Monastic Archaeology

Searching for vestiges in old walls

written by Kerstin Geßner & Annett Dittrich

(Photo: K. Geßner)

Monasteries – secret places? Clichés often obscure our view of monastic life in times gone by. They range from a ‘life in spiritual rapture’ to unbridled joie de vivre, from ascetic simplicity to abundance and wealth. As it happens, these monasteries, often centuries old, still harbour secrets – literally lying dormant ‘beneath the surface’.

Archaeological excavations bring to light things that contribute to our understanding of monastery buildings and life within them, shining a light on everyday objects as well as on rare finds, and sometimes raising new questions. In this way, they not only help with the research of the complex history of monasteries, they are also part of it.

Scraped off and overwritten

In the Middle Ages, the lack of precious parchment was the reason why people scraped off the text from pages so that they could be reused. This practice called palimpsest delivers unique testimonies with seemingly unconnected traces of text on a single document.

In archaeology, the term palimpsest is a metaphor for a cultural landscape which underwent constant transformations over the course of time.[i] It perfectly describes the various ways monasteries were used over the centuries as buildings were raised, converted, demolished and levelled. They were built over the remains of earlier structures and sometimes they were even reconstructed. However, these works have not always erased the past completely, as every era leaves its traces in the ground, which can be documented in archaeological investigations and reassembled like a jigsaw puzzle. Monastic landscapes of their own developed in places with a long history of use. The surrounding estates, chapels and farm houses with their overlapping layers of time condensed into an impressive soil archive. Monasteries are recognised as world cultural heritage and deserve the highest respect.

Image 1: Fragment of a flooring tile in the Cistercian Abbey of Lehnin (Photo: K. Geßner)

With a shovel and a pick…

Modern archaeology has different methods at its disposal to uncover the various layers and fragments of the past. But despite digital, non-destructive technologies such as geomagnetics, 3D scans and drone images, the shovel, trowel and broom are still among the most important tools of archaeological investigation today. They were already used by medieval explorers in their attempts to specify the age of the world. Whether it was the search for relics, for buried treasures or simply out of curiosity for antique painted vases, shovels and picks were always used.[ii]

Image 2: A Benedictine monk from St Alban (London) supervises workers excavating the relics of St Amphibalus, 13th century manuscript (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 026: Matthew Paris OSB, Chronica maiora I, 135v)

Picks were also used by the Benedictine monks when they rebuilt the burnt-down Glastonbury Abbey in 1191 and uncovered graves which they assigned to the legendary King Arthur and his wife Guinevere who had died around 700 years earlier. A sword found in these graves was considered to be King Arthur’s legendary Excalibur, which King Henry II used to publicly promote the credibility of the myth and his own legitimation when he gave it away as a gift shortly afterwards. From today’s perspective, these excavations dating from the late 12th century can be regarded as one of the first known monastic archaeological investigations.

Earth was moved frequently, sometimes in prodigious quantities, in the surroundings of monasteries to level the land, to excavate canals and artificial ponds, to crush stones or, as the monks of Dobrilugk Abbey, to build kilometres of fortifications around their remote estates.[iii] The objects and curiosities unearthed during these works laid the foundations for extensive collections of natural curiosities and fossils, such as in Klosterneudorf in Austria, where a “cabinet of natural curiosities” already existed in the 14th century.

Beitrag

Education

Since monastic life is a conscious and organised one, it cannot be conceived…

Ein Beitrag von:

The tasks of monastic archaeology

Today, archaeology in monasteries is often carried out as part of architectural research and building supervision. Large scale research projects are not very common. However, these can be found in the Imperial Abbey of Lorsch[iv], in the monastery of Cistercian nuns Seehausen Abbey[v] or the Premonstratensian Abbey of Elisabethenzell[iv]. The archaeological work is based on internationally binding guidelines for museums: research, documentation, preservation, collection and communication, e.g. in exhibitions and visualisations. Quite often though, historical building structures or burial grounds are merely seen as obstacles to construction plans, which makes the preservation of underground monuments a major and continuing challenge. In such cases, so-called rescue excavations can be a compromise in line with the requirements of cultural heritage preservation as they enable the documentation and discovery of underground monuments that will be destroyed by construction works. Such archeological research can contribute to compensating for the loss caused by destruction. On the other hand, excavated remains of buildings that were believed to be lost also offer opportunities, for example when they are the starting point for reconstruction projects. A key aspect is to ensure they can be experienced on site, as in the case of the church floor plan at Walkenried Abbey.

