Klöster im Hochmittelalter

Medieval Monasteries in the Duchy of Brabant I 233

Leuven) or with a polygonal apse (Diest, Tienen, Sint-Truiden), some with a
pseudo-transept (Liege, Tongeren) or a real transept (Diest). The columns are
cylindrical and smooth, the mouldings are limited, and the capitals minimal, as
in cloth halls or hospital wards.
Around 1300, the churches of the mulieres religiosae, more than those of the
Mendicant friars and the Cistercian nuns,71 expressed a sense of feminine humil-
ity and apostolic poverty that was inspired by the life of the first Christian com-
munities as described in the Acts of the Apostles.72 For its adherents, this ideal
implied a clearly identifiable code of behaviour that expressed itself in communal
life, financial precariousness (begging), dresses (rough cloth), food (vegetarian-
ism), etc., but also in distinct architectural, visual, and aesthetic choices.
Innovative Monastic Architectural Visual Culture
The architectural iconological approach revealed the meanings of architectural
innovation of four monastic cases in Brabant, at a time the centre of gravity of
political power and society moved from rural to urban contexts, the Church
needed to be reformed, and the architecture shifted from Romanesque to Gothic.
These four cases illustrate how architectural innovation contributed to develop
a new visual culture and redefine monastic identities in the thirteenth-century
Duchy of Brabant, at the crossroads of monastic networks between Germany,
France and Italy.
Both the Cistercian church of Villers-in-Brabant and the Dominican church
of Leuven belong in the long tradition of dynastic burial places and memorisa-
tion of power. However, both Duke Henry II and Duke Henry III, two promi-
nent territorial princes of their generation, innovated by choosing their burial
place and associating 'modern' architecture with their memory. I will not dis-
cuss here who made the decision, since in both cases the construction works
started before the death of the dukes, but the completion, including important
changes, occurred after they had been buried in side chapels of the choir. The
point is that innovation affected opposite parts of the burial churches, west in
Villers and east in Leuven (Figs. 6 and 7), and referred to archetypes from totally
different historical contexts: the Carolingian Westbau as symbol of the impe-

71 Coomans, L'architecture (as in note 4); Coomans, Cistercian Nunneries (as in note 4);
Thomas Coomans, The Medieval Architecture of Cistercian Nunneries in the Low Coun-
tries, in: Bulletin KNOB 103/3 (2004), pp. 62-90. Available online at: https://journals.open.
tudelft.nl/knob/article/view/Coomans62/416 (last accessed on 04.05.2020).

72 Coomans, Saint-Christophe a Liege (as in note 69), pp. 372-373.