The cathedral (the church housing the seat of the bishop) and the monastery (the house of a religious community) are the most characteristic and distinctive architectural creations of the Middle Ages in both the Latin West and Greek and Syrian East. These words--cathedral and monastery--evoke images in our minds of the towering urban Gothic architecture of Notre Dame in Paris or Reims on the one hand, and of the secluded abbeys of Iona in Ireland, Qal'at Sim'an in Syria, or Meteora in Greece on the other.
Underlying these architectural expressions are, however, the institutions that had them built, each with its own set of spiritual, social, political, and economic intentions, possibilities, and constraints. T'he seminar will inquire about the nature of these institutions, attempting to explain why they built what they built.