Image 3: Excavating the monastic church of Kaltenborn Abbey founded by the Canons Regular of St. Augustine in 1118, Regional Department for the Conservation of Historic Buildings, Saxony-Anhalt, Robert Prust

Sometimes familiar elements – such as the monastery church and the cloister – can be complemented by unfamiliar ones, such as former buildings or facilities on the monastery grounds whose function remains unknown. This is where archaeology can fill gaps in our knowledge. It can provide information about the original function of repurposed buildings, technical details on complex underground irrigation and drainage systems or construction solutions for heating systems, connecting corridors and wells.

The findings of archaeologists, be it burial sites, everyday objects or artefacts, often result in new interpretations of the monastic premises. The local history of a monastery is unveiled when the age is determined by dendrochronological findings in trunks. Discoveries made in the ground provide a very unique, physical approach to the everyday lives of the past and show exhibition visitors the more profane, sometimes unexpected things, but will always display the ephemeral nature of the cultural heritage.

Image 4: Exposition of a lectern figure (Atzmann) in the tithe barn of Lorsch Abbey (Image: Oschatz Visuelle Medien GmbH)

Archaeological research of buildings and plans

The American Kenneth John Conant, who devoted himself to researching the French abbey of Cluny from 1927, is one of the pioneers of monastic archaeology along with Georg Sello, who carried out extensive excavations in the monastery church of Lehnin in the 1870s.[vii] Intensive study of historical views and plans enabled them to present a reconstruction of the overbuilt and shattered monastery churches for which they used systematic excavation sondages.

Image 5: Unearthing architectural objects during systematic archeological sondages in Cluny, 1931 (https://www.medievalacademy.org/page/FirstProjects)

Research into floor plans has been one of the primary tasks of monastic archaeology ever since. After all, it was not only in Burgundy and Brandenburg that secularised monasteries served as quarries; poor maintenance often left medieval monasteries in ruins in the rest of Europe too. But even abbeys that were used as monasteries without interruption often underwent considerable remodelling in the Baroque period in order to adapt the existing buildings to changing requirements. For this reason, the foundations, cellars and floors of demolished monastery buildings or entire abandoned areas can be found underneath monastic premises which seem to have been completely preserved.

Precise measuring and expertise in various building technologies help disentangle the spatial structures that have overlapped over the course of time: The best of all possible results is a floor plan depicting the stratigraphic sequences in various colours.

Image 6: Plan of construction phases and chapter house of the Cistercian Bronnbach Abbey (Häret-Krug, Katinka 2017, Image 15/16[viii]

Although the layout of a monastery followed certain organisational principles, each convent adapted these to the local conditions. In addition, various religious orders favoured different building strategies.[ix] While the monasteries of the Mendicant orders were usually integrated into the dense architecture of existing towns, the monasteries of the Cistercian order, which were founded in open fields, formed large architectural ensembles. The nunneries with their strict enclosure, however, required specific layouts to regulate the entrance to the building and its various areas. Identifying this partly buried, individual spatial organisation is one of the tasks of archaeological building research. Detailed knowledge can also be acquired by making selective interventions, e.g. in floors or vault capstones. And excavations have unearthed numerous individual testimonies of monastic architecture, such as moulded stones, architectural elements, floor tiles, roof tiles, oven tiles and water pipes.[x]

Image 7: Capstone from the Franciscan Kyritz Abbey (image, drawings: A. Dittrich, K. Kortschagina, K. Kossatz)

Garden archaeology

Monastery gardens were also built according to architectural standards and often encompassed permanent installations and structures, which enables archaeologists to specifically search for their remains in the ground. Sometimes they are used for reconstructions including outer walls, wells, water basins, pavilions, layouts of paths and crossings, sculptures, foundations, and – occasionally – flower beds, planters or botanical remains. The reconstruction of the Baroque gardens of the former Augustinian monastery of Dalheim was based not only on visual sources, but also on archaeological discoveries.[xi] Baroque garden structures, as well as pruning and planting techniques, are primarily inspired by medieval styles. The gardens of monasteries comprise a series of special garden landscapes that can be defined archaeologically, pedologically and topographically, e.g. using elevation maps: From vineyards, carp ponds and marshy canals to trellis walls for fruit, from bordered tree and vegetable gardens to tree planting pits and rigged asparagus beds, all of which are clearly visible in the soil profiles.[xii]

mage 8: A window to the past in the baroque garden of Dalheim Abbe, requested from: https://www.blog.stiftung-kloster-dalheim.lwl.org/de/ein-garten-wie-gemalt-die-rekonstruktion-der-dalheimer-klostergarten//

Finds of everyday life

Monasteries had higher requirements in terms of hygiene and cleanliness as medieval towns. Therefore, it must be seen as a real stroke of luck for monastic archaeology, when the rubbish dump of a monastery is uncovered. This is what happened in the 1980s at the Cistercian nunnery of Seehausen, where rubbish and fire debris had been dumped on the shore of the nearby lake for centuries. The disposal site consisting of several thousand objects represents “a unique trove of quotidian monastic culture”[xiii] and vividly demonstrates the tension that existed between worldliness and escapism in the lives of the nuns, most of them with an aristocratic background. Whilst rosaries, host spoons, pilgrim badges and other devotional objects bear witness to the pious life behind the convent walls, the profane everyday life of the nuns is illustrated by drinking utensils, wooden spoons, pins, thimbles, spindle whorls, combs or ear scoops. Other artefacts typically found in monasteries, such as styluses made of bone and horn, book clasps, lockable boxes, wooden tablets and clay lamps, point to the tradition of the written word maintained by monks and nuns over the centuries.

Miniaturtruhe Zur Aufbewahrung Von Reliquien

Image 9: Reliquary and pins found at the Cistercian nunnery of Seehausen (collection of Prenzlau Dominican Abbey, available online: https://brandenburg.museum-digital.de/objects?s=+fulltext%3Aseehausen&section=results_list&mode=grid&startwert=0)

Every now and then, the artefacts also reveal that the real-life experience in the monasteries did not always comply with the strict rules and regulations of the order. Chips, stones and dice are the material evidence that the monastic ban on gambling was not strictly observed in every convent. A complete trictrac board, a medieval predecessor of today’s backgammon, was found in the latrine of the Augustinian hermit monastery of Freiburg.[xiv] Just how did it get there? Like a case based on circumstantial evidence, the traces found during the archaeological interpretation of finds may provide a way of reconstructing the sequence of events, whereas the motive remains uncertain.[xv] So, was the board game simply hidden or was it ostentatiously dumped in the privy?

Image 10: Trictrac board, similar to today’s backgammon, found in the latrine of the Augustinian hermitage monastery of Freiburg (source: note VIII, 3.3.8) and game piece found at the Cistercian monastery of Lehnin (photo: K. Geßner)

In addition to animal bones, latrines and wells also contain botanical remains, which archaeobotany can use to obtain insights into plants that were used for food production and other agricultural purposes. Monasteries were among the pioneers in disseminating the techniques required for fruit growing, as evidenced not only by the Borsdorf apple’s journey across Europe, but also by the discovery of stones from grapes, peaches, plums and cherries ant the shells of hazelnut and walnut. Charred seeds help archaeologists determine plants used for dying, spices, medicinal herbs, horsebeans, lentils, millet or mustard seeds. Although less common, remnants of medieval exotic plants such as figs and rice demonstrate the wide reach of monastic networks.

Burial customs and anthropological research

Monasteries were among the preferred burial sites in the Middle Ages: A grave in the grounds of a monastery was considered an invaluable guarantee for one’s own salvation, as it promised perpetual remembrance upheld by the prayers and masses of the monks and nuns. Today, most monastery cemeteries have been abandoned and some have even been entirely forgotten. Tombs can be located directly underneath the church floors, making the installation of heating systems a major challenge. Where emergency excavation is unavoidable due to planned construction works, the uncovering of the grave can reveal significant details about monastic burial practices, such as the use of shrouds instead of coffins.

Image 11: Excavation works on the cemetery of Lehnin Abby and at the foundations of the intersection (photo by: A. Dittrich)

The subsequent anthropological analysis focuses on the particular characteristics of the respective monastic community, which sometimes reveals a greater diversity than is generally assumed. Recent anthropological studies of human remains found at the cemeteries of Lehnin Abbey (Brandenburg) and Ihlow Abbey (East Frisia)[xvi] have shown that women and girls were also laid to rest at the cemeteries of Cistercian monasteries. This was made possible by amending the order’s rules and regulations. After the general ban on the burial of laymen and women was gradually lifted in the 13th century, each member of the monastery was allowed to bury two close relatives (amici) at a Cistercian monastic cemetery.

It was also permitted to bury guests, poor and sick people at a monastery if they had died there. The fact that many seriously ill people and people in need sought admission to the monastery’s hospital is evidenced by the large number of skeletons with disease-related abnormalities, for instance those caused by tuberculosis. Inflammatory processes in the bone material may also be a sign of hard physical labour, such as carrying heavy loads. Caries indices and stress markers identified in teeth and bones may be a sign of a limited diet or past illnesses and can provide details about the people’s nutrition or the order’s fasting regime.

Living the past

Today, the manifold of facts discovered by archaeological research provides one of the various approaches used by monasteries to visualise historical content in addition to classic exposition designs. Visitors can explore Chorin Abbey on a virtual tour. Wedinghausen Abbey goes a step further and features an interactive experience called “Mittelalter meets Media” funded by LEADER. Short film sequences that were produced with the expert guidance of the Berlin state archaeologist Prof. Dr Matthias Wemhoff trace the bygone atmosphere inside the monastery walls and simultaneously present facts about the history of the building, the wall paintings and the archaeological finds.

Image 12: Virtual tour at Chorin Abbey (https://visit.museum-virtuell.com/de/tour/chorin)

Image 13: Wedinghausen Abbey’s multi-media guide (www.kloster-wedinghausen.de)

Modern-day access to the historical heritage bequeathed to us by medieval monks and nuns is as multifaceted as the monasteries themselves, ranging from monastery shops and re-enactments to medieval events, from beer brewing seminars, fasting journeys to gardening programmes. Apart from this rather playful approach, the mission of archaeological research is to use various media to tell the individual history of each monastery and its environment and to preserve it for next generations. The authentic site, although changed in many ways and still undergoing constant evolution, continues to be as valuable as the parchment found in medieval libraries.

Endnotes

[i] Laurent Olivier: The Dark Abyss of Time – Archaeology and Memory. Plymouth 2011.

[ii] Alain Schnapp: Die Entdeckung der Vergangenheit – Ursprünge und Abenteuer der Archäologie. Stuttgart 2009, 100, 111-112, 116.

[iii]Kerstin Geßner & Annett Dittrich: Wehrhafte Mönche – Die Landwehr des Klosters Dobrilugk bei Birkwalde, Lkr. Elbe-Elster. In: Archäologie in Berlin und Brandenburg 2022, 106–111.

[iv] https://www.uni-heidelberg.de/fakultaeten/philosophie/zegk/iek/forschung/lorsch_kloster.html; https://kloster-lorsch.de/klosterlorsch/archaeologie-baugeschichte

[v] Project organised by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research: Material goods as an expression of female spiritual life and daily behaviour in the Middle Ages (https://bldam-brandenburg.de/arbeitsbereiche/archaeologie/forschungen-und-projekte/kloster-seehausen/); Felix Biermann, Katrin Frey, Gudrun Gleba (Hg.): Mittelalterliche Zisterzienserinnenklöster im südwestlichen Ostseeraum Materielles Gut zwischen Alltag und Spiritualität. 1^st Edition. Zossen near Berlin 2020.

[vi] Freilichtmuseum Elisabethenzell (Unterfranken, https://www.spessartprojekt.de/forschung/ausgrabungen/das-kloster-elisabethenzell/)

[vii] Janet T. Marquardt: First Projects: Medieval Academy Support of Kenneth J. Conant’s Cluny. Eastern Illinois University 2004 (https://www.medievalacademy.org/page/FirstProjects)

[viii] Katinka Häret-Krug: Zwischen Tradition und Repräsentation – Zisterziensische Klausurbauten im Barock. Die Beispiele Ebrach, Bronnbach, Eberbach und Arnsburg. In: Joachim Werz (ed.): Die Zisterzienser. Konzeptionen klösterlichen Lebens. Regensburg, 2017.

[ix] Christina Vossler-Wolf: Klosterarchäologie. In: Barbara Scholkmann, Hauke Kenzler, Rainer Schreg (ed.): Archäologie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit. Grundwissen. Darmstadt 2016, 210-218.

[x] Horst Adler (ed.): Fundort Kloster: Archäologie im Klösterreich. Catalogue of the exhibition at Altenburg Abbey, 1^st of May until 1^st of November 2000.

[xi] Matthias Preißler: Der barocke Konventgarten von Kloster Dalheim. In: Matthias Wemhoff (ed.): Barocke Blütezeit. Die Kultur der Klöster in Westfalen. Regensburg, 1st edition 2007, 47–59.

[xii]For water engineering see also: James Bond, Monastic Water Management in Great Britain: A review. In: Graham Keevill, Mick Aston und Teresa Hall (ed.): Monastic archaeology: papers on the study of medieval monasteries. Oxford, 2001, 88-136.

[xiii] Dirk Schumann: Das Zisterzienserinnenkloster Seehausen und ein umfangreiches archäologisches Inventar der klösterlichen Sachkultur. In: Dirk Schumann (ed.): Sachkultur und religiöse Praxis. Berlin 2007, 458–491.

[xiv] “Heiter bis göttlich”. Die Kultur des Spiels im Kloster. (Catalogue of the special exhibition between 1^st of June and 3^rd of November 2013 published and edited by the Dalheim Abbey Foundation – LWL-Landesmuseum für Klosterkultur). Including texts written by Helga Fabritius et al. Lindenberg in Allgäu, 2013.

[xv] Carlo Ginzburg: Spurensuche – Die Wissenschaft auf der Suche nach sich selbst. Berlin 2011.

[xvi] Melanie Timmermann: Das Ihlower Zisterzienserkloster: Beten, Arbeiten und heilsames Leben im Mittelalter! Eine anthropologische Untersuchung, Berlin, 2009, 24.