Sacred Landscapes and the Early Medieval European Cloister: Unity, Paradise, and the Cosmic Mountain

Abstract

The architectural format of the early medieval monastery, a widespread feature of the Western European landscape, is examined from a cosmological perspective which argues that the garden, known as the garth, at the center of the cloister reconstructed the first three days of creational paradise as described in Genesis and, therefore, constituted the symbolic center of the cloister complex. The monastery is then further interpreted as representative of the cosmic mountain on whose summit paradise was believed to be situated. Outside its walls monasteries as symbolic mountains anchored and defined the focal points of the medieval European sacred landscape.

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