Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th Edition Clervaux To Cockade Volum
Chapter 21
In the special sense now most common, the word "cloister" denotes the quadrilateral area in a monastery or college of canons, round which the principal buildings are ranged, and which is usually provided with a covered way or ambulatory running all round, and affording a means of communication between the various centres of the ecclesiastical life, without exposure to the weather. According to the Benedictine arrangement, which from its suitability to the requirements of monastic life was generally adopted in the West, one side of the cloister was formed by the church, the refectory occupying the side opposite to it, that the worshippers might have the least annoyance from the noise or smell of the repasts. On the eastern side the chapter-house was placed, with other apartments belonging to the common life of the brethren adjacent to it, and, as a common rule, the dormitory occupied the whole of the upper story. On the opposite or western side were generally the cellarer's lodgings, with the cellars and store-houses, in which the provisions necessary for the sustenance of the confraternity were housed. In Cistercian monasteries the western side was usually occupied by the "domus conversorum," or lodgings of the lay-brethren, with their day-rooms and workshops below, and dormitory above. The cloister, with its surrounding buildings, generally stood on the south side of the church, to secure as much sunshine as possible. A very early example of this disposition is seen in the plan of the monastery of St Gall (see ABBEY, fig. 3). Local requirements, in some instances, caused the cloister to be placed to the north of the church. This is the case in the English cathedrals, formerly Benedictine abbeys, of Canterbury, Gloucester and Chester, as well as in that of Lincoln. Other examples of the northward situation are at Tintern, Buildwas and Sherborne. Although the covered ambulatories are absolutely essential to the completeness of a monastic cloister, a chief object of which was to enable the inmates to pass from one part of the monastery to another without inconvenience from rain, wind, or sun, it appears that they were sometimes wanting. The cloister at St Albans seems to have been deficient in ambulatories till the abbacy of Robert of Gorham, 1151-1166, when the eastern walk was erected. This, as was often the case with the earliest ambulatories, was of wood covered with a sloping roof or "penthouse." We learn from Osbern's account of the conflagration of the monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury, 1067, that a cloister with covered ways existed at that time, affording communication between the church, the dormitory and the refectory. We learn from an early drawing of the monastery of Canterbury that this cloister was formed by an arcade of Norman arches supported on shafts, and covered by a shed roof. A fragment of an arcaded cloister of this pattern is still found on the eastern side of the infirmary-cloister of the same foundation. This earlier form of cloister has been generally superseded in England by a range of windows, usually unglazed, but sometimes, as at Gloucester, provided with glass, lighting a vaulted ambulatory, of which the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, Salisbury and Norwich are typical examples. The older design was preserved in the South, where "the cloister is never a window, or anything in the least approaching to it in design, but a range of small elegant pillars, sometimes single, sometimes coupled, and supporting arches of a light and elegant design, all the features being of a character suited to the place where they are used, and to that only" (Fergusson, _Hist. of Arch._ i. p. 610). As examples of this description of cloister, we may refer to the exquisite cloisters of St John Lateran, and St Paul's without the walls, at Rome, where the coupled shafts and arches are richly ornamented with ribbons of mosaic, and those of the convent of St Scholastica at Subiaco, all of the 13th century, and to the beautiful cloisters at Arles, in southern France; those of Aix, Fontfroide, Elne, &c., are of the same type; as also the Romanesque cloisters at Zürich, where the design suffers from the deep abacus having only a single slender shaft to support it, and at Laach, where the quadrangle occupies the place of the "atrium" of the early basilicas at the west end, as at St Clement's at Rome, and St Ambrose at Milan. Spain also presents some magnificent cloisters of both types, of which that of the royal convent of Huelgas, near Burgos, of the arcaded form, is, according to Fergusson, "unrivalled for beauty both of detail and design, and is perhaps unsurpassed by anything in its age and style in any part of Europe." Few cloisters are more beautiful than those of Monreale and Cefalu in Sicily, where the arrangement is the same, of slender columns in pairs with capitals of elaborate foliage supporting pointed arches of great elegance of form.
