Art of the Catholic Religious Orders in Medieval Europe

In western Europe, Christian religious orders were established beginning in the sixth century as groups of affiliated communities of monks and nuns that followed a common rule and depended on their order’s motherhouse for governance and guidance. While the origins of Christian monasticism can be traced to the deserts of Egypt in the late third century and monastic settlements began to be established in the British Isles, Gaul, and Italy as early as the fourth century, the origins of religious orders in western Europe are generally traced to Saint Benedict of Nursia (b. c. 480–d. c. 547). Benedict’s influence may be ascribed to the wide dissemination of the Benedictine Rule and the foundation of the Abbey of Monte Cassino (c. 529), which came to be the center of a larger network of dependencies in southern Italy. The rule used at Monte Cassino sets out the practical routines and ideals of a communal monastic life, aimed at anticipating Paradise on earth. Benedict mandated that the community worship together seven times during the day and once at night, thus comprising the eight canonical hours—services of prayer, psalmody, and hymns. He also regulated communal life to balance physical labor with prayer and worship. Art and architecture shaped and regulated the shared life of prayer, worship, and contemplation. While the rule says nothing about art and architecture, and nothing survives of the first monastic complex at Monte Cassino, the promotion of Benedictine monasticism by Pope Gregory the Great and the Carolingian reforms led to the development of common elements of the monastic plan fully embodied in the early-9th-century utopian Saint Gall Plan, including a central cloister or enclosed garden with the church on one side and other practical structures arranged along the other sides, including the dormitory, refectory, kitchen, latrines, lavatorium, and eventually the chapter house where the community read the rule and administered the practical functions of the community. Over time, new religious orders were founded, in part to reform what were seen as lapses in the rigor of monastic life. Among the most successful and influential of these orders were the Cluniacs (founded 910), the Carthusians (1084), the Cistercians (1098), the Franciscans (1209), and the Dominicans (1216), each of which had distinctive artistic emphases. New female religious communities also developed alongside or within the new orders, including the Clarissans (within the Franciscan order), Dominicans, and Cistercians. The Crusades also spawned new military orders, such as the Templars, Hospitallers, and Teutonic Knights. Figural art was deployed in various media to facilitate devotion, to visualize scriptural narratives, and to establish distinctive models of monastic behavior and identities for individual orders.