From this hasty sketch of monastic organisation some idea may be gathered of the importance of religious institutions in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and of the immense services they had rendered the State by diligent and useful toil, among the chief fruits of which must be reckoned the revival of agriculture, and the development of the sciences and arts, more especially architecture.
Monastic architecture exercised a great and decisive influence upon national art by its vast religious buildings, the precursors of our great cathedrals.
Until the middle of the twelfth century science, letters, art, wealth, and above all, intelligence—in other words, omnipotence on earth—were the monopoly of religious bodies. It is bare historic justice to remember that the Middle Ages derived their chief title to fame, and all their intellectual enlightenment, from the abbeys, and that the great religious houses were in fact schools, the educational influence of which was immense. It must be borne in mind that if the great cathedrals of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were not actually constructed by the monks, their architects were nevertheless the pupils of monks, and that it was in the abbey schools, so generously opened to all, that they imbibed the first principles of the art they afterwards turned to such marvellous account.
The study of architecture in particular was not merely theoretical. It was demonstrated by the monks in their important monastic buildings, the crowning point of which was the abbey church, a structure often larger and more ornate than contemporary cathedrals.
On the plan commonly adopted, the cloister, a spreading lawn adorned with plants, adjoined the church on the north, and sometimes on the south. An open arcade surrounded the cloister, by means of which communication with all the necessary domestic offices was provided. Of these the principal were: the refectory, generally a fine vaulted hall, close to the kitchens; the chapter-house, a building attached to the church, the upper story of which was the dormitory of the monks; the vaulted cellars and granaries, above which were the lodgings provided for strangers; the storerooms were connected with stables, cattle-stalls, and various outdoor offices, often of great extent. All these dependencies for the service of the community were kept strictly separate one from another, thus all necessary measures were taken to provide for the needs and duties of hospitality without any disturbance of the religious routine.
The abbeys of the Romanesque period were largely used as models in their day. They were modified by lay architects or monkish builders who, however, were careful to abate nothing of their perfection; they partook of the developments which marked the middle of the thirteenth century, and were subjected to that progressive transformation, the great feature of which was the adoption of the Angevin intersecting arch, the distinguishing characteristic of Gothic architecture.