Something Distinct, or Business as Usual? Interpreting the Plan of the Late Medieval Bridgettine Monastery in Naantali, Finland

This article analyses modern interpretations of the medieval plan of the Bridgettine Monastery of Naantali, Finland. Instead of seeing the distinct spatial organisation as deviation from the Bridgettine norm, we consider it as an expression of a medieval process, by which monastic principles were re-conceptualised in order to be realised in material form. This perspective builds on the shift in thinking that has taken place in the study of medieval urban planning. Instead of being ‘organic’, meaning disorganised, medieval urban development has come to be considered as intentional, guided by general principles, although not in a manner that is always obvious to the modern mind. We concur that models such as St Bridget’s visions and the plan of Vadstena Abbey are important tools for reconstructing medieval monastic plans. Meanwhile, we propose that such models can also add latent and counterproductive baggage to this field of study by encouraging modern expectations of regularity within monastic architecture. If the designs of monasteries do not follow such models perfectly, discrepancies are often erroneously misconceived as indications of the builders’ insufficient skills and knowledge.

Remarks on the Question of the So-Called Monastic Schools of Architecture

The hypothetical interpretation of the beginnings of monastic architecture in Hungary in the eleventh century as corresponding to the Italian origin of the clergy cannot be proved, and the beginning of the dominating role of a three-apsidal, axially organized basilica in Hungary cannot be traced earlier than the last quarter of the eleventh century.The dominance of the type, which has been considered in Hungarian art history since the nineteenth century as a “national” building type, can be dated as of the last quarter of the eleventh century. It is not only the problem of monastic architecture, because the same typology—in other dimensions—is also characteristic of other church buildings—cathedrals and provostry churches.However, it is apparent that both in the case of monasteries and in other genres of church buildings, the Hungarian solutions are minimal and less complicated. There is an important written source concerning the value of the patronage of church buildings. The so called Estimationes communes iuxta consuetudinem regni (i.e. common estimations) go back to Romanesque times and they were still accepted in 1516 by the printed edition of Decretum tripartitum by István Werbőczy. The classification of ecclesiastic property was governed by two criteria: the value of the building and the possession of the right of sepulture.The architectural heritage of the Cistercians appears as a rather uniform stylistic phenomenon. This uniformity was interpreted in the art historical literature as a contribution by the order supposedly having an own building organization. But the hypothesis that the workers, the conversi of the order were among the other craftsmen and builders of churches and monasteries of the order has been revealed as a legendary interpretation of art history.The most active period of the Hungarian Cistercians began with the privileges given by King Béla III to the Order and with the foundation of three abbeys in the 1180s. The very rational and well-organized building activity of the Cistercians and also the effective control coming from the top of their centralized organization has been presumably considered as unusual by contemporary observers.To prevent the excessive influence of secular people and to improve the education of the monks, the centralized organization was proposed for the Benedictines too. This reform was initiated by popes of the time about 1200, Innocent III and also Honorius III. It seems that the necessary reform as well as the solution of the problems by adopting the experience of the Cistercians influenced the spread of the regular monastery building under the evident intention of imitation. Quadratic interior courts framed by open galleries and surrounded by the most important common rooms, including the chapterhouse and refectory of the monastery, appear evidently from about 1220 in Hungarian Benedictine architecture.The Praemonstratensians, a reform order, was a nearly contemporary parallel to the Cistercians. In the twelfth century and also at the beginning of the thirteenth they were in fact in a straight contact with the Cistercians, who exercised a kind of control over the order, whose rules were not derived from the Benedictine rules but were based on the rules of St. Augustine. Mainly the centralized organization of the order could correspond to the Cistercian model. The main difference between these reform orders concerned their patronage. While the Cistercians in Hungary were mostly under royal patronage (mainly after the visit of a delegation of Cîteaux to the Court of Béla III in 1183), the Praemonstensian constructions were mainly foundations by private patrons.It seems that contrary to partly surviving hypotheses and forgeries in old art historical literature, no royal court and also no monastic order was practically involved in architecture or building praxis, including schools of architecture. Their relationship was different, corresponding to their liturgy and to the representation of their self-image.

Architecture of Monasteries

The idea of withdrawal from secular society was central to the notions of monasticism and monastic architecture. The word derives from μόνος (mónos, Greek for ‘alone’). Christian monasticism made its first traceable appearances at the end of the 3rd century in Egypt and Palestine, though we know little of its architecture at this early stage. The eremitic ideal of the solitary saint retained its appeal, but was soon complemented by cenobitic monasticism where likeminded male or female ascetics joined together in communities that built architecture that was used in common. Monasticism as a religious form of life is found in Buddhism, Islam, and other traditions, though this essay will emphasize the medieval West, where monasteries were popular beginning in the 5th century. The various orders or congregations formulated differing architectural responses to their needs. The 9th-century Plan of Saint Gall, for example, represents an ideal meant to inspire emulation. Some monasteries were designed only for their resident populations of monks or nuns, while others might accommodate lay brothers or sisters, serfs, parish communities, visiting pilgrims, or dignitaries. A number of cathedrals across Europe were in fact monastic, following most often the Augustinian rule. The cenobitic monastery typically provided spaces for worship (church), sleeping (dormitory), dining (refectory), and meeting (chapter house) for the resident community, as well as buildings for reception and accommodation of visitors and other more functional structures (stables, storage barns, forges, mills, etc.). Monastic communities varied in size and might be very small or quite large. Some were found near or within urban locations, while others commanded large agricultural lands, including dependent parishes and granges. A survey of monastic architecture must therefore include industrial and hydraulic structures such as mills and dams, storage structures such as barns, dependent priory and farm buildings, and buildings for the care of the sick and infirm. Bibliography on monastic architecture is often divided regionally, and often focuses upon the church rather than the entire complex. Scholarship has privileged the architecture of certain orders—Cluniac Benedictines, Cistercians, and Franciscans, for example—over the more than five hundred monastic orders and congregations that once existed during the European Middle Ages. Archival research, architectural analysis, and archaeology are all contributing to a broader picture of the range and diversity of monastic architecture for male, female, and double houses. Traditional approaches to medieval architecture and its decoration have been primarily formalist, anchoring stylistic observations upon church records read as building documents in order to establish chronologies. While this approach remains important, new approaches such as stone-for-stone recording, C-14 dating of lime mortar and plaster, and dendrochronology, as well as the scientific study of painted layers and 3D modeling, are reshaping the history of medieval buildings. Together with archaeological analysis, early-21st-century work is examining the longer and more complicated cultural biographies of buildings and sites. This more integrated approach has recognized that architecture is not merely a reflection of monastic reform, but rather plays a strategic role in shaping it.

Medieval Architectural Theory, the Sacred Economy, and the Public Presentation of Monastic Architecture:

The Cistercian abbey church plan with a flat east end, the “Bernardine plan,” is one of the most distinctive, and most discussed, plans of medieval architecture. It has traditionally been seen as a direct result of views on monastic architecture held by Bernard of Clairvaux, our most important source for understanding medieval art and architecture. However, as Conrad Rudolph argues in Medieval Architectural Theory, the Sacred Economy, and the Public Presentation of Monastic Architecture: The Classic Cistercian Plan, this ignores the architecture of Bernard's own monastery and the architectural theory of his circle. By reading this plan in conjunction with the Cluniac apse-echelon plan and the well-known pilgrimage plan and considering it alongside the monastic sacred economy and issues of materials, craftsmanship, and public access, Rudolph shows that the “Bernardine plan” does not represent Bernard's conception at all. It is better thought of as the “classic Cistercian plan,” a compromise of lower spiritual standards aimed at broader institutional acceptance.