Allegorical buildings

This is a passage I used recently in a paper I presented at the IMC in Leeds. It's from the Sainte Abbaie MS, a 13th century text found at Maubisson nunnery in France.

"When the place is truly purged then it is necessary to make the foundation broad and deep, and two demoiselles shall do this: Humility, who shall make them deep, and Poverty, who shall make them large and broad and shall remove the earth from one side and the other by generously giving whatever she shall have…Demoiselle Obedience on one side, and Mercy on the other, shall make the walls large and high. As many good works as we do and as many alms as we give, so many stones do we place in our buildings….Demoiselle Patience and demoiselle Force shall make the pillars to support and prop up [the building], so that no wind of tribulation or temptation, or of stinging speech, or of great injury should be able to knock them down"

I'm hoping to use it eventually as part of a larger discussion on the roles of obedientiaries in the monastery and the rhetoric, metaphor and allegory employed in their roles. I'm fascinated by meanings within the monastery but there's always the danger that you can get carried away and start seeing meaning in everything!

The Sainte Abbaie text is part of a wide ecclesiastical tradition of writing about monasteries and those within using the language of heaven, and ascribing allegory which always reminds me of Aesop's fables and other more modern tales which employ similiar devices.

Sources:

- Kumler, A., Translating Truth, Ambitious Images and Religious Knowledge in Late Medieval France and England (London: Yale University  Press, 2011) p. 196