Sacred Space and Bodily Recovery: The Therapeutic Architecture of the Repenties Monastery in Avignon - Omer Elmakais
- didiats
- Jul 8
- 5 min read
The medieval understanding of sin as a disease that infected both body and soul finds profound expression in the institutional arrangements of the Repenties of Avignon, a fourteenth century monastery dedicated to the reformation of former prostitutes. A papal bull issued shortly before the promulgation of their new 1376 rule by the initiative of pope Gregory XI reveals how the physical environment of this religious house was consciously designed to facilitate not merely spiritual conversion, but bodily healing – a holistic approach to reformation that recognized the intimate connection between physical and spiritual wellbeing.
The bull describes how the Bishop of Avignon at the time, Anglicus of Albano (Anglicus Albanensis), recognizing that the original monastery “was too small and insufficient for the number of women, and that these women were almost like prisoners, not having any space where they could sometimes be recovered/refreshed,”[1] after receiving complaints from the prostitutes-turned-nuns themselves, undertook significant expansions and transformation of the monastery. He annexed the cemetery and a small garden of the adjacent church of Saint Mary of Miracles, enclosed the entire complex with walls, and provided compensation to the church for this appropriation. This transformation reveals a possible understanding of the therapeutic requirements for women undergoing the radical transition from prostitution to religious life.[2]
This papal bull can be seen as demonstrative of the practical use of prominent ideas of medieval writings about health and medicine. The phrase “ubi possent aliquando recreari” (“…where they could sometimes be recovered”) suggests not merely recreational space, but rather a place where the women could be restored or renewed – literally “re-created.” This terminology aligns with the general themes of medieval medical theory, and the understanding of healing as a process of restoring proper balance to both body and soul;[3] “recreation” was sometimes used to describe the needs of monks to briefly leave the claustral life to get fresh air and freedom, for the sake of their physical and mental health.[4] The comparison of the women’s previous condition to imprisonment (“quasi in carcere”)[5] further emphasizes how spatial confinement was understood to impede the healing process essential to their reformation.[6]
The confinement and the crowdedness, the lack of space and proper environment, as well as the fact that the expansion also included cemetery and garden space, might all reference to another central concept in the medieval understating of health: the six ‘non-naturals’ – variable aspects of the environment and of human behavior, that could affect the body’s humoral balance according to the Galenic system. These included ambient air, exercise and rest, sleeping and waking, food and drink, evacuation and repletion and the passions or accidents of the soul. The cramped quarters described in the bull would have violated several of these principles, particularly those relating to proper air, adequate space for movement, and the inner wellbeing that comes from access to natural environments.[7]
The attention to physical space becomes even more significant when considered alongside medieval medical understanding of female sexuality and its effects on the body. Medical authorities argued that excessive sexual activity caused harm to women’s bodies, leading to complications ranging from uterine disorders to general debilitation. The former prostitutes entering the Repenties monastery, therefore, might have been understood as suffering from specific bodily ailments resulting from their previous lives. The transition to celibacy presented its own medical challenges as well. Medieval physicians recognized that the abrupt stop of sexual activity could cause its own set of problems: conditions such as suffocation of the womb or melancholia were commonly attributed to long term celibacy (as amongst monks or nuns). The creation of adequate space for physical movement, access to a garden for fresh air, and proper living conditions (along with additional aid such as specific dietary regulations) might have been understood as essential healing components of the reformation process.
The physical improvements described in the papal bull must be understood as integral to, rather than separate from, the spiritual reformation process outlined in the Repenties rule. The practices of confession, fasting, prayer, enclosure, and the taking of vows were designed to heal the soul from the disease of sin, but this spiritual healing was not isolated from the body’s wellbeing.
The creation of proper living space thus served the dual purpose of addressing the medical consequences of the women’s previous lives while creating optimal conditions for their spiritual transformation. The expansion from prison-like quarters to a properly enclosed complex with gardens and adequate space represents a sophisticated understanding of therapeutic environment – one that recognized healing as necessarily involving both the physical and the spiritual.
This holistic approach extended beyond mere comfort. The transition from the chaotic, public spaces of urban prostitution to the ordered, enclosed, but adequate spaces of the monastery created a physical framework for physical and spiritual transformation.
The expansion of the monastery’s physical space can be seen as creating what might be called a therapeutic environment – an environment that communicates care, hope, and the possibility of transformation. The very fact that papal authority was mobilized to improve these women’s living conditions would have conveyed powerful messages about their importance and the institutional commitment to their recovery.
Footnotes:
[1] Pierre Pansier, L'Oeuvre des Repenties à Avignon du XIIIe au XVIIIe siècle (Paris and Avignon, 1910), 213.
[2] Ibid, 213-214.
[3] Joseph Ziegler, Medicine and Religion c.1300: The Case of Arnau de Vilanova (Oxford 1998), 13.
[5] Guy Geltner, “The Prison as Place and Metaphor,” in The Medieval Prison: A Social History (Princeton, 2008). In the 14th century, the understanding of prison as an institution began to change in certain ways, according to a process outlined by Geltner. In the chapter dealing with the use of prison as a metaphor and metaphors of prison, Geltner identifies a process that reaches its peak in the 14th century, in which discourse shifted from describing prison in terms of an earthly purgatory to seeing it as a hell on earth. The common features attributed to purgatory (especially with the establishment of the doctrine in the 13th century) and to prison before the 14th century included: reliance on the outside world, suffering that leads to spiritual elevation, and above all, both being places of justice – spiritual and earthly. All of these were pushed aside in the 14th century as prison became associated with hell, since hell is not purgatory and its inhabitants are not even granted the possibility of redemption. Another aspect of life in prison, which Pope Gregory may have been referring to, is directly tied to this theme: the prostitute-turned-nuns did not have regular access to the church, according to what Pope Gregory states in his decree. They could not pray, confess, or participate in Mass in a proper or sufficient manner. Thus, the monastery becomes a prison not only when it is overcrowded and restrictive, but also when it fails to provide for the spiritual needs of the prostitute-nuns and does not allow them the promised rehabilitation. Therefore, the statement that the prostitute-turned-nuns had no place in which they could “refresh” themselves, rehabilitate, or regain strength may be interpreted in both senses: on the one hand, the physical space is inadequate and their bodily well-being is neglected; on the other hand, they are unable to regularly participate in the central rituals of monastic and Christian life, that is, their spiritual well-being is also neglected.
[6] Kerr talks about the influence long confinement and claustration have on the mental and physical health of monks. See ibid, 72-80.
[7] Ziegler, Medicine and Religion c.1300, 153.
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