Category Archives: landscape and garden archaeology

St Anthony's Monastery, in Egypt, and the monastic gardening tradition

St Anthony's Monastery in Egypt

Saint Anthony (c 251–356) is known as ‘the Father of All Monks’. Athanasius wrote his biography and it spread monasticism in Western Europe. He was not the ‘first monk’ but he was a Christian ascetic who went into the wilderness. The present monastery was built (c 356) on his burial site and near his retreat. Its fortified character was a response to Bedouin attacks. St Anthony gave his father’s money to the poor and ‘shut himself up in a remote cell upon a mountain’ so that ‘filled with inward peace, simplicity and goodness’ he ‘cultivated and pruned a little garden’. Presumably, the garden was his food supply and the wilderness was the subject of his contemplation. This may well be the origin of a Christian approach to gardens, seeing them primarily as functional places – not as symbolic or luxurious places. Cloister garths belong to a different tradition: they are symbolic; they probably did not have a ‘use’; they became places of luxury. See posts on Certose Cloister, Canterbury Cloister, Salisbury Cloister and a hypothesis concerning the origin of Christian monasticism. Islam does not have a monastic tradition, though there are Dervish brotherhoods, possibly because the Arabs had sufficient experience of living in deserts.

(Image courtesy Miami Love)

A hypothesis concerning the origin of Christian monasticism and cloister gardens

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Indian Rishi or Yogi or Holy man, today and yesterday

It is known that Homo sapiens sapiens evolved in Africa and migrated into Asia but remained an entirely nomadic species until c10,000 BC. Christ was born in 1 AD and monasticism was unknown in Christianity until the end of the third century, with St Anthony of Egypt (251-356) one of the first Christian hermits. The practice of retreating into natural landscapes was much older. It is found in the Bon religion, in Hinduism and in Daoism. Buddhist monks developed monastic communities after 400 BC. One can therefore hypothesize that the roots of Christian monasticism extend back to the habit of retreating into the wilds in Central Asia, as does the architectural practice of arranging residential cells around a square of grass. It is likely that the central square space was a symbol of The Earth, just as a circle was a symbol of Heaven. Should this hypothesis be correct, there is a powerful case for managing cloisters as green voids with grass and wild flowers. See posts on Certose Cloister, Canterbury Cloister and Salisbury Cloister. If correct, the hypothesis supports the contention that early cloisters were not used as gardens or for any kind of gardening activity.

(The left image is the cover of the Indian Gardens eBook. The right image is a montage of a rishi onto a photograph of Egypt).

Canterbury Cathedral and the social use of cloister gardens in English monasteries

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Domestic use of Canterbury Cathedral Cloister is appropriate, but I do not think it should have been used as a graveyard

Canterbury Cathedral has beautiful cloisters. They were rebuilt in the fifteenth century on the site of the eleventh century cloisters built by Archbishop Lanfranc (c. 1005–1089) for Christ Church Canterbury. Lanfranc was born in Pavia (Italy) and brought to England by William the Conqueror. A water system was installed and a plan of the cloister drawn c1165. ‘This is a bird’s-eye view of the entire convent, drawn in accordance with the artistic methods of the time, and exhibiting the cathedral and monastic offices, viewed from the north. The water-courses are minutely shewn, with all their arrangements from the source to the convent, and its distribution to the monastic offices, supplying lavatories, cisterns, fish-ponds, etc., and finally flowing, in conjunction with the rain-water from the roofs and the sewerage of the convent, into the town ditch. As the drawing was probably made after the system was completed, we may for convenience assume its date at 1165, two years before the death of Wibert, and five years before the murder of Becket’. But what was the cloister used for? We can discover something from The monastic constitutions of Lanfranc By Lanfranc (Archbishop of Canterbury), trans David Knowles and Christopher Brooke:

p. 27 After their meal they shall sit in the cloister until the servers leave the refectory.
p. 35 There shall be a precession through the cloister as usual on Sundays.
p. 49 On Maundy… the cellarer and almoner and others appointed shall lead the poor into the cloister and cause them to sit
p.65 When all have received Communion the board shall be struck and the evening prayer take place. When this is done they shall go out into the cloister and wash their feet in warm water, and put on their day shoes.
p. 75 On Rogation Days… no sleep is taken in the afternoon… but at a fitting hour the masters shall waken the children as quietly as possible, and when these are reading in the cloister those who are still abed shall rise without delay p. 109 If it be an abbot who is received, he shall stand before the dore of the chapter-house and kiss the bretheren as they come out.
p. 131 Whossoever wishes to speak with the abbot, prior or any monk of the cloister shall use the guestmaster as his ambassador.
p.139 On other days when there is talking in the cloister, he who needs to he shaved may, by permission of the abbot or prior, be shaved in the cloister.