All other cloisters are surpassed in dimensions and in sumptuousness of decoration by the "Campo Santo" at Pisa. This magnificent cloister consists of four ambulatories as wide and lofty as the nave of a church, erected in 1278 by Giovanni Pisano round a cemetery composed of soil brought from Palestine by Archbishop Lanfranchi in the middle of the 12th century. The window-openings are semicircular, filled with elaborate tracery in the latter half of the 15th century. The inner walls are covered with frescoes invaluable in the history of art by Orcagna, Simone Memmi, Buffalmacco, Benozzo Gozzoli, and other early painters of the Florentine school. The ambulatories now serve as a museum of sculpture. The internal dimensions are 415 ft. 6. in. in length, 137 ft. 10 in. in breadth, while each ambulatory is 34 ft. 6. in. wide by 46 ft. high.
The cloister of a religious house was the scene of a large part of the life of the inmates of a monastery. It was the place of education for the younger members, and of study for the elders. A canon of the Roman council held under Eugenius II., in 826, enjoins the erection of a cloister as an essential portion of an ecclesiastical establishment for the better discipline and instruction of the clerks. Peter of Blois (_Serm._ 25) describes schools for the novices as being in the west walk, and moral lectures delivered in that next the church. At Canterbury the monks' school was in the western ambulatory, and it was in the same walk that the novices were taught at Durham (Willis, _Monastic Buildings of Canterbury_, p. 44; _Rites of Durham_, p. 71). The other alleys, especially that next the church, were devoted to the studies of the elder monks. The constitutions of Hildemar and Dunstan enact that between the services of the church the brethren should sit in the cloister and read theology. For this purpose small studies, known as "carrols," i.e. a ring or enclosed space, were often found in the recesses of the windows. Of this arrangement there are examples at Gloucester, Chester and elsewhere. The use of these studies is thus described in the _Rites of Durham_:--"In every wyndowe" in the north alley "were iii pewes or carrells, where every one of the olde monkes had his carrell severally by himselfe, that when they had dyned they dyd resorte to that place of cloister, and there studyed upon their books, every one in his carrell all the afternonne unto evensong tyme. This was there exercise every daie." On the opposite wall were cupboards full of books for the use of the students in the carrols. The cloister arrangements at Canterbury were similar to those just described. New studies were made by Prior De Estria in 1317, and Prior Selling (1472-1494) glazed the south alley for the use of the studious brethren, and constructed "the new framed contrivances, of late styled carrols" (Willis, _Mon. Buildings_, p. 45). The cloisters were used not for study only but also for recreation. The constitutions of Archbishop Lanfranc, sect. 3, permitted the brethren to converse together there at certain hours of the day. To maintain necessary discipline a special officer was appointed under the title of _prior claustri_. The cloister was always furnished with a stone bench running along the side. It was also provided with a lavatory, usually adjacent to the refectory, but sometimes standing in the central area, termed the cloister-garth, as at Durham. The cloister-garth was used as a place of sepulture, as well as the surrounding alleys. The cloister was in some few instances of two stories, as at Old St Paul's, and St Stephen's chapel, Westminster, and occasionally, as at Wells, Chichester and Hereford, had only three alleys, there being no ambulatory under the church wall.
The larger monastic establishments had more than one cloister; there was usually a second connected with the infirmary, of which there are examples at Westminster Abbey and at Canterbury; and sometimes one giving access to the kitchen and other domestic offices.
The cloister was not an appendage of monastic houses exclusively. It was also attached to colleges of secular canons, as at the cathedrals of Lincoln, Salisbury, Wells, Hereford and Chichester, and formerly at St Paul's and Exeter. It is, however, absent at York, Lichfield, Beverley, Ripon, Southwell and Wimborne. A cloister forms an essential part of the colleges of Eton and Winchester, and of New College and Magdalen at Oxford, and was designed by Wolsey at Christ Church. These were used for religious processions and lectures, for ambulatories for the studious at all times, and for places of exercise for the inmates generally in wet weather, as well as in some instances for sepulture.
For the arrangements of the Carthusian cloisters, as well as for some account of those appended to the monasteries of the East, see ABBEY. (E. V.)
