Art of the Catholic Religious Orders in Medieval Europe

by

Thomas E. A. Dale, Matthew J. Westerby

• LAST MODIFIED: 20 March 2025
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199920105-0188

Introduction

In western Europe, Christian religious orders were established beginning in the sixth century as groups of affiliated communities of monks and nuns that followed a common rule and depended on their order’s motherhouse for governance and guidance. While the origins of Christian monasticism can be traced to the deserts of Egypt in the late third century and monastic settlements began to be established in the British Isles, Gaul, and Italy as early as the fourth century, the origins of religious orders in western Europe are generally traced to Saint Benedict of Nursia (b. c. 480–d. c. 547). Benedict’s influence may be ascribed to the wide dissemination of the Benedictine Rule and the foundation of the Abbey of Monte Cassino (c. 529), which came to be the center of a larger network of dependencies in southern Italy. The rule used at Monte Cassino sets out the practical routines and ideals of a communal monastic life, aimed at anticipating Paradise on earth. Benedict mandated that the community worship together seven times during the day and once at night, thus comprising the eight canonical hours—services of prayer, psalmody, and hymns. He also regulated communal life to balance physical labor with prayer and worship. Art and architecture shaped and regulated the shared life of prayer, worship, and contemplation. While the rule says nothing about art and architecture, and nothing survives of the first monastic complex at Monte Cassino, the promotion of Benedictine monasticism by Pope Gregory the Great and the Carolingian reforms led to the development of common elements of the monastic plan fully embodied in the early-9th-century utopian Saint Gall Plan, including a central cloister or enclosed garden with the church on one side and other practical structures arranged along the other sides, including the dormitory, refectory, kitchen, latrines, lavatorium, and eventually the chapter house where the community read the rule and administered the practical functions of the community. Over time, new religious orders were founded, in part to reform what were seen as lapses in the rigor of monastic life. Among the most successful and influential of these orders were the Cluniacs (founded 910), the Carthusians (1084), the Cistercians (1098), the Franciscans (1209), and the Dominicans (1216), each of which had distinctive artistic emphases. New female religious communities also developed alongside or within the new orders, including the Clarissans (within the Franciscan order), Dominicans, and Cistercians. The Crusades also spawned new military orders, such as the Templars, Hospitallers, and Teutonic Knights. Figural art was deployed in various media to facilitate devotion, to visualize scriptural narratives, and to establish distinctive models of monastic behavior and identities for individual orders.

General Overviews

Among the earliest general overviews of monastic art and architecture are antiquarian studies (Lenoir 2012, originally published 1852–1856) published that seek to document national and regional traditions while including reference to the broader European context with a focus on artistic styles and morphological development of monastic planning. Modern surveys of monastic art and architecture, such as Braunfels 1972, Brooke 1982, Krüger and Toman 2012, and Zarnecki 1972, have shifted attention to the variations of art and architecture among different monastic orders, specific iconographic themes, and the role of patronage. Hamburger 2019 offers a significant corrective to the nearly exclusive focus on male monastic art in a critical historiographic review of the art of female religious communities. A recent trend in scholarship on monastic art, exemplified in Cohen 2020 and Dale 2020, is the recognition of the role played by the materiality of art in stimulating the physical senses as aides to contemplation. Art is also included in interdisciplinary handbooks of Christian monasticism (see Kaczynski 2020 and Beach and Cochelin 2020, both cited under Anthologies).

• Braunfels, Wolfgang. Monasteries of Western Europe: The Architecture of the Orders. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972.

  A still unrivaled survey of [male] monastic art and architecture in western Europe that considers how monasteries and their decoration embody the ideals of monastic life set out in the rule guiding each community. Includes translations of primary sources.

• Brooke, Christopher. Monasteries of the World: The Rise and Development of the Monastic Tradition. New York: Crescent Books, 1982.

  A profusely illustrated history of western European monasticism with a survey of significant monastic art and architecture of the principal orders with particular emphasis on the Benedictines and the reform movements of Cluny and Citeaux.

• Cohen, Adam S. “Monastic Art and Architecture, c. 700–1100: Material and Immaterial Worlds.” In The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West. 2 vols. Edited by Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin, 519–540. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

  Overview of early medieval monastic art and architecture and the ways in which the material mediates the experience of the immaterial and transcendent.

• Dale, Thomas E. A. “Monastic Art, Sacred Space and the Mediation of Religious Experience.” In Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism. Edited by Bernice Kaczynski, 349–371. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.

  An historiographic essay of the interpretation of monastic art and architecture in medieval Europe from Late Antiquity to the fourteenth century with emphasis on the material means of mediating the sacred.

• Grégoire, Réginald, Léo Moulin, and Raymond Oursel. The Monastic Realm. Translated by Donald Mills. New York: Rizzoli, 1985.

  An abundantly illustrated introduction to western European Christian monasticism and architecture, translated into English from French.

• Hamburger, Jeffrey F. “The Art and Architecture of Female Monasticism.” In A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe. 2d ed. Edited By Conrad Rudolph, 823–856. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019.

  A significant review of scholarship and critical bibliography on medieval female monasticism, emphasizing broader shifts in the field from studies focused on documenting the art and patronage of convents to more recent work engaging gender analysis and spirituality.

• Krüger, Kristina, andRolf Toman, eds. Monasteries and Monastic Orders: 2000 Years of Christian Art and Culture. Potsdam, Germany: H. F. Ullmann, 2012.

  A detailed history of the art and architecture of western European monasticism from the seventh to the fifteenth centuries with copious color illustrations and building plans in a series of large-format books on medieval art. First published as Orden und Klöster: 2000 Jahre christliche Kunst und Kultur Königswinter.

• Lenoir, Alexandre. Architecture monastique, Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France. 2 vols. Paris: Hachette, 2012.

  Important antiquarian work placing morphology of French monastic architecture, its ornamentation, and its sculpture within its broader European context, illustrated with detailed engraved plans and views. First published in Paris, 1852–1856.

• Zarnecki, George. The Monastic Achievement. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972.

  A concise, well-illustrated introduction to medieval monasticism, art, and architecture with particular focus on the British Isles, Cluny, the Cistercians, and the Carthusians.