Medieval architecture
More general subjects:
Architectures du monachisme
Une histoire monumentale de l’Île Saint-Honorat de Lérins, Ve-XIIIe siècle
L’île Saint-Honorat de Lérins accueille des religieux depuis le début du Ve siècle. Il s’agit d’un haut lieu du monachisme témoin des expériences ascétiques insulaires qui se développent en Occident durant l’Antiquité tardive. Le caractère exceptionnel de Lérins tient aussi à la longue durée d’occupation du site par des religieux. Ce n’est qu’à partir de 2005 qu’ont été entreprises des recherches archéologiques d’envergure sur l’île : fouilles et archéologie du bâti qui font de Lérins la seule île monastique pour laquelle il existe des vestiges archéologiques remontant de façon assurée aux premières expériences ascétiques occidentales. En présentant ce dossier l’ouvrage de Yann Codou apporte un éclairage inédit sur la genèse du monachisme en Occident où des expériences érémitiques cohabitent au sein de l’espace insulaire avec des formes de vie plus collectives. Les données restituent également les dynamiques du monachisme au cours du haut Moyen Âge et dans les siècles suivants en particulier le processus de communautarisation du monachisme. L’architecture est ici un document historique à part entière qui dialogue avec les sources écrites. Les multiples monuments qui composent le paysage insulaire offrent un terrain de choix pour comprendre des mécanismes de construction identitaire fondés sur la création et la réinterprétation des espaces sacrés. Les enjeux de la recherche dépassent largement l’histoire de la seule communauté lérinienne pour s’inscrire dans une réflexion sur l’organisation des espaces monastiques et leurs mutations tout au long du Moyen Âge.
Saint-Pierre d’Orbais
Social Space and Gothic Architecture at a Benedictine Monastery
The fragmentary remains of the Benedictine monastery of Saint-Pierre d'Orbais in northwest Champagne preserves a particular iteration of Gothic style and technological achievement as well as the built environment of a community deeply embedded in the world around them. Through their architecture successive generations of monks of Orbais whose institutional life stretched from the end of the seventh century to end of the eighteenth century were constantly seeking to clarify their position in the changing physical and social landscapes they inhabited. Although connected by a shared site the architectural evidence from Orbais preserves remnants from several episodes of use and reuse. The site is treated thematically starting with the boundaries that define the site then the resources that shaped monastic life in this particular location followed by the monastic landscapes that shaped the community as an institution. These categories reflect both the nature of our evidence for the contexts of building construction and the types of landscapes that were most active for the monastic community at Orbais over the long life of the site. The final chapter resituates the architectural history of the monastic church in light of these interrelated landscapes contextualizing existing scholarship that treats it as a specifically Gothic monument and providing lines of connection to medieval built environments more broadly.
Small Churches and Religious Landscapes in the North Atlantic c. 900–1300
In recent years archaeologists working at Norse sites across the North Atlantic have excavated a number of very small churches with cemeteries often associated with individual farms. Such sites seem to be a characteristic feature of early ecclesiastical establishments in Norse settlements around the North Atlantic and they stand in marked contrast to church sites elsewhere in Europe. But what was the reason behind this phenomenon?
From Greenland to Denmark and from Ireland to the Hebrides Iceland and Norway this volume presents a much-needed overview of small church studies from around the North Atlantic. The chapters gathered here discuss the different types of evidence for small churches and early ecclesiastical landscapes review existing debates and develop a synthesis that places the small churches in a broader context. Ultimately despite the varied types of data at play the contributions to this volume combine to offer a more coherent picture of the small church phenomenon pointing to a church that was able to answer the needs of a newly converted population despite the lack of an established infrastructure and throwing new light on how people lived and worshipped in an environment of dispersed settlements.
Sacred Places
Devotional Practices and Space Organization in Early Medieval Monasteries (5th-10th centuries)
The body or relics of a saint could attract divine protection on the community and the place where they were kept. If in some cases the monasteries were structures of assistance to sanctuaries of certain notoriety starting from the 7th century they increasingly played the role of protagonists autonomously managing the devotional activities derived from the acquisition or translation of relics. The need to preserve the isolation of the 'clausura' and to manage at the same time an increasing flow of pilgrims led these monasteries to build new spaces for prayer communion and assistance.
This book includes the Proceedings of the International Conference held in Naples (Italy) on November 28-29 2022. The Conference - organized as part of a Marie-Curie research project by the Fondazione San Bonaventura with the contribution of the Italian Ministry of Culture - brought together historians archaeologists and art historians to discuss the theme of spatial articulation of monasteries chosen as places of pilgrimage during the Early Middle Ages in Western Europe. From this interdisciplinary discussion exciting insights have emerged on aspects of particular relevance such as the organization of the funerary space and interaction between monks and laypeople the elements of balance or clash between 'clausura' and hospitality and the comparison between male and female monasteries as devotional centers.