CLONAKILTY, a seaport and market town of Co. Cork, Ireland, in the south parliamentary division, at the head of Clonakilty Bay, 33 m. S.W. of Cork on a branch of the Cork, Bandon & South Coast railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 3098. It was brought into prosperity by Richard Boyle, first earl of Cork, and was granted a charter in 1613; but was partly demolished on the occasion of a fight between the English and Irish in 1641. It returned two members to the Irish parliament until the union. In the 18th century there was an extensive linen industry. The present trade is centred in brewing, corn-milling, yarn and farm-produce. The harbour-mouth is obstructed by a bar, and there is a pier for large vessels at Ring, a mile below the town. The fisheries are of importance. A ruined church on the island of Inchdorey, and castles on Galley Head, at Dunnycove, and at Dunowen, together with a stone circle, are the principal antiquities in the neighbourhood.
CLONES, a market town of Co. Monaghan, Ireland, in the north parliamentary division, 64½ m. S.W. by W. from Belfast, and 93½ m. N.W. from Dublin by the Great Northern railway, on which system it is an important junction, the lines from Dublin, from Belfast, from Londonderry and Enniskillen, and from Cavan converging here. Pop. of urban district (1901), 2068. The town has a considerable agricultural trade, and there are corn mills and manufactures of agricultural implements. A former lace-making industry is extinct. The market-place, called the Diamond, occupies the summit of the slight elevation on which the town is situated. Clones was the seat of an abbey founded in the 6th century by St Tighernach (Tierney), to whom the Protestant parish church is dedicated. Remains of the abbey include a nave and tower of the 12th century, and a curious shrine formed out of a great block of red sandstone. Other antiquities are a round tower of rude masonry, 75 ft. high but lacking the cap; a rath, or encampment, and an ancient market cross in the Diamond.
CLONMACNOISE, one of the most noteworthy of the numerous early religious settlements in Ireland, on the river Shannon, in King's county, 9 m. S. of Athlone. An abbey was founded here by St Kieran in 541, which as a seat of learning gained a European fame, receiving offerings, for example, from Charles the Great, whose companion Alcuin the scholar received part of his education from the great teacher Colcu at Conmacnoise. Several books of annals were compiled here, and the foundation became the seat of a bishopric, but it was plundered and wasted by the English in 1552, and in 1568 the diocese was united with that of Meath. The most remarkable literary monument of Clonmacnoise is the Book of the Dun Cow, written about 1100, still preserved (but in an imperfect form) by the Royal Irish Academy, and containing a large number of romances. It is a copy of a much earlier original, which was written on the skin of a favourite cow of St Kieran, whence the name of the work. The full title of the foundation is the "Seven Churches of Clonmacnoise," and remains of all these are extant. The Great Church, though rebuilt by a chief named McDermot, in the 14th century, retains earlier remains in a fine west doorway; the other churches are those of Fineen, Conor, St Kieran, Kelly, Melaghlin and Dowling. There are two round towers; O'Rourke's, lacking the roof, but occupying a commanding situation on rising ground, is dated by Petrie from the early 10th century, and stands 62 ft. in height; and McCarthy's, attached to Fineen's church, which is more perfect, but rather shorter, and presents the unusual feature of a doorway level with the ground, instead of several feet above it as is customary. There are three crosses, of which the Great Cross, made of a single stone and 15 ft. in height, is splendidly carved, with tracery and inscriptions. It faces the door of the Great Church, and is of the same date. A large number of inscribed stones dating from the 9th century and after are preserved in the churches. There are further remains of the Castle and Episcopal palace, a fortified building of the 14th century, and of a nunnery of the 12th century. In the neighbourhood are seen striking examples of the glacial phenomenon of _eskers_, or gravel ridges.
