Description
- Abstract:
- Between 1382 and 1400, Margaret of Flanders (1350-1405), the duchess of Burgundy, worked with an architect and an army of artisans to create the château of Germolles. There she built an oratory that gave her unusual access to the Eucharist and carefully accommodated the prompts that would have facilitated a deep connection with Christ. This second-story, ducal oratory was not the only one being built for the use of the duchess and her husband, Philip the Bold (1342-1404), at this moment. Thirty-seven miles north-east of Germolles, another two-story oratory was under construction as part of the monumental construction of the Chartreuse de Champmol. This simultaneous project — the couple’s only new religious foundation — employed the same artisans and architect as Germolles, who also built the individual oratories for Champmol’s community of Carthusian monks. The Carthusians were an order that spent most of their time alone in their cells, and in their own oratories therein, to enable the deep meditation that solitude was meant to provide. This dissertation explores the differing sensorial experiences of these three connected oratories and the way in which they responded to their different physical and social contexts. Though they differed in their appearance and approach, each oratory succeeded in their shared purpose: an architectural manipulation of spaces and senses in service of a hierarchical, and sometimes performative, access to the body of Christ. Each chapter reconstructs the appearance and function of one oratory — first the Carthusian cell at the Chartreuse de Champmol, then the upper and lower ducal oratories at Champmol, and finally the upper chapel at Germolles — before describing the experience that would have resulted and the ways in which it would have aided the worshippers in accessing the inward retreat that enabled affective meditation. The dissertation concludes with an exploration of how these different oratories may have been connected both to one another and to spaces of solitude in distant time and space, through something I have termed ‘resonant experiences’: experiences connected by their facilitation of the user’s retreat into a constant interior space via shared mechanisms.
- Notes:
- Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2022
Citation
Chilson-Parks, Laura,
"Designing Seclusion: Staging Carthusian and Ducal Access to the Divine in Late Medieval Burgundy"
(2022).
History of Art and Architecture Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:pg95z5vn/
Relations
Collection:
-
History of Art and Architecture Theses and Dissertations
Theses and Dissertations for the History of Art and Architecture department....