variables were also crucial in determining peoples’perceptions, including geography, topography and the extent to which an establishment enforced separation according to gender. It seems that islands were rarely chosen as the sites of independent nunneries so, to a greater or lesser extent, island monasteries would have been primarily associated with men. There is, however, evidence for cemeteries specifically for women and for particular groups of lay people. Mortuary rituals and pilgrimages provided the laity with opportunities to access such holy islands. There are interesting similarities, of character and purpose, between the rituals performed on island monasteries, and other ecclesiastical sites, on the founder’s feastday on the one hand and those performed at royal ceremonial complexes on the other. Such similarities have significant implications for our understanding of how these sacred landscapes were perceived and experienced.

The beginnings of monasticism are associated with deserts, especially those of Egypt and Syria, the withdrawal from the world allowing to seek God. This model also influenced the Martinian and Lerinian monasticism, and as we know, the Celtic monasticism. In this context has developed the concept of island desert : the island was a new kind of desert, whose shores became identified with the boundaries of the monastic enclosure. This notion of island desert is very present in Armorican Brittany, where the islands are numerous for this withdrawal. However, the oldest Breton saints’ lives, those of Guénolé, Paul Aurelian, Malo, Magloire and others, and the archaeological findings allow us to put this notion into perspective. It appears indeed that the islands occupied by the monks were concentrated in a few well-defined areas (Channel Islands, archipelago of Brehat, Brest roadstead, etc.), and represented links along the maritime routes. This paper aims therefore to study the Armorican island monastic settlements in their geographical, political and religious context and to study the nature of their insularity (re use of previous structures, evolution of implantation). We thus see that an island settlement did not necessarily imply the isolation and that the Armorican island monasticism was strongly connected to the mainland and its political and ecclesiastical structures.

The Ajuntament de Palma has coordinated and funded an archaeological project called “Recuperació, consolidació i museïtzació del monastir bizantí de l’illa de Cabrera”. The project has been coordinated by Maria Magdalena Riera Frau and Mateu Riera Rullan and its main objective was to understand how the monastery of which the Epistle XIII, 47 of Pope Gregory I refers had been. A letter written in 603 A.D. which talks about the existence of a male monastic community in the Balearic Island of Cabrera. After several field surveys and carried out seven small archaeological sondages, we think that we are in a position to defend the existence of a coenoby and several hermitages in the archipelago of Cabrera, which would have been active between the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. and, most likely, from the fifth century A.D.

The architectural structures and the mobile materials that we know so far of the monastic community will be known in this intervention. Among the latter we want to highlight the marbles, ceramics, numismatics and vitreous. Also a collection of graffiti and stamps and other representations apparently Christian will be presented.

The island Saint-Honorat of Lerins experienced a monastic occupation from 400-410. It is well informed thanks to several written sources. The archeological searchs done these last years have been focused on the Saint-Sauveur chapel. They brought remarkable informations, espacially on the first times of monastic life. The state I of the Vth century corresponds to an oratory which comes with a building interpreted as a hermit life space. In the state II, in use from the end of Vth -begenning of VIth to the beginning of the VIIIth century this hermit life space disapeared to be replaced by a funerary space linked to the deceased veneration. Beyond, the occupation can be followed till nowadays through the successive building of three churchs. So the site illustrates archaelogically the changes of monastic lifestyle especially between the Vth an the XIth century.

The monastic phenomenon in the insular Tyrhenian space has two big moments but, from a territory to an other, the development is done very differently. If, in the small islands, the terms of implementation, since the fifth-sixth centuries, concerning folded on themselves communities, wich we still don’t know the form, we know them more in Sardinia where it’s essentially urban or sub-urban monasteries. A first ephemeral wave is from the Vandal time, limited in Cagliari and related to the bishop Fulgence of Ruspe, wich stayed in exile there, before to return in Africa during the byzantian reconquest. Then, we have to wait the correspondence of Grégoire le Grand to find stabler forms, this time mostly related to the management of the heritage legated from rich families. However, the Corsica seems to stay totally out of this first expansion. In the Middle Age, micro-territories like the islands of Montecristo, Gorgone, Tino, Gallinara, Bergeggi... retain a strong attraction for structurated monastic communities wich act as a basis for the development of big monasteries wich the radiation has not any common measure with this islands’ modesty. They find political support strong enough to build powerful territorial lordships in Tuscany and in Liguria, but also in Corsica. However, there isn’t any monastery implanted in the island. It’s quite different in Sardinia where, both bishops and judges-kings, ask for the installation of big abbeys and promote very soon their development.

