Architecture of the Padise Monastery

The cloister (claustrum)

After the St. George’s Night Uprising the monastery was reconstructed in the prevailing style of monastery architecture: a square courtyard was enclosed by four ranges of buildings which formed the cloister (claustrum). But unlike the ordinary monasteries where one side of the courtyard was flanked by a church, which stood out from the other three with its transept and chancel and a central nave higher than the aisles, the four ranges at Padise formed a cube-shaped castle-like enclosed complex. As such it reminds us – with its appearance and the placing of rooms – of the fortified castles, the so-called conventual castles of the Teutonic Order or their Livonian branch. From this cube-shaped enclosure a long stone building from an earlier, pre-St.George’s Night Uprising period, extended southwards, but was integrated into the new complex of buildings. The existence of a church in the northern range can be guessed from the outside only by the larger than usual windows decorated with limestone tracery. The quadrangular complex was crowned by a battlement with a parapet and on the north-east corner by a surviving bartizan (échauguette), identical to the one named Pilsticker on the Teutonic Order castle on Toompea in Tallinn. There were small turrets on top of the west and east gables of the church, of which only corbel stones still survive. Bells were probably installed in these gable turrets, which were also used as watchtowers. The building of the whole complex took at least one hundred years. It is known that the church was not consecrated until 1448. Later the baileys or courtyards were added on the north and east sides outside the cloister walls surrounded by ramparts, walls and ditches. Of these only the round artillery tower survives above ground, There must have been a cemetery for the monks next to the church, in the northern outer courtyard

Western outer courtyard and towers

To the west, i.e. to the riverside of this cube-shaped cloister, a courtyard was built, which had a massive square tower on both ends.  The northernmost of them served as a gatehouse and the main entrance to the monastery. It was furnished with three gates and drawbridges: two smaller gates were for the pedestrians and one larger gate for horses and carts. To the right of the entranceway were probably the guard rooms. During the 2010 archaeological excavations a room without a door was found in the basement of the gatehouse, which must have been a prison cell, quite common in the monasteries, yet, architecturally speaking rarely recognisable as such. Above the entranceway there was a grand vaulted room, which was thought to be a chapel for a long time, but was, most likely, the abbot’s residence. The monastery was headed by the abbot and the prior, both were elected. The prior was responsible for managing the internal affairs, and the abbot communicated with the outer world. For this reason the abbot had lodgings beyond the cloister, which had to be more luxurious to receive high-ranking visitors at the monastery – the Bishop or Landmeister, or, in the case of Padise, the Master of the Livonian Order and the Komtur (Commander) of Reval (Tallinn). A grand wide staircase leading to the abbot’s lodgings was a mandatory element. The staircase survives and we can walk from the western courtyard to the rooms above the gate without entering the cloister even today. The square tower on the south side of the western courtyard features the remains of a soot-covered mantel chimney and a huge limestone sink with a drain in a big room, which may have been used as a kitchen.

Monastic church

Unlike the typical Cistercian abbey churches, the Padise Monastery church or, as the Cistercian called it, the oratory, was built as a simple box-like shape with four vaults. It resembles the Episcopal Cathedral in Haapsalu and other country churches in West Estonia and on the islands. Cicstercian monastery churches were relatively simple edifices in comparison to other medieval churches: as a rule, they were basilicas, but Cistercian ascetic building practices proscribed a massive tower, intricate carved sculptures and coloured stained glