The Cistercian Infirmary in England, Wales, and Scotland in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Lived Experience, Function, and Form

Abstract

The Cistercians were born out of a spirit of reform and a desire for closer adherence to the Rule of St Benedict. In the Rule, care of the sick was viewed as a central part of monastic life and as infirmaries were places built to accommodate the sick, the aim of this thesis is to establish what purpose or purposes they had in twelfth- and thirteenth-century monastic life and how they were perceived by the monks who lived in and around them. Through an interdisciplinary study of the regulatory material, monastic narrative sources and other records, as well as a review of the archaeology and an analysis of extant remains, this thesis aims to relate the material culture to the lived experience of the Cistercian monastic infirmary. It challenges the perceptions of Cistercian infirmaries being a large hall to the east of the cloister and it also contests the idea that there was an increased monastic interest in health in the thirteenth century, as well as the assumption that the Cistercian monastic infirmary was a medicalised space. It puts forward that it was a place outside of the rules, and potentially the one place in the abbey where, exceptionally, individual requirement was prioritized over that of the community. The thesis concludes that the monastic infirmary provided a chance for monks to experience the humanity of Christ, both by being treated like Him when they were sick and also to serve Him by attending the sick. It also reasons that the purpose of the infirmary, especially within the thirteenth-century building programmes of the larger monasteries, was to further glorify God while simultaneously responding to both spiritual and practical needs of expanding monastic communities. In the smaller houses, the needs were being met in a variety of ways, and in all houses, infirmary spaces moved and developed, resulting in a wider variety of infirmary spaces than the traditionally imagined halls