Cloister and Garth

Technically, a cloister is a covered arcade around a courtyard. But is was much more than that to the monks of a medieval monastery. An essential part of every monastery's design, the cloister joined the main buildings of the monastery and acted as a conduit of transportation. We know that monks often had assigned seats in the cloister, and made use of the natural light of the arcades to study and copy books. The garth garden was an especially important and symbolic area of the cloister. The cross-walk symbolized Christ's crucifix, and divided the garth into four sections representative either of the four gospels, the four evangelists, and so on. The central water source, either a fountain or a well, symbolized paradise. This space of luscious natural beauty invited thought concerning the order of the natural world as designed by God himself. The cloister garth garden would have assumed an enormous importance for those who rarely left the monastery. In addition to being a place of contemplation, the cloister was an area of mundane daily activities: we have record of medieval monks washing their clothes in the fountains and hanging them on the cloister arcades.