CLONMEL, a municipal borough and the county town of Co. Tipperary, Ireland, in the east parliamentary division, 112 m. S.W. from Dublin on a branch from Thurles of the Great Southern & Western railway, which makes a junction here with the Waterford and Limerick line of the same company. Pop. (1901) 10,167. Clonmel is built on both sides of the Suir, and also occupies Moore and Long Islands, which are connected with the mainland by three bridges. The principal buildings are the parish church, two Roman Catholic churches, a Franciscan friary, two convents, an endowed school dating from 1685, and the various county buildings. The beauty of the environs, and especially of the river, deserves mention; and their charm is enhanced by the neighbouring Galtee, Knockmealdown and other mountains, among which Slievenaman (2364 ft.) is conspicuous. A woollen manufacture was established in 1667, and was extensively carried on until the close of the 18th century. The town contains breweries, flour-mills and tanneries, and has a considerable export trade in grain, cattle, butter and provisions. It stands at the head of navigation for barges on the Suir. It was the centre of a system, established by Charles Bianconi (1786-1875) in 1815 and subsequently, for the conveyance of travellers on light cars, extending over a great part of Leinster, Munster and Connaught. It is governed by a mayor and corporation, which, though retained under the Local Government (Ireland) Act of 1898, has practically the status of an urban district council. By the same act a part of the town formerly situated in county Waterford was added to county Tipperary. It was a parliamentary borough, returning one member, until 1885; having returned two members to the Irish parliament until the union.
The name, _Cluain mealla_, signifies the Vale of Honey. In 1269 the place was chosen as the seat of a Franciscan friary by Otho de Grandison, the first English possessor of the district; and it frequently comes into notice in the following centuries. In 1641 it declared for the Roman Catholic party, and in 1650 it was gallantly defended by Hugh O'Neill against the English under Cromwell. Compelled at last to capitulate, it was completely dismantled, and was never again fortified. Remains of the wall are seen in the churchyard, and the West Gate still stands in the main street.
CLOOTS, JEAN BAPTISTE DU VAL DE GRÂCE, BARON VON (1755-1794), better known as ANACHARSIS CLOOTS, a noteworthy figure in the French Revolution, was born near Cleves, at the castle of Gnadenthal. He belonged to a noble Prussian family of Dutch origin. The young Cloots, heir to a great fortune, was sent at eleven years of age to Paris to complete his education. There he imbibed the theories of his uncle the Abbé Cornelius de Pauw (1739-1799), philosopher, geographer and diplomatist at the court of Frederick the Great. His father placed him in the military academy at Berlin, but he left it at the age of twenty and traversed Europe, preaching his revolutionary philosophy as an apostle, and spending his money as a man of pleasure. On the breaking out of the Revolution he returned in 1789 to Paris, thinking the opportunity favourable for establishing his dream of a universal family of nations. On the 19th of June 1790 he appeared at the bar of the Assembly at the head of thirty-six foreigners; and, in the name of this "embassy of the human race," declared that the world adhered to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. After this he was known as "the orator of the human race," by which title he called himself, dropping that of baron, and substituting for his baptismal names the pseudonym of Anacharsis, from the famous philosophical romance of the Abbé Jean Jacques Barthélemy. In 1792 he placed 12,000 livres at the disposal of the Republic--"for the arming of forty or fifty fighters in the sacred cause of man against tyrants." The 10th of August impelled him to a still higher flight; he declared himself the personal enemy of Jesus Christ, and abjured all revealed religions. In the same month he had the rights of citizenship conferred on him; and, having in September been elected a member of the Convention, he voted the king's death in the name of the human race, and was an active partisan of the war of propaganda. Excluded at the instance of Robespierre from the Jacobin Club, he was soon afterwards implicated in an accusation levelled against the Hébertists. His innocence was manifest, but he was condemned, and guillotined on the 24th of March 1794.
Cloots' main works are: _La Certitude des preuves du mahométisme_ (London, 1780), published under the pseudonym of Ali-Gur-Ber, in answer to Bergier's _Certitude des preuves du christianisme; L'Orateur du genre humain, ou Dépêches du Prussien Cloots au Prussien Herzberg_ (Paris, 1791), and _La République universelle_ (1792).
The biography of Cloots by G. Avenel (2 vols., Paris, 1865) is too eulogistic. See the three articles by H. Baulig in _La Révolution française_, t. 41 (1901).
