Cloister garden: Mission style

Today we appreciate cloisters for their ability to create soothing sheltered spaces for observation and contemplation; for providing simple gardens full of the useful flowers, vegetables and medicinal herbs; and for including water, essential for life.  These elements create a powerful contrast to the 24/7 pace of the modern world. 

Historically, the cloister garden also played an important role in protecting those inside from physical attack and sustaining them during periods when they could not venture out.  In 800 CE England the cloister provided protection from Vikings.  In 1800 California, missions used the cloister design for protection from the native population.

Indians Refusing to Work at San Luis Rey, by A. Harmer, 1833. Source: California Missions Resource Center.

The garden pictured above is from southern California’s Mission San Luis Rey, in an area that was originally home to the Luiseño people.   The mission was established in 1798 to extend Spain’s colonial claims.  Its purpose was to teach the Luiseño "useful" trade skills and to preach Christianity.  Life for the Luiseño under this scheme was hard and some organized raids on the mission in an attempt to close it.  Fear of attack led to the church that we see on the site today, built in the 1810’s.

Master stonemason Antonio Ramirez designed and oversaw the construction, with Luiseño converts doing the work.  The main walls of the church were 30 feet high and five feet thick.  The garden is set inside the mission compound.  Framed by deep covered walkways, there is a central well for access to water, areas for planting useful herbs, food, and flowers, and a grassy area where a few animals could be sheltered.

In 1830, the mission was the largest building in California.  3,000 Luiseño’s managed 50,000 livestock, and tended to crops of grapes, oranges, olives, wheat, and corn. 

Mission restorer Father Joseph O’Keefe. Library of Congress 

Disease played a key role in the loss of nearly half of the Luiseño population.  Cave Couts, a prominent cattleman wrote to a friend in 1862, "Small pox is quite prevalent… six to eight per day are being buried --Indians generally." (From Richard Crawford’s “Fatal Funeral: Rancher Recounts 1863 Killing Over Fear of Smallpox”, LA Times.)

The mission fell into ruins in the 1850's and its restoration began with the arrival of Franciscan Father Joseph O’Keefe.  Today the site is a National Historic Landmark and houses the Franciscan School of Theology, which prepares priests and lay women and men for shared ministry in the Catholic Church.  

See more cloister garden stories here.

 

Mission founder Father Antonio Peyri. Source: San Diego History Center.

Source: San Luis Rey Historic Foundation

Inspiration from the Cloister

Historic gardens are full of ideas.  Cloister gardens remind us of the power of appealing to all of our senses. 

Opportunities to see, hear, smell, and touch are easily delivered in the garden.  Our fifth sense, taste, comes from herbs and edible plants that are often absent in purely ornamental gardens, but is an integral part of the traditional cloister garden.

In an article in Mother Earth Living, The Cloister’s museum former Associate Horticulture Manager, Deidre Larkin, said that in their gardens “We grow 250 to 325 [different] herbs…. Many of the herbs we value today were grown and used in the Middle Ages.” 

In the Cuxa Cloister garden shown above, perennial herbs are planted in the ground and others, like rosemary and myrtle, are beautifully planted in pots.   Thus making them easy to move into a sheltered space when the weather turns cold.  These hand-made terra cotta containers are among my favorites.  Their organic irregularity reflects the hands that created them, infusing them with character absent in machine made containers.  

An herb garden in hand-made containers is the perfect way to channel the Medieval garden.  Larkin suggests starting with mint, lemon balm, and comfrey. In northern climates, this is a perfect winter project.

For all their stiffness, Cloister gardens deliver quiet, sheltered spaces, and are unique in terms of engaging all of our senses.

Learn more about the the garden pictured above from a recent post here.

 

Rare relics kept from America

The New York Times headline in 1913 read “Rare relics kept from America by French protest.”

The relics in question were twelve marble pillars from the Abbey of St. Michel de Cuxa in France. American sculptor George Grey Bernard, known for his monumental public sculptures, had purchased the pillars and was trying to export them to the US.   “So emphatic was the protest aroused in France when his plan became known that the French government intervened and caused him to give up his project.” 

This Abbey had a storied past. It was built around 950 with support from Queen Girberge, mother of Charlemagne’s oldest son.  A few years later, in 978, the Abbey became the home of the Doge of Venice, Pietro Orseolo, who scandalously renounced his power and possessions to seek a monastic spiritual life.  For years the Abbey prospered.  Its treasures were said to include the head of St. Valentine! and a wooden piece of original manger from Bethlehem. 

Long after his death – in the early 1700’s, Orseolo became a saint, and the Abbey became a place of pilgrimage for those seeking its supposed healing powers. By 1793, when France was in the midst of its famous Revolution, the community of St. Michel de Cuxa had withered to a single monk.  That same year, villagers looted the Abbey and began to demolish it.  This all happened one week after Louis XVI was beheaded, and was consistent with the revolution’s path of dismantling centuries-old institutions.  The revolutionary government finally sold the property for the equivalent of $100,000 in today’s money. 

In 1913, The New York Times described the cloister’s marble pillars: ”There probably do not exist in France any more characteristic mediaeval sculptures than those of St. Michel de Cuxa….  The capitals … are modeled with great simplicity and executed with rare energy.  The sculptor (probably a monk) was endowed with a singular imagination.”

The pillars were removed in 1840, and used for the entrance to a “bathing establishment” in a nearby town.  They were sold to Bernard in 1907.  The French protest was surprising given that he had already shipped 30 similar columns and capitals to America. 

Somehow, even with all the uproar, Bernard managed to transport the columns to New York City for a museum he built in 1914 on the northern tip of Manhattan.

In 1925, John D. Rockefeller helped the Metropolitan Museum purchase Bernard’s collection of medieval art and artifacts and provided land and support to move Bernard’s collection from his original museum.  The new location would become the Cloisters museum, part of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The columns form the basis for the Cuxa Cloister on the museum’s main level.  Here you will find a typical design of a grass area crisscrossed by stone paths with a central fountain.  Perennial herbs such as rosemary, sage, and lavender complete the composition.

High above the Hudson River, off the beaten tourist track, The Cloisters museum is a ‘must see’ when you are in New York City.  Check out the historic images on their website. 

The story has a happy ending on both sides of the Atlantic.  The original Abbey in France was picked up by Cistercian monks in 1919 and restored in the 1950's.  Famous Catalan cellist Pablo Casals founded a music festival that has made the Abbey a destination once again.  Today the Abbey is also a center for Romanesque Art and home to a community of Benedictine monks.  More information is available at the Abbey's website.

The maps below highlight the current and original location of the columns.  Ah, the many stories that a single garden can tell.