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ABBEYS AND RELIGIOUS HOUSES
Terminology is sometimes problematic in the study of
medieval religious communal life and its material
remains in Ireland, especially in the period before

1100. The erstwhile assumption of scholars that all
      ecclesiastical sites of the early Christian period, up to
      and including the age of Viking incursions, were
      monastic has given way in recent years to greater cau-
      tion, driven by an increasing awareness of the com-
      plexity of the early Church’s institutional and territorial
      structures, and of its provision of pastoral care to con-
      temporary society. Strictly speaking, the designation
      “monastery” indicates the one-time presence of monks
      living in community according to a Rule, a code of
      behavior prescribed by one of the early church’s intel-
      lectual heavyweights, and while many of the sites were
      certainly monastic by this measure, the organization
      and practice of religious life at many other sites—
      especially those small, archaeologically attested but
      barely documented, sites—simply remain unknown.

Claustral Planning

Religious foundations of the twelfth century and later
generally have better documentary records, as well as
higher levels of fabric-survival, so problems of inter-
pretation and terminology are considerably less acute.
Churches and associated building complexes
designed for worship and habitation by religious com-
munities are easily identified, and hence the adjective
“monastic” can be used more confidently. Unlike pre-
1100 foundations, most of these monasteries were
claustrally planned. This claustral plan, which origi-
nated in continental Europe before A.D. 800 and first
appeared in Ireland around 1140 (at Mellifont), com-
prised of a central square or rectangular cloister
(clustrum, courtyard) with the key buildings arranged

around it and fully enclosing it. The church was usu-

ally on the north side, the refectory (dining hall) was

always on the side directly opposite, and the chapter

house (a ground-floor room wherein the community

assembled daily to discuss its business) and dormitory

(a long first-floor room) were on the east side. The

west side of the cloister comprised cellarage and addi-

tional habitation space; in Cistercian abbeys the con-

versi, lay brethren who undertook much of the manual

work, were accommodated here. What made the claustral

plan so attractive across the entire monastic landscape

of high medieval Europe was its practical efficiency:

Distances between parts of the monastery were max-

imized or minimized according to the relationships

between the activities carried out in them. Moreover,

its tightly regulated plan was a fitting metaphor for a

monastic world that was itself highly regulated.

Abbeys, Priories, Friaries

Popular local tradition in Ireland, commonly abetted

by ordinance survey maps, usually identifies twelfth-

century and later monasteries as “abbeys,” but is often

incorrect in doing so. Less than a quarter of the 500-plus

establishments of religious orders founded in post-1100

Ireland were genuinely abbeys, communities of male

or female religious under the authority of abbots or

abbesses. Of slightly lower grade were priories, com-

munities of male or female religious presided over by

priors or prioresses, officers of lower rank than abbots

and abbesses; these were more numerous than abbeys,

and constituted about one-third of that total. Friaries,

communities of friars (literally, brothers) whose main

work was preaching, make up most of the very signif-

icant remainder.

The abbeys and priories of twelfth- and early-

thirteenth-century Ireland are mainly associated with