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Armaria (singular armarium) are a kind of closed, labeled cupboards that were used for book storage from ancient history until the Middle Ages. [1]
They were probably used in the library of Alexandria. They were also used for storage of important papal documents in the Vatican Archives. [2]
The armarium is used for storing liturgical objects, arranged in the walls of the sanctuary or the presbyterium. In monasteries, the armarium claustri is used for storing volumes. The niche is carved in a wall of the “gallery of the collatio” of the cloister, with lateral grooves intended to receive the bookshelves. The relatively modest dimensions of the original armarium-niche testify to the rarity of books in the central Middle Ages. The Carolingian renaissance leads to an increase in the number of volumes in the large abbeys, which leads to its transformation into a book store room. In ancient Cistercian architecture, it is a small room that is located between the abbey church and the chapter house and opens directly into the cloister where the books read by the monks are stored. The armarium often has an external storage cupboard, close to the entrance door of the church. [3]
The monks who borrow these books use them for their liturgical offices or read them during lectio divina, sitting on the stone benches that line the walls of the cloister. The cantor, responsible for the armarium, must keep it closed during working hours, meals, vespers and night sleep. [4]
The armarium is to be distinguished from the scriptorium (sometimes called library), a much larger room, and located on the other side of the cloister, which is a place of work and study: in the Middle Ages, manuscripts were diligently copied there. The scriptorium (library) often contained several thousand books and was enriched over time. All fields of knowledge were cultivated there and not only ecclesiology: books of medicine, geometry, music, astrology, and Latin classics such as Aristotle, Ovid, Horace or Plato. [5]
The armarium is most often a wall cabinet, a common arrangement in medieval houses used for storing objects. In inventories, it does not appear as the place containing the objects mentioned. On the other hand this word often appears in price-made works of construction.
An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns.
A manuscript was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has come to be understood to further include any written, typed, or word-processed copy of an author's work, as distinguished from the rendition as a printed version of the same.
An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers and liturgical books such as psalters and courtly literature, the practice continued into secular texts from the 13th century onward and typically include proclamations, enrolled bills, laws, charters, inventories, and deeds.
A scriptorium was a writing room in medieval European monasteries for the copying and illuminating of manuscripts by scribes.
The Cloisters, also known as the Met Cloisters, is a museum in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City. The museum, situated in Fort Tryon Park, specializes in European medieval art and architecture, with a focus on the Romanesque and Gothic periods. Governed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it contains a large collection of medieval artworks shown in the architectural settings of French monasteries and abbeys. Its buildings are centered around four cloisters—the Cuxa, Saint-Guilhem, Bonnefont and Trie—that were acquired by American sculptor and art dealer George Grey Barnard in France before 1913, and moved to New York. Barnard's collection was bought for the museum by financier and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. Other major sources of objects were the collections of J. P. Morgan and Joseph Brummer.
Martial, called "the Apostle of the Gauls" or "the Apostle of Aquitaine", was the first bishop of Limoges. Venerated as a Christian Saint, his feast day is 30 June.
Netley Abbey is a ruined late medieval monastery in the village of Netley near Southampton in Hampshire, England. The abbey was founded in 1239 as a house for monks of the austere Cistercian order. Despite royal patronage, Netley was never rich, produced no influential scholars nor churchmen, and its nearly 300-year history was quiet. The monks were best known to their neighbours for the generous hospitality they offered to travellers on land and sea.
A chapter house or chapterhouse is a building or room that is part of a cathedral, monastery or collegiate church in which meetings are held. When attached to a cathedral, the cathedral chapter meets there. In monasteries, the whole community often met there daily for readings and to hear the abbot or senior monks talk. When attached to a collegiate church, the dean, prebendaries and canons of the college meet there. The rooms may also be used for other meetings of various sorts; in medieval times monarchs on tour in their territory would often take them over for their meetings and audiences. Synods, ecclesiastical courts and similar meetings often took place in chapter houses.
Mount Angel Abbey is a Catholic monastery of Benedictine monks located in Saint Benedict, Oregon, northeast of Salem, it was established 142 years ago in 1882 from Engelberg Abbey, in Switzerland. The abbey, located on the top of Mount Angel, a 485-foot-high butte (148 m), has its own post office separate from the city of Mt. Angel. As of 2021, the abbey is home to approximately 51 monks.
Santo Domingo de Silos Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in the village of Santo Domingo de Silos in the southern part of Burgos Province in northern Spain. The monastery is named after the eleventh-century saint Dominic of Silos.
Corbie Abbey is a former Benedictine monastery in Corbie, Picardy, France, dedicated to Saint Peter. It was founded by Balthild, the widow of Clovis II, who had monks sent from Luxeuil. The Abbey of Corbie became celebrated both for its library and the scriptorium.
Ashburnham House is an extended seventeenth-century house on Little Dean's Yard in Westminster, London, United Kingdom, which since 1882 has been part of Westminster School. It is occasionally open to the public, when its staircase and first floor drawing-rooms in particular can be seen.
Thoronet Abbey is a former Cistercian abbey built in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century, now restored as a museum. It is sited between the towns of Draguignan and Brignoles in the Var Department of Provence, in southeast France. It is one of the three Cistercian abbeys in Provence, along with the Sénanque Abbey and Silvacane, that together are known as "the Three Sisters of Provence."
Museo Nazionale di San Marco is an art museum housed in the monumental section of the medieval Dominican convent of San Marco dedicated to St Mark, situated on the present-day Piazza San Marco, in Florence, a region of Tuscany, Italy.
Monasteries in Spain have a rich artistic and cultural tradition, and serve as testament to Spain's religious history and political-military history, from the Visigothic Period to the Middle Ages. The monasteries played an important role in the recruitment conducted by Christian aristocracy during and after the progress of the Reconquista, with the consequent decline in the Muslim south of the peninsula.
Moissac Abbey was a Benedictine and Cluniac monastery in Moissac, Tarn-et-Garonne in south-western France. A number of its medieval buildings survive, including the abbey church, which has a famous and important Romanesque sculpture around the entrance.
A lavatorium, also anglicised as laver and lavatory, was the communal washing area in a monastery, particularly in medieval abbeys and cathedral cloisters. Monks were required to wash before meals; thus the lavatorium was typically adjacent to the refectory.
Morimondo Abbey is a former Cistercian monastery located at Morimondo, a few kilometers south of Abbiategrasso in the Metropolitan City of Milan, Lombardy, northern Italy. The surviving structure is Romanesque and Gothic. It was founded in 1134 as a daughter house of Morimond Abbey near Dijon, from which it took its name.
Praglia Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in the frazione of Bresseo in Teolo, Province of Padua, Italy. It is located at the foot of the Euganean Hills, some 12 kilometers southwest of Padua, and four kilometers from Abano Terme.
The Carolingian libraries emerged during the reign of the Carolingian dynasty, when book collections reappeared in Europe after a two-century cultural decline. The end of the 8th century marked the beginning of the so-called Carolingian Renaissance countries of Germany, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Sweden and Norway, a cultural upsurge primarily associated with church reform. The reform aimed to unify worship, correct church books, train qualified priests to work with the semi-pagan flock, and prepare missionaries capable of preaching throughout the empire and beyond. This required a comprehensive understanding of classical Latin and familiarity with surviving monuments of ancient culture.
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