This survey of the physical remains of the twenty-nine northern English Cistercian monasteries, as the introduction (“Debates and Definitions”) explains, is “the first book-length, region-wide, systematic, cross-media examination of late medieval Cistercian art and architecture anywhere in Europe” (xxix). The book explains those remains as demonstrating “significant [Cistercian] investment in art and architecture” (xxix) from the period before the Henrican suppression of the monasteries.
Adding particular value for monastic historians, Carter interprets this investment as a rebuttal to the long-standing view that Cistercians experienced a spiritual decline after their twelfth-century “Golden Age,” a view that he summarizes in “The Cistercians: A Case Study in Monastic Decline?” (xxx–xxxiv), citing Peter Fergusson's “Cistercian Architecture,” in A Companion to Medieval Art, ed. Conrad Rudolph (Oxford: Blackwell, 2010), 577–598. Carter argues that what survives from the monasteries demonstrates “change and evolution rather than spiritual malaise and decay” (xxix).
The book contains six chapters and a conclusion, as well as a thorough bibliography and extensive index. The rich artistic and architectural remains of the fourteen northern men's houses, with their large populations and general prosperity, occupy the first four chapters: (1) “The Evidence,” (2) “Patronage,” (3) “Art, Architecture, and Religious Identity,” and (4) “Death and Commemoration.” Only chapter 5, “The Art and Architecture of Cistercian Nuns,” examines the fifteen women's houses, which because of their small numbers and general poverty have left relatively little physical evidence.
Chapter 6, “Suppression and Survival,” explores the effect on the Cistercian houses of the Dissolution, revealing the belief of many monks and nuns that the interruption to their lives would be temporary. Some hid treasure in anticipation of going back; others took books and liturgical vessels away for when normality returned (257, 260–261). The book's conclusion reiterates the evidence for the continuing spiritual vitality of late medieval English Cistercians.
Two color images on the cover and seven color plates inside precede numerous black-and-white photographs showing gatehouses and choir stalls, vestments and manuscripts, with an associated text that is always both thorough and economical. Different photos of the same object or monastery regularly build readers’ familiarity with its history and with the nature of Cistercian life in the period. Four images (18, 80, 96) of the Fountains bell tower erected by Abbot Huby (d. 1526), for example, accompany an explanation of its position next to the north transept of the church (17), identification of its probable master mason (27), and Huby's admiration for Archbishop Henry Murdac (129) and devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus (103). Carpenter also explains the tower as evidence of Huby's “dedication to his order, his deeply rooted Cistercian identity, and tireless efforts as a reformer, especially his focus on rigorous monastic observance” (94). On a larger scale, such items exemplify Carter's discussion of both the role of internal (abbatial) investment in monastic building (49–73) and the incorporation of significant liturgical elements in Huby's tower structure (96–100).
Carter regularly evaluates the relationship between characteristic elements of Cistercian life and faith and those common to non-Cistercians (107–117). For example, he pays detailed attention to the important place of the Virgin Mary in Cistercian devotional life, as the Order's patron, commemorated in the daily offices, with six sermon feasts devoted to her (107). He also calls attention to the frequency of her images on Cistercian altars (four at Rievaulx [108]) and the 1335 papal requirement that her image be on all Cistercian conventual seals (109). He goes on, however, to note that by the fourteenth century such Marian devotion among Cistercians was common across Europe (117).
The restrictions of early Cistercian legislation on art and architecture have resulted in a widespread view that that austerity continued to define Cistercian culture in the later periods. On this topic, Carter distinguishes not between Cistercians and the religious mainstream but between earlier and later Cistercian culture. After summarizing early artistic restrictions (xliii–xliv), he notes changes between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries that allowed Cistercian art and architecture a fuller share in “the realities of the late medieval world” (xliv). He regularly cites legislative changes such as those concerning the burial of laity in monastic precincts and the decoration of monuments of abbots (142–144). His discussion of donors’ burials emphasizes both the laity's continuing confidence in Cistercian powers of intercession and their desire for interment in places where monks and nuns would be regularly reminded to pray for them, as along processional routes (102, 177).
Carter notes that a similar monastic concern with the location of images explains the frequent placement of the Virgin and Gabriel near doorways, as a sign of the “symbolic reopening of heaven at the Annunciation” (117). Similarly, images of St. Christopher appear near monks’ night stairs to remind them of his protection against an unshriven death and against tiredness (196, 126–127).
Throughout the Middle Ages, the Cistercian Order resisted accepting any official relationship with women, so making it still today difficult to identify medieval women's houses as Cistercian. Carter begins chapter 5 by explaining the historical problem (203–211). He goes on to discuss the women's poverty, pointing out that in 1291 the richest of the houses (Swine) had an annual income of £53, while Baysdale's income was £5 (203, 208). Such poverty resulted in the survival of few permanent structures from their houses, though Carter points to evidence of some building at the end of the period (213–214). Because donors to women's houses were less wealthy than those to men's houses, their gifts were smaller, and in any case, as Carter points out, although some bequests bought books and liturgical equipment (219), they generally went to remediation: assuring sufficient food for the women, arranging for fires in winter, and repairing or replacing church roofs (211). Because of the importance of this topic, it would have been helpful to include some of the other reasons for these women's poverty, such as papal pressure for monastic reform, which required women's strict claustration.
This book is well written, highly readable, and rich in factual detail and interpretive commentary. By revealing the thriving English spiritual culture of late medieval Cistercians, Michael Carter has placed a virtual doorstop against the myth of their decline.
