St Philibert and the western cloister

[From the Life of St Philibert, Abbot of Jumièges.  See discussion in  Braunfels, W., Monasteries of Western Europe: the architecture of the orders Thames and Hudson 1972, Documentary Source II]

Braunfels (p. 28) dates the below text to c 750 and sees it as a 'crucial' in telling us about the early layout of western monasteries. Earlier prototypes, in the east, were built in Syria from the 4th to 6th centuries. They had peristyle courts, sometimes square (eg the plan of id-Dêr in Syria. It was built on the site of a Hellenistic temple and was unusual in having a square atrium, which precedes the church). Monte Cassino had a monastery in the 5th century but it was destroyed in the 6th century - and later re-built with money from the Carolingian kings. Philibert adopted features of the Benedictine rule. p. 28 'Next to the church was the cloister, with stone-hewn arcades, and admired for its rich decoration. Here then we find mention for the first time in the West of this grandiose motif'.
 

The points to note from the following quotation are: (1) the striving for 'greater perfection' (2) the reference to Clovis, who converted to Christianity after believing Christ had helped him to win a battle (3) the earliest documentary reference to a cloister

From the Life of St Philibert, Abbot of Jumièges.

5. But because perfect men always strive after greater perfection, the Priest of the Lord began to tour the monasteries of His Saints, in order to be in a position to pick up anything that might be of profit to holiness. He visited Luxeuil and Bobbio, and other monasteries living after the Rule of St Columba, and indeed all monasteries in the bosom of France and Italy, and all of Burgundy and, with sage forethought like the most sapient bee, whatever he saw to flourish through greater zeal, that he took for his example.

6 But since divine excellence desired to set its light upon a candelabrum, through which the lamp of holiness should cast far and wide the refulgent beam of its righteousness, it put into the heart of this most holy Man, that of his own efforts he should build a monastery. Then, obtaining by humble supplication from Clovis, King of the Franks, and his queen, Baldechilde, a site in the district of Rouen, called Gemeticum by the ancients, he was seen to construct there a noble monastery.

7. There, Divine Providence built battlemented ramparts rising up in a massive square (or rectangle), an enclosure of remarkable capacity, appropriate for those who came to it. Within shines the life-giving house, worthy of its inmates: beginning at the east, the church rose up by the Euro in the shape of a cross, and Mary the bountiful Virgin claims the head of it. . . . The cell of God's Saint himself looks out from the south, adorned with an edging of stone. Arcades accompany the laboriously stone-built cloister; the soul is delighted by varied decoration and girt about with bubbling waters. The two-storeyed dormitory, two hundred and ninety feet long and fifty wide, points southwards. Light shines through windows above each bed, penetrating like a lamp through the glass to assist the eyesight of those reading. Underneath are twin rooms suitable for two different purposes: one is a buttery for wines to be served from, the other is for preparing wholesome food; there gather those who worthily serve Christ, calling no thing their own, needing to store up nothing, because, trusting in God, they want nothing for their welfare, so that through them the saying is truly fulfilled: 'Great peace have they which love thy law, 0 Lord, and nothing shall offend them.' Here shines wondrous love, great abstinence, the highest humility, chastity in all.