The monastic settlements of the Tyrrhenian islands of the Tuscan archipelago have been a subject of interest since Late Antiquity. Based on a series of notes, author gives a review of the documentary sources, the material evidence and the landscapes of Gorgona, Capraia, Pianosa and Montecristo. A monographic analysis of the latter is performed. Island of Montecristo is today a low-human-impact biogenetic natural reserve. In particular, in the light of recent surveys conducted on the island, author analyses descriptions, unpublished drawings and measurements made in 1875 by Gaetano Chierici, a famous paleontologist.

The representations of the “insular retreat”, between the Vth and the XIth century, reveal the centrality of the figure of the “island”, borrowed from the ancient culture and converted by the Christian monasticism. The ideal of the “Holy Island”, which the Lérins insular foundation constitutes a paradigm for the Early Middle Ages, shows that the Island remains the symbol of the retreat from the world, but being in a permanent relationship with the Christian world. On the other side of the Italian Peninsula, the Dalmatian monasticism, of which the written and archaeological sources are progressively revealing the importance, brings to light another function of the island foundations. The numerous Benedictine monasteries founded on the islands of Dalmatia and Kvarner appear indeed as a precursory element of the Gregorian reform in the Adriatic and as a new definition of the spheres of influence between Papacy and Byzantine East. It joins within the framework of the takeover of the region by the Roman Church which strengthened its authority through a variety of canonical decisions, family networks as well as some religious and cultural measures, which all together constitute the different instruments of the Reform of the Dalmatian Church during the Xth and XIth centuries.

Despite early references to hermits and monasteries on the Dalmatian islands, it is not easy to confirm their existence in the area of Central Dalmatia during the Early Christian period and the Early Middle Ages. This article attempts to highlight the issue of monasticism on the islands of Central Dalmatia from several aspects: 1. establishing a connection between monasteries and caves which, after local tradition, late medieval sources and toponyms were inhabited by hermits; 2. defining certain characteristic features of island monasteries; 3. problems of continuity from earlier Roman sites to monasteries, and from Early Christian basilicas to medieval monasteries. This does not give the whole picture of the early phases of island monasticism but gives some insight into the absence of reliable documents for some locations, and of wider archaeological investigations which could chronologically place and define those locations in the context of monasticism.

The article deals with the architectural complex on the islet of Majsan, where archaeological excavations yielded remains of Roman settlement. However, emphasize is placed on Christian amenities and various findings dating from the 4th to the 10th c. Seeing that the spatial organization of the complex was subordinated to a grave placed in a specially arranged room - an oratorium (?) - that in the second phase was rebuilt as a small memoria, with dome on pillars, we can assume that the grave was in fact a tomb of a distinguished person from the first centuries of Christianity. We are left with an open question whether Majsan should be considered a seat of a monastic community? There is no doubt that the islet, situated far from the urbanized area, was inhabited by a small Christian community committed to ascetic life. Although this isolated community established forms of life similar to those mentioned in the writings of St. Jerome, the fact that its life was centred on the veneration of a grave makes it exceptional, with no known analogies. It is impossible to conclude whether it was a cenobium or hospitium and especially who the people who lived on the islet were, because there is no proof that they belonged to any church order, although they apparently overcame hermitic customs.

This article aims to analyze the medieval monasteries in the Venetian lagoon through material culture. The chronological phases will be described until the Modern Age, however the attention will be focused on early and high Middle Ages. Value and potentiality of written sources and archaeological data will be discussed case by case. The end of this paper will be dedicated to reflections about the present and the future of monastic studies of Venice and its landscape, considering archaeological and not archaeological information.

Four examples of monasteries in the area of the Duchy of Venice, built between the 9th and 11th centuries, are presented. The female monasteries of San Zaccaria and San Lorenzo di Castello, founded in the 9th century, are situated in the discontinuous, mainly agricultural land of the early Middle Ages and would be absorbed into the town that had sprung up over the course of the 12th century. Sources indicate donations and liturgical furnishing works carried out in the 9th century. San Giovanni Evangelista di Torcello (one of the main centres of the Duchy) is a female Benedictine monastery (like the previous ones) which already existed at the beginning of the 11th century when through the intervention of the Orseolo family the body of Santa Barbara was placed there. Finally, San Nicolò di Lido, a male Benedictine monastery, is considered. It was built during the second half of the 11th century at the Lido, with the function of protecting port access to the lagoon, where the relic of Saint Nicholas of Myra, stolen by the Venetians during the crusade, is situated. In the light of the sources and finds from archaeological excavations, architectural aspects and furnishings are appraised.

