Klöster im Hochmittelalter

214 I Thomas Coomans

and their understanding by contemporary people,23 only a few historians and
art historians who read Bandmann consider the buildings themselves to be an
object of iconological analysis. This could change now since Bandmann was at
last translated into English in 2005 and published at Columbia University Press,
54 years after its German edition.24

The Imperial and Gothic Westbau of the Cistercian Abbey
of Villers-in-Brabant25
Like other dynasties, the Dukes of Brabant developed close ties with the Cister-
cian order. The abbey of Villers is a remarkable expression of such a privileged
relationship. It became the most powerful Cistercian abbey in the thirteenth-
century Low Countries and also played a prominent role within the order of
Citeaux,26 and by framing the movements of religious women (mulieres religio-
sae), both Cistercian nuns and Beguines, in the Duchy of Brabant and the dio-
cese of Liege.
Bernard of Clairvaux founded Villers in 1146 on the territory of a local lord,
between the Duchy of Brabant and the County of Namur.27 Gradually, the
monks distanced themselves from the founding family, moved a few miles north-
wards in 1197, and 'lobbied' at the duke's court. Around 1204, the transformation
of the name of the abbey from Villarium to Villarium in Brabantia expressed
clearly the community's political identity. From this moment, the abbey enjoyed
the protection of Henry I, Duke of Brabant, and a period of great prosperity
marked by important construction activities, a high spiritual life, and the foun-
dation of two daughter abbeys in the early 1230s. Before 1233, Guillaume of
Perwez, a brother of Henry I, was buried in the eastern gallery of the cloister in
front of the chapter house, but the duke himself was buried in Leuven in 1235.

23 For example: Reading Gothic Architecture, ed. by Matthew M. Reeve (Studies in the Visual
Cultures of the Middle Ages 1), Turnhout 2008.

24 See note 12.

25 The following lines are a synthesis of a chapter from: Thomas Coomans, L'abbaye de Villers-
en-Brabant: construction, composition et signification d'une abbaye cistercienne gothique
(Citeaux, Studia et Documenta 11), Brussels/Brecht 2000, pp. 64-68, pp. 201-223 and pp.
256-257.

26 Two abbots of Villers became abbots of Clairvaux, and one became abbot of Citeaux.
Edouard de Moreau, L'abbaye de Villers-en-Brabant aux XIIe et XIIIe siecles. Etude d'his-
toire religieuse et economique, Brussels 1909, pp. 105-114.

27 Jean-Frangois NiEUs/Michel Dubuisson, Fondations monastiques et concurrence seigneu-
riale. Le cas des Cisterciens de Villers en Brabant (1146), in: Citeaux, commentarii cister-
cienses 70 (2019), pp. 5-5.