treat one another as equals), and for the granting of castles by one knightly family to
another.
Constance H.Berman
Magnou-Nortier, Elisabeth. Foi et fidélité: recherches sur l’évolution des liens personnels chez les
Francs du VIIe au IXe siècle. Toulouse: Association des Publications de l’Université de
Toulouse-Le Mirail, 1976.
Ourliac, Paul. “La ‘convenientia.”’ In Études d’histoire du droit privé offertes à P. Petot. Paris:
Montchrestien, 1959, pp. 413–22.
CONVENT ARCHITECTURE
. There have been no systematic analyses of the architecture of women religious in
France, and few studies of convents include a concern for the special character of female
religious life, as distinct from that of monks. In particular, the architectural implications
of strict enclosure (clausura), which separated women from the external world, have not
been examined, nor has the important and complicated issue of the architectural
implications of enclosure for the relationship of women religious to the clergy and
liturgy.
The reasons for this neglect are many. With the exception of a few royal or noble
foundations (Longchamp, Lys, Maubuisson), convents were often small and poor and
have therefore rarely attracted the attention of art historians, who have wanted to study
large and significant monuments. At these sites, architectural elaboration was usually
confined to one or two details, such as a tracery window (La-Cour-Notre-Dame in the
diocese of Sens). The vast majority of convents were destroyed in the Revolution, or the
churches and conventual buildings were converted to other purposes. Furthermore,
enclosure discourages the study of the few medieval convents that are again in operation.
It is probably also true that the lack of interest in convents has historical roots in
misogyny.
An examination of the earliest rule specifically for women religious, that of Caesarius
of Arles, indicates that the concept of enclosure originated in the early centuries of
Christianity. Although there were also a number of double communities for men and
women in these centuries, such as that of St. Paulinus at Nola, female monasticism
normally took the form of separate establishments with a small number of male clergy in
attendance to administer the sacraments. Above all, the monastic administration in
women’s orders was not centralized: there was therefore always a wide range of
arrangements and solutions for women religious, ranging from one or several women
practicing a religious vocation in a home to huge convents with several hundred nuns.
Since these orders rarely possessed the unified organizational structure of their male
counterparts, there is hardly ever the architectural consistency that can be found among
many male houses, especially among the Cistercians and Carthusians. For women’s
monasteries, the annual visitation, performed by male counselors or ministers often
outside the order, tended to concern observance of the rule, not issues of architectural
conformity. The requirements of enclosure were interpreted differently by each order and
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