Paysages, implantation et architecture des monastères cisterciens entre Seine et Rhin du xiie au xviiie siècle

The Grand-Est region counted around 65 monasteries of the order of Cîteaux, founded between 1115 (Clairvaux) and before 1274 (Consolation). The presence of these abbeys and their barns, rural establishments attached to them, was a real marker of the renewal of religious aspirations at the end of the 11th and at the beginning of the 12th century. Despite the vagaries of wars in the region, the time of these male and female abbeys still largely marks the space.The study of these establishments is taken up on a large scale as part of a Collective Research Program whose aim is to reveal the impact of the environment (geology and hydrology) in the installation, development and organization enclosed areas of Cistercian abbeys and their immediate vicinity (the area entirely subject to Cistercian authority outside the enclosure). These establishments are a true marker of religious fact. The creation of digital terrain models should make it possible to restore the spatial organization of the abbey by coupling it with the study of elevations, the analysis of microreliefs, and that of underground and open hydraulic infrastructures. The aim is also to better identify buried structures and vestiges based on old plans but by coupling them when possible with a series of geophysical surveys. It is a question of acquiring a better readability of the primitive structures.This Collective Research Program aims, initially, to focus on 15 abbeys in the greater region founded before the death of Saint Bernard in 1153 including Morimond and Clairvaux, which are both at the origin of most of the monasteries established in Grand-Est. This project aims to evolve over time and it will no doubt be possible to increase the number of monasteries concerned. In addition, at the same time, information from preventive and planned excavations will complement the sources available.This landscape and architecture issue sheds new light both on the construction of the monasteries but also on what was its functioning in terms of network and filiation between Seine and Rhine.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC

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