The dissolution of the monasteries in England and Wales is too often viewed simply as a component of the English Reformation and little more. Its place in the Reformation is obvious, but its importance extends far beyond that fact. Unlike the other elements of the Reformation which transformed the traditional nature of the church in England and established a new confession of faith, the dissolution brought about a complete and far reaching alteration in the established social and economic structure of England. The most prominent feature of the dissolution was the sudden transfer of the vast landed estates of the monks to the laity. In the sixteenth century land was still the paramount source of wealth and influence. Englishmen looked to the land not only for their food and drink, but also for their fuel and industrial materials. The dissolution occurred in a period of expanding trade and commerce, rising prices, and rapidly growing population. In the society of the sixteenth century, where the individual and economic concerns of England became increasingly important, the monasteries as they were structured had no place. In many ways they were a major block to capitalistic development. When the monks were eliminated from the social structure and their landed wealth dispersed among the English people, the way was cleared for economic progress to begin. The dissolution must be viewed against this wider background of England's economic transformation during the mid-sixteenth century and beyond. It is the purpose of this thesis to examine the economic significance of the monasteries as well as the reasons for their dissolution, and to delineate the economic and social changes which occurred in English industry and agriculture after they disappeared from the scene. / Master of Arts

It was my objective to develop a design-method with which I could define and capture the spirit of an urban monastery. The spirit of this monastery was to dictate the form, structure, volume, materials and details. Each part of the project, inside and outside, were to have the spirit of an urban monastery. lt was my hypothesis that the best way to capture the spirit of a project was to begin with conceptual models. These models were based on abstractions of how I felt about the monastery and its parts. Words such as hard, soft, dark, light, loud, quiet, open, closed, inviting and defensive were used to define the models. These models would grow and change, adapting to new situations, always gaining in detail until I would finally end up with a final design. / Master of Architecture

Master of Architecture

This thesis examines the evidence for the buildings and precincts of the five friaries of late medieval London: Black Friars, Grey Friars, White Friars, Austin Friars and Crossed (or Crutched) Friars. Virtually nothing survives, at least above ground, of these once-famous institutions and so documentary and archaeological evidence form the core of the research. Using a technique of historic map regression – working backwards from the modern Ordnance Survey map and carrying out a succession of ‘digital tracings' of historic maps – the early modern street plan of each friary was drawn. Then, evidence from dozens of archaeological excavations (small and large, antiquarian and modern) could be pasted onto the base map of each friary. Finally, documentary evidence was brought in, primarily a series of surveys (‘particulars for grant') by the Court of Augmentations, the Crown body supervising the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s and ‘40s. After setting out the historiography of research into monastic London, five chapters examine the five friaries in turn, discussing the church, cloister, precinct walls and gardens, and illustrating the evidence with a series of reconstructed plans. The chapters also examine the fate of the friary buildings in the mid-sixteenth century, after the Dissolution. In a concluding chapter, the churches and precincts are compared, looking at size, status and the use of space. The limited evidence for the economy of the friaries – both income and expenditure – is also examined. The gradual ‘secularisation' of the friaries in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries is also considered, before studying the purchasers of the old friary buildings in the 1540s and the uses they made of their new properties.

Torre Abbey was a rural Premonstratensian monastery in south-east Devon. Although in many ways atypical of its order, not least in the quality and quantity of its surviving source material, Torre provides an excellent case study of how a medium-sized medieval monastery interacted with the world around it, and how the abbey itself was affected by that interaction. Divided into three broad sections, this thesis first examines the role of local landowners and others as patrons of the house in the most obvious sense, that of the bestowal of lands or other assets upon the house. Torre was relatively successful in this regard, and an examination of the architectural and archaeological record indicates a continuation of that relationship after the thirteenth century. The second section notes areas of conflict with the laity. Disputes could and did arise over both temporal and spiritual affairs, as well as through the involvement of a number of lay figures in the administration and patronage of the house. In both respects, notable incidents in the mid-fourteenth century highlight the complexities of the canons’ relationships with the secular world. These are further explored in an analysis of the abbey’s role during the Hundred Years’ War and the Wars of the Roses, two conflicts which greatly affected the locality, but required vastly differing approaches by the canons. Finally, the effect of society on the canons themselves is considered. It is possible to recover some picture of their origins, both social and geographic, as well as some idea of the size of the community in the fifteenth century, and discuss the repercussions for an understanding of monastic recruitment. Finally, the dynamic of the community over the entire history of the abbey is considered in terms of the scattered source material, utilising both architectural and documentary evidence.

The establishment of a new concept of intercessory prayer, from an activity sought of the individual holy man to an occupation characterizing an entire monastic community, has recently received much attention; historians have shown that the function of intercession had become, by the Carolingian period, the pre-eminent feature of early medieval monasticism. The role of early medieval monasteries as powerhouses of prayer has encouraged scholarly attention along two particular areas of interest: intercession within the system of medieval patronage and gift exchange, and monastic ritual elaboration. Missing in the main historiographical approaches is discussion concerning the place of intercessory prayer within the monastic ideal. This study therefore asks the central question, ‘What was the relationship between the intercessory function of monasticism and the ascetic concern for moral conversion in the time of the reforms of Benedict of Aniane, c. 750-820?’ The writings of Carolingian monastic reformers demonstrate that the chief concern of the monk was to seek and find perfection in God; it is the argument of this study that the elaborate liturgical intercession which characterized early medieval monasticism was coherent with this goal. The Introduction sets out to establish the continuity of the ascetic pursuit in the Carolingian monastic ideal with earlier monasticism. We then order our investigation by: i) proposing that monastic liturgical organization was meant to address the fundamental problem of human sin which impedes fruitful prayer, and that the additions of intercessory liturgy made by Benedict of Aniane should be seen as part of his pastoral concern for the holiness of monks (Chapter 1); ii) situating the specific intercessory performances of monastic communities – namely, the intercessory Mass and the Divine Office – within Carolingian monastic theology (Chapters 2 and 3); iii) examining how the prayer directed toward two groups of beneficiaries of intercession – fellow monks and rulers – was grounded on the the ascetic goals of moral conversion and pilgrimage toward the celestial kingdom (Chapters 4 and 5); and iv) addressing the question of what role Carolingian monastics meant for their intercessory prayers to play in society at large, and the extent to which general social concern was a priority in monastic intercession (Chapter 6). This study provides a detailed description of the ascetic ideal required for understanding the formalized ritual and patronized prayer of monasteries within its proper sphere of monastic spirituality. I conclude in particular that the increasing importance of monastic intercession was related to a heightened emphasis in Carolingian spiritual thought on the teleological theme of transformation both individual and cosmic. The intercessory function of early medieval monasticism suggests an incorporation of the spiritual pilgrimage of the wider world into the monk’s own individual discipline, and tied the monk’s ascesis to the larger story of the conversion of the world to God.

Estudo sobre a arquitetura dos principais mosteiros beneditinos construídos no Brasil na segunda metade do século XX, quando simultaneamente à evolução dos costumes e às novas interpretações das regras religiosas monásticas, os trabalhos construtivos empreendidos dentro dos claustros adquirem um novo significado. Desse processo de renovação resultou uma produção heterogênea, que introduz modificações no programa arquitetônico tradicional dos mosteiros e que requer para sua compreensão um estudo especifico e aprofundado, face à escassez de informações sistematizadas disponíveis. Por meio da análise de seis obras contemporâneas e exemplares dessa produção, duas delas de autoria do arquiteto Hans Broos, o trabalho pretende identificar as contribuições arquitetônicas presentes nesses projetos para mosteiros beneditinos e analisar sua adequação aos propósitos de uma vida comunitária consagrada, vinculada com a liturgia e com a arte, elucidando assim os requisitos básicos para o reconhecimento e crítica dessa modalidade de produção. Desse modo, o estudo pretende contribuir para a análise do processo de renovação da arquitetura religiosa brasileira, um tema pouco explorado no panorama da historiografia da arquitetura nacional. / Study about architecture of main Benedictine monasteries built in Brazil during second half of XXth. Century, when the concurrency of evolutive habits and new commentaries of religious monastic rules, lead to new meanings of the monastic building. From this renovation process an heterogeneous production was resulted, introducing changes in the traditional architectonic program of the monasteries, and to know them requires an specific and deeper analysis, because they have a few systematic data available. By the analysis of six contemporary and emblematic works from that production, a couple by Hans Broos, this study aims identify the architectonical contributions in the projects for Benedictine monasteries and to investigate their adequacy to the devises of a consecrated communitarian life, linked with liturgy and fine arts, clarifying basic requirements to a knowing and critics of this kind of production. Most of all, the study aims to contribute to an analysis of the process of renovation of Brazilian religious architecture, a very few researched theme in the panorama of national architectonic history.

The religious tribulations which occurred in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria, are often interpreted as beneficiary for the development of religious architecture and monasticism of this northern kingdom. This phenomena is often understood as an answer to the confrontation of two factions, the Celt and the Roman Churches. The resuit of this confrontation being apparently the existence of two unquestionably different architectural types and monastery planning. The present study explores this interpretation's rightfulness and examine possibilities for new models and inspirational sources leading to the creation of the particular types of monastic architecture found in Northumbria.

Univ., Diss.--Cambridge. / Literaturverz. S. [224] - 258.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Düsseldorf, 2001/2002. / Includes bibliographical references and index.