The Solar Discourse of the Welsh Cistercians
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2017-05-14

This paper reports on the continuing research of the Welsh Monastic Skyscape Project which considers how the union of sun, landscape, and architecture can produce a theologically charged environment. This paper takes a detailed focus of all extant Welsh Cistercian Abbeys and their theological relationship to sun light. In 1994, Janet Burton (1994: 159,161) claimed that Cistercian Abbeys supported the theological agenda of saving each individual monk’s soul and by extension, that this would produce the salvation of the world. Later in 2001, Megan Cassidy-Welch (2001:164) described the Cistercians’ desire to build ‘the earthly manifestation of heavenly space, a site that was suffused with celestial longing’. This paper considers these Welsh Cistercian monastic sites and rather than utilizing a statistical approach, as recommended in 2015 by Stephen McCluskey (2015:1709) we drew instead on the approach suggested by Hugh Benson in 1957 (1957). Our methodology was interdisciplinary, drawing together the fields of anthropology, archaeoastronomy, art history, and medieval architecture. This methodology took into account the orientation of the abbey, the altitude of any extant windows of the east and west ends, and how the structure made use of the local topography to emphasise the sun’s light. We then placed these discovered orientations into a cultural context by considering them within the framework of the Cistercian theology and philosophy of sun light.
References:
Benson, Hugh, 'Church orientations and patronal festivals', The Antiquaries Journal, 36, 1956, pp. 205-213.
Burton, Janet E. 1994. The monastic and religious orders in Britain, 1000-1300 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge).
Cassidy-Welch, Megan. 2001. Monastic spaces and their meanings, thirteenth-century English Cistercian monasteries (Brepols: Belgium).
McCluskey, Stephen C. 2015. 'Orientation of Christian Churches.' in Clive L. N. Ruggles (ed.), The Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy (Springer Reference: New York).

Bernadette Brady; Darrelyn Gunzburg; and Fabio Silva, University of Wales Trinity Saint David