Zprávy památkové péče 2017, 77(1-2):132-136

Medieval Cistercian landscape as a border. Example of Moravia and the Papal State in the beginning of the 13th century

Jana Michalčáková

Katedra dějin umění FF UPOL

The article contribution serves as a certain epilogue to the theme of the Baroque landscape because it opens a large related theme - the cultural landscape in the Middle Ages. The article does not take the form of an authoritative interpretation but rather as a set of questions that should outline the direction of other possible considerations in the attempt to understand this theoretically very under-explored topic. The first part deals with the question of whether there can exist a Cistercian genius loci and its possible foundations in the structure of Cistercian buildings that not only influenced the immediate situation in their surroundings but also became a part of the interconnected network of stretches of transformed landscape extending throughout Europe.
The article goes on to focus on the concrete form of this transformation. It concludes that the Cistercian holdings were transformed in an effort to bring the idea of Heavenly Jerusalem closer as a clearly defined and bounded space in which religious, aesthetic and technological concepts could be disseminated.
These theses are then illustrated using two specific examples. The first one is Moravian Velehrad, where the founding of the Cistercian Abbey was a means of colonizing the "wasteland" as well as a completely literal and concrete transformation in the cultivated cultural landscape. The second example presents the abbeys of Fossanova and Casamari near Rome, which, although already established within the existing cultural landscape, were also a means of colonization, this time politico-diplomatic, as part of the complicated relations between the Papal State and other power players.

Keywords: cultural landscape of the Middle Ages, Cistercians, Velehrad, Papal State

Published: March 1, 2017  Show citation