CLOQUET, a city of Carlton county, Minnesota, U.S.A., on the St Louis river, 28 m. W. by S. of Duluth. Pop. (1890) 2530; (1900) 3072; (1905, state census) 6117, of whom 2755 were foreign-born (716 Swedes, 689 Finns, 685 Canadians, 334 Norwegians); (1910) 7031. Cloquet is served by the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, the Duluth & North-Eastern, and (for freight only) the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railways. The river furnishes good water-power, and the city has various manufactures, including lumber, paper, wood pulp, match blocks and boxes. The first mill was built in 1878, and the village was named from the French word _claquet_ (sound of the mill). Cloquet was incorporated as a village in 1883 and was chartered as a city in 1903.
CLOSE, MAXWELL HENRY (1822-1903), Irish geologist, was born in Dublin in 1822. He was educated at Weymouth and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1846; and two years later he entered holy orders. For a year he was curate of All Saints, Northampton; from 1849 to 1857 he was rector of Shangton in Leicestershire; and then for four years he was curate of Waltham-on-the-Wolds. In 1861, on the death of his father, he returned to Dublin, and while giving his services to various churches in the city, devoted himself almost wholly to literary and scientific pursuits, and especially to the glacial geology of Ireland, on which subject he became an acknowledged authority. His paper, read before the Geological Society of Ireland in 1866, on the "General Glaciation of Ireland" is a masterly description of the effects of glaciation, and of the evidence in favour of the action of land-ice. Later on he discussed the origin of the elevated shell-bearing gravels near Dublin, and expressed the view that they were accumulated by floating ice when the land had undergone submergence. He was for a time treasurer of the Royal Irish Academy, an active member of the Royal Dublin Society, and president in 1878 of the Royal Geological Society of Ireland. Astronomy and physics, as well as the ancient language and antiquities of Ireland, attracted his attention. He died in Dublin on the 12th of September 1903.
The obituary by Prof. G.A.J. Cole in _Irish Naturalist_, vol. xii. (1903) pp. 301-306, contains a list of publications and portrait.
CLOSE (from Lat. _clausum_, shut), a closed place or enclosure. In English law, the term is applied to a portion of land, enclosed or not, held as private property, and to any exclusive interest in land sufficient to maintain an action for trespass _quare clausum fregit_. The word is also used, particularly in Scotland, of the entry or passage, including the common staircase, of a block of tenement houses, and in architecture for the precincts of a cathedral or abbey.
The adjective "close" (i.e. closed) is found in several phrases, such as "close time" or "close season" (see GAME LAWS); close borough, one of which the rights and privileges were enjoyed by a limited class (see BOROUGH); close rolls and writs, royal letters, &c., addressed to particular persons, under seal, and not open to public inspection (see RECORD; _Chancery_; LETTERS PATENT). From the sense of "closed up," and so "confined," comes the common meaning of "near."
CLOSURE (Fr. _clôture_), the parliamentary term for the closing of debate according to a certain rule, even when certain members are anxious to continue the debate. (See PARLIAMENT: _Procedure_.)
CLOT, ANTOINE BARTHÉLEMY (1793-1868), French physician, known as CLOT BEY, was born at Grenoble on the 7th of November 1793, and graduated in medicine and surgery at Montpellier. After practising for a time at Marseilles he was made chief surgeon to Mehemet Ali, viceroy of Egypt. At Abuzabel, near Cairo, he founded a hospital and schools for all branches of medical instruction, as well as for the study of the French language; and, notwithstanding the most serious religious difficulties, instituted the study of anatomy by means of dissection. In 1832 Mehemet Ali gave him the dignity of bey without requiring him to abjure his religion; and in 1836 he received the rank of general, and was appointed head of the medical administration of the country. In 1849 he returned to Marseilles, though he revisited Egypt in 1856. He died at Marseilles on the 28th of August 1868. His publications included: _Relation des épidémies de choléra qui ont régné à l'Heggiaz, à Suez, et en Égypte_ (1832); _De la peste observée en Égypte_ (1840); _Aperçu général sur l'Égypte_ (1840); _Coup d'oeil sur la peste et les quarantaines_ (1851); _De l'ophthalmie (1864)_.
CLOTAIRE (CHLOTHACHAR), the name of four Frankish kings.