Note1: Technically, the ‘Cloister’ is the part of a monastery to which the public do not normally have access. The ‘Garth’, or garden, was the green space we now call a cloister.

Note2: in view of the appalling revelations of what catholic priests did to children in the 20th century, one worries about how much worse things were in earlier centuries. Rogation Days were set apart for solemn processions to invoke God’s mercy.

Triclinium Roman dining tables

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A re-created Triclinium at Fishbourne Roman Garden

How did they do it? Romans ate on ‘three couches’ (a triclinium) with a table separating them (see Wiki on triclinium). There is a garden re-creation of a triclinium at Fishbourne Roman Garden and one can find some photos on the web of students eating this way. When I first came across the idea, I assumed the couches were only for orgies, so that you could eat yourself sick and misbehave at will. But no, a triclinium seems to have been the normal way for wealthy people to eat. I tried arranging the sofa to eat in this way. It was not good for my digestion, drinking was difficult and I did not explore my earlier ideas. The only advantage I discovered was that if one was eating sloppy food without a knife or fork then it was easy to get one’s mouth vertically above the plate, as one still does for spaghetti. I remain puzzled, but here are some German students with a foodless triclinium and here is a painting of a Roman banquet.

Mass protest against Greenwich Park equestrian event

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Protesters shout SAVE GREENWICH PARK on 11 October 2009

We like to be first with the news. This photo was taken half an hour ago and we estimate there were over a thousand people in Greenwich Park on a wet afternoon, most of them horrified at the prospect of the damage the Olympic Equestrian Event would do to the Park. Those pounding hoofs and crowds of people would damage the Le Notre Parterre and endanger those wonderful old chestnut trees which do so much to feed Chinese chestnut pickers each autumn. See also: Restoration after 2012 Greenwich Olympic Equestrian Event and Olympic Village 2012.

Rescue garden archaeology before the Olympic equestrian event in Greenwich

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The space in front of the Queen's House is the site of the only design by Andre Le Notre for a British park or garden. Le Notre was the greatest garden designer and landscape architect of the seventeenth century. Archaeological research should be done before the land is sacrificed to the the 2012 Olympic horses.

Andre Le Notre was the greatest landscape architect of the seventeenth century and, many would say, of any century. He completed only one design in the British Isles. It was for a parterre in Greenwich Park, London. The current proposal is to use this parterre for the 2012 Olympic Equestrian. Two conclusions surely follow:

1) the parterre garden and its periphery should have a full rescue archaeology investigation before any work of any kind begins

2) the Le Notre parterre garden should be fully restored if the Equestrian Event takes place here, because horses and stadia damage land.

LOCOG, the London Organising Committee of the 2012 Olympic Games, say:

– the ground is to be ‘improved’ and strengthened
– to soften the ground there will be some decompaction/aeration
– as part of recovery programme there will be reseeding or returfing
– tree roots would be protected with materials such as woodchip

What will improvement, strengthening, decompaction and aeration do the archaeological remains? They are no way to treat a site of Grade I Garden Archaeological Importance. The first step should be a non-invasive geophysical survey using a magnetometer. This can map buried building foundations (eg of fountain basins) and can even plot the location of pre-historic paths in certain circumstances. The Le Notre parterre was cultivated during the Second World War but (1) the cultivation is unlikely to have been deep (2) it may well have been limited to the flat area of the parterre (3) evedince may survive below the parterre and near Le Notre’s banks, which are the areas most likely to be damaged by the equestrian competition arena.

Let us hope English Heritage supports the call for an archaeological investigation before further damage is done.

Andre Le Notre's plan for the parterre in Greenwich Park, with handwriting in his own hand. The earthworks were implemented and survive in part. An archaeological investigation is necessary to discover the extent to which the paths were built, and what survives of them.

The embankment forms part of Andre Le Notre's earthworks in Greenwich Park

The foreground embankment forms part of Andre Le Notre's earthworks in Greenwich Park

Garden Design and Landscape Architecture

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