The Chapter House and the Cloister of the Medieval Mendicant Monastery as a Place of Identity
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| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | As early as the 13th and 14th centuries, the Minorite and Dominican orders (or the Poor Clares and Dominican women) played an important role in town-building in terms of religion and social ties, as well as the architectural layout and urban development. The Franciscan Order became important in the urban environment from the late 15th and in the 16th century, contributing with other monasteries to shaping the changing urban religiosity. This paper aims to suggest the perspectives of studying the relationship between Mendicant monasteries and the urban environment, for which the monasteries of the Mendicant orders (whether their male or female establishments) are typical. The area of interest, however, is not the monastic church but the chapter house and the cloister. Despite the assumed rules of the enclosure, we can register the presence of the lay public in these spaces too, and thus we can study a partial interconnection between the “outer” secular and the “inner” sacred monastic world. “Artistic” and memorial presentations in the monastic context are linked, on the one hand, to the identity of a monastic community, on the other hand, to the identity of people living outside the monastery walls. This “outside” influence can be traced thanks to activities that were organised in the cloister (e.g. funerals, religious processions), as well as in the chapter house, which was also used for other types of laity gatherings (e.g. a court or guild chapel), according to relevant material and written sources. The monasteries in the Czech Republic, especially the double monastery of Minorites, Poor Clares and Beguines in Český Krumlov, are given as examples. |
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