The authors of the article set as their goal the examination of the complex question of early Monasticism (up to the 11th century) in the Kvarner region, reconsidering the old archaeological data, the unpublished ancient results and the results of new archaeological surveys gathered since 2010 through the specific research program. The first difficulty encountered is that of the actual identification of the archaeological remains as a monastic or hermitic site, given the lack of any written source for most of the sites. We examine here a certain number of religious sites, potentially monastic ones, considering their larger context of implantation, their patron, and/or their vicinity to a byzantine fortress. Other sites of different type are presented equally, through a description of the conditions of their foundation, focusing on the questions of the re-use of previous structures and their place along the maritime routes.

The article discusses the monastic church of St Lawrence and the Benedictine complex associated with it, which were once located next to the western entrance in the town walls of Krk, the Roman Curicum, in the area of its western necropolis, immediately above the town port. Based on the archival records and scarce, albeit significant, material remains in the field, plausible suggestions about the original appearance of the church are made. A pair of granite columns which were frequently re-used across the town of Krk are connected to a pair of capitals, and all further linked to the archival records mentioning two extremely “beautiful”columns which decorated the sanctuary area in the aisled church of St Lawrence.

Just a few traces indicate the possible existence of five early Christian and early medieval churches in the Bay of Cres. They are situated in Pjaceta (small square), under the Franciscan monastery, on the site of the Benedictine Sisters of St. Peter monastery, on the site of the abandoned monastery of St. Stephen in the immediate vicinity of the coast at the Piskel location, and the monastery of an unknown patron saint on an elevated position next to the Renaissance tower. It seems that those monasteries were built on the remains of former villae rusticae, on the most fertile land of the deep Bay of Cres with the possibility of capturing rainwater and multiple sources of fresh and brackish water.

Northern Adriatic islands (the Quarnero) are ideal for monastic establishments - those on larger islands mostly urban and suburban, as if on dry land, those on smaller ones mostly eremitic. The attraction of the islands drove to the establishment of monasteries already in Late Antiquity. During the reforms of the 11th century a number of new monasteries were founded on the Quarnero islands, being promoters of a new architectural practice (early Romanesque). A group of reformed monasteries on the Lošinj archipelago stands out. They are due to Gaudentius, bishop of Osor, a disciple of Romuald from Ravenna, founder of the Camaldoli branch of the Benedictines, with a predilection for eremitic life.

Although the sources are scarce and the remaining architecture not abundant, it is possible to reconstruct the monastic landscape of the Quarnero islands in the 11th C., taking in consideration the location of church sites (for both major establishments and humble eremitic ones), the few founding documents, the patronage, the possessions, the affiliation and the architecture itself.

In late antiquity, the island is a vivid picture of the monastery, separated from the world and protected by the sea. The ship is a kind of island movement, strictly separated as in the world. The image of the monastery-island was sometimes used for continental monasteries, such as Saint-Michel Cuixà. The image of the monastery-Noah’s Ark, mentioned in the Life of St. Cesare d'Arles, was included in the Life of Hugh of Semur by Gilon about Cluny and Marcigny first female Cluniac priory. Together they form the Noah’s Ark saving creatures of both sexes from destruction by the waves.

The archaeological excavation of new Benedictine monastic complexes in Italy, during the last years has allowed the study of the material culture that characterized the life of these institutes, since their foundation up to the last phases of life. The goal of this contribution is describe the characteristics of the vessels used inside the Italian monasteries and to follow their distribution in the service and meeting rooms of the Monastery, in relationship with the different qualities of animal bones found inside the same stratifications. Different sites will be analyzed for this type of analysis: the Monastery of St. Severo in Classe (Ravenna), excavated by the Department of Storia Culture Civilź (University of Bologna), under the direction of prof. Andrea Augenti, S. Vincenzo al Volturno, S. Michele alla Verruca and many others early medieval Italian monasteries. It will be possible in this way to also point out the different tendencies in the material culture and the peculiarities of the peninsular and insular monastic communities in comparison to other contexts, in the same territories, both in those frequented by urban community and is in those characterized by rural societies during the Early Middle Age.