The Continental Context

Abstract

There are an uncountably large number of medieval cloisters in various states of preservation surviving in mainland western Europe. In order to make sense of this material, and tease it into acting as a continental context for claustral design in England and Wales, the following paper concentrates on four aspects of the Latin medieval cloister: its origins, uses, architecture and imagery. None of these exist in watertight compartments, and they will flow into and out of each other, but one — the origins of the medieval cloister — is fundamental and might be cauterised and treated separately, if only briefly. The rest of the paper concentrates on the cloister between the 11th and 13th centuries. There is little in it that has not already been published, but it was felt it would be useful to bring some of this material together in English. The paper was originally written to be read aloud, hence its rather colloquial presentation, and the detail which should have turned it into an article is in the endnotes.