Monastic architecture and female patronage in thirteenth-century France: The royal abbey of Saint-Jean-aux-Bois

Founded in 1152 by Queen Adelaide, wife of Louis VII (1108–37), Saint-Jean-aux-Bois is and has been recognized historically as a highly worked edifice containing many examples of superb twelfth and thirteenth century decorative style. The small size of the claustral ensemble combined with the unusual survival of both its monastic buildings (thirteenth-century abbey church, twelfth-century chapter room and fifteenth-century fortifications) and documentation dating to the period of its construction, allows us to draw an intimate, textured portrait of the community and their use of space. Saint-Jean-aux-Bois is a specific case where monastic architecture, female enclosure, royal patronage, female patronage and administration meet and can be studied.; Chapter one examines the community's textual record which spans the period from the community's foundation through the final phase of its church building campaign in the 1220s. Forty-seven donation charters, dating from 1155 to 1279/80, and the obituary record the community's transactions and interactions with those outside the monastery. (My transcriptions and my translations of the charters are in Appendices I–XI; Appendices XII–XIII contain the abbey's previously published texts). These documents illuminate the material possessions acquired by Saint-Jean-aux-Bois and illustrate the community's active participation in its development, growth and financial maintenance. The donation charters reveal a pattern of interaction between the abbesses of Saint-Jean-aux-Bois and the community at large—a community including Queen Adelaide, her son King Louis VII, King Philip Augustus, ecclesiastics from neighboring Soissons, monastics from nearby abbeys such as Ourscamp and Longpont and various aristocrats.; Chapters two, three and four locate Saint-Jean-aux-Bois within its architectural and decorative milieu, drawing comparisons between it and other major twelfth and thirteenth-century monastic and secular church architecture. Changes made to the abbey are phased to determine how the space was changed to accommodate the monastic complexes' changing function and communities. Chapter five examines the disposition of the church's various decorative elements in relationship to the ritual use of the space by the female religious, suggesting a correlation between architectural and decorative disposition and use.