7 - The physical setting: monastic buildings and the monastic plan

Summary

CHOOSING A SITE

The choice of where to locate a monastery or nunnery was very important. It could influence how much attention the community would – or would not – attract, and this in turn might be a powerful factor in its future development, its accumulation of endowments or decline into poverty, its adherence to or departure from its original ideals. The decision of where to build was dictated by a number of different factors. We know little of the process by which most sites were chosen, but their selection must have depended on what land a prospective founder had, or what he or she was prepared to give, as well as on the expectations of the religious orders themselves. In the eleventh century, before the coming of the reformed orders, it would have seemed natural for a Benedictine house to have been built in a town, or an important centre of communication. The majority of English pre-Conquest houses were either located in or near Roman towns or formed (as did Amesbury, Evesham and Shaftesbury) the focus for a new urban settlement. In the post-Conquest period urban locations continued to be a feature of houses of Black Monks and regular canons, and to a lesser extent nuns also occupied sites in towns or on their outskirts.