What is monastic architecture?

What is monastic architecture?

Monastic buildings came to be constructed entirely of stone, right down to the most humble of buildings. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Cistercian barns consisted of a stone exterior, divided into nave and aisles either by wooden posts or by stone piers.

What did the Cistercians believe?

The Cistercian order maintained the independent organic life of the individual houses: each abbey having its own abbot elected by its own monks, its own community belonging to itself and not to the order in general, and its own property and finances administered without outside interference.

What is a cloister in architecture?

A cloister is usually the area in a monastery around which the principal buildings are ranged, affording a means of communication between the buildings. In developed medieval practice, cloisters usually followed either a Benedictine or a Cistercian arrangement.

What is the typical Cistercian order?

Cistercian style, architecture of the Cistercian monastic order in the 12th century. The order was an austere community characterized by devotion to humility and to rigid discipline. Unlike most orders of the period, under which the arts flourished, the Cistercians exercised severe restrictions on their use of art.

What is the difference between a monastery and a friary?

As nouns the difference between friary and monastery is that friary is house or dwelling where friars or members of certain religious communities live while monastery is place of residence for members of a religious community (especially monks).

How do Catholic monks make money?

Because of the whole vow of poverty thing, though, the nuns and monks don’t actually get to keep whatever they earn. Their salaries go straight to their religious order. In return, the order often gives each nun or monk a small living stipend. If you kept reading, well, you failed our nun/monk test.

What were Cistercians known for?

With compact broad estates and with a large, disciplined, unpaid labour force, the Cistercians were able to develop all branches of farming without the hindrances of manorial customs.

How are the Cistercians best described?

The Cistercians are an order of monks and nuns that arose in the twelfth century to foster the integral observance of the rule of Benedict of Nursia (d. 525). The order takes its name from the first community to adopt the reform, the Abbey of Cïteaux in Burgundy, France.

Can cloistered nuns see their families?

For their enitre lives, their time will be divided between constant prayer and the work of the convent. Most do not read novels, see movies, or play sports. They do not hug one another and keep all physical contact to a minimum. Most of them rarely, if ever, see their families.

Are monks cloistered?

Cloistered (or claustral) life is also another name for the monastic life of a monk or nun.

What do Cistercian monks wear?

The Cistercians’ garments were cheap and rough, their wardrobe frugal. They adhered strictly to chapter 55 of the Rule of St Benedict, and each monk had two tunics and two cowls, a scapular for work, shoes and stockings. The extra tunic allowed for washing and night-time wear, as the Cistercian monk slept in his habit.

What is the difference between Cistercians and Benedictines?

The Cistercians were formed out of the Benedictine monastic lifestyle. They are therefore part of the Benedictine order. The original Cistercians, now known as Cistercians of the Common Observance, focused on hard labour and prayer. However, over the centuries the focus shifted to academic educational pursuits.

What is Cistercian architecture?

Cistercian architecture emerged as a specialist area of scholarly interest after World War II. In the 1950s and 1960s, scholars developed the idea that the Cistercian order had formulated groundbreaking, proscriptive architectural ideals in the early 12th century.

How did the Cistercians influence the development of Gothic architecture?

The Cistercians were also skilled metallurgists, and their skill with metal has been associated directly with the development of Cistercian architecture and the spread of Gothic architecture as a whole. Cistercian architecture was applied based on rational principles.

Why did the Cistercians build abbeys and churches?

Most Cistercian abbeys and churches were built in remote valleys far from cities and populated areas; the isolation and a need for self-sustainability bred innovativeness among the Cistercians. Many Cistercian settlements display early examples of hydraulic engineering and waterwheels.

What style of architecture is Acey Abbey?

The “architecture of light” of Acey Abbey represents the pure style of Cistercian architecture, intended for the utilitarian purposes of liturgical celebration. Cistercian architecture is a style of architecture associated with the churches, monasteries and abbeys of the Roman Catholic Cistercian Order.

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