Agricultural Landscapes of Al-Andalus, and the Aftermath of the Feudal Conquest

Abstract

the support of the Abbot General of the Order, going in search of the bones of Otto de Freising, abbot of Morimond and later Bishop of Freising, removing 1.5m of demolition deposits in the crossing and presbytery, with the loan of a bulldozer and drivers from a local American air-force base; this followed an earlier excavation, and reminds us that these sites are not simply the province of archaeologists and art historians. Next comes an update on the recording of the standing remains of the abbey church and its architectural detail, followed by coverage of continuing excavation of the constantly evolving guest-house complex, which was converted to more utilitarian uses from the late 16th century. Morimond was, of course, the burial place of abbots, senior monks and donor families, but we are told that ‘all the grave-stones of Morimond Abbey have disappeared for certain before the time of its reconstruction at the end of the 17th c, but equally at the time of the general destruction of the abbey at the beginning of the 19th c’. Only three stones have been recovered, though the burial lists for 68 individuals in the church, chapter house and cloister have been reconstructed, many with their inscriptions, from manuscript sources. Finally, there is a survey of paintings, drawings and photographs of the abbey ruins, recording those parts lost since 1816. The second part outlines the development of the community of Morimond and her abbots through good times and bad, the struggle between France and Lorraine during the Wars of Religion, the evolution of her estate up to the 16th century, the struggle between France and Lorraine during the Wars of Religion and the reconstruction of damaged granges after the Thirty Years War. It also addresses the abbey’s holdings in the towns of Langres – where much of the church furnishings, choir stalls, screens and grills were taken after the abbey was suppressed – and Dijon – where Auberive’s mid-12th-century house survives in a city that also had townhouses of Ĉıteaux, Clairvaux, Fontenay and Pontigny. The third part looks at the family of Morimond in France and in Europe with a m elange of papers looking beyond Morimond to medieval daughter houses in the Auvergne and VillersBettnach in Lorraine, a house largely rebuilt from 1724 but retaining what must be the finest surviving Cistercian gate chapel of the late 12th century anywhere. The next paper examines the management of Cistercian monks in Central Europe, with the movement of abbots within the filiation of Morimond as the order moved into new territory, and the curricula vitae of individual Bohemian abbots. Following this are a study of granges within the extended family of Morimond in Italy, which picks up on the pioneering work of Maria Righetti Tosti Croce, looking at the granges of Morimondo, named for the mother house; and a chapter on the role of Morimond in the spiritual responsibility for the military order of Calatrava active in Portugal and Spain, wished upon it by the General Chapter. Lastly there is a review of the waterworks within the families of Morimond, Ĉıteaux and Clairvaux in central Spain that picks up from the work of Jose Mascarenas and Virgilino Ferreria Jorge in Portugal. The volume’s fourth and final part comprises a single paper by Jean-Francois LerouxDhuys summarising the demise of Cistercian abbeys and their convents in France.