Cistercian Abbeys: Simplicity of Life

Cistercian Abbeys: Simplicity of Life and Design

While some aspects of Catholic religious architecture are noteworthy for their ostentation, Cistercian Abbeys are remarkable for their extreme austerity and simplicity. The Cistercian style is often said to reflect a "studied plainness" (Snell, "Cistercian," 2009, p.1). Anything that was not necessary to the monk's lives was forbidden as ornamentation, and that included the monk's spatial as well as religious lives. Not only do the Abbeys lack adornment, every aspect of the design is supposed to turn the monk's eyes inward, upon God, rather than upon worldly things. In contrast to the high arches of cathedrals, only one low central tower was permitted on a Cistercian Abbey. "Unnecessary pinnacles and turrets were prohibited. The triforium was omitted. The windows were to be plain and undivided, and it was forbidden to decorate them with stained glass. All needless ornament was proscribed. The crosses must be of wood; the candlesticks of iron. The renunciation of the world was to be evidenced in all that met the eye" (Snell "Cistercian," 2009, p.1). Even the monk's garb of the Benedictine orders was as simple as could be -- bleached raw wool rather than traditionally dyed priestly black (Fletcher 2008). One of the most famous Cistercian Abbeys is that of La Trappe Abbe in France, home to the Trappist monks with their sworn code of silence (Fletcher 2008). The monks communicated largely with sign language, rather than with words.

The first Cistercian Abbey was constructed in March 1098 by a small group of reformist monks who "took over some unattractive swamp land they had been given in a forest at Citeaux "intent on finally setting up a monastic house true to real Benedictine ideals" (Fletcher 2008). Lay brothers rather than renters tilled the Abbey land, meaning the monks had more control over how the land was administered. They lived in total isolation: even the lay brothers and formally sworn minks were physically separated in the monetary: "the abbey churches were divided by a high masonry wall (misleadingly called a screen) across the nave to separate the 'choir monks' from 'lay brothers' and others" (Fletcher 2008)

The monk's spirit of renunciation "manifested itself in the choice of the sites of their monasteries. The more dismal, the more savage, the more hopeless a spot appeared, the more did it please their rigid mood" (Snell "Cistercian," 2009, p.1). However, as well as great aesthetics many of these monks were also great architects. "The Cistercian monasteries are, as a rule, found placed in deep well-watered valleys. They always stand on the border of a stream…These valleys, now so rich and productive, wore a very different aspect when the brethren first chose them as the place of their retirement. Wide swamps, deep morasses, tangled thickets, wild impassable forests, were their prevailing features" (Snell "Cistercian," 2009, p.1). It is a tribute to the craftsmanship of early monks that the extant monasteries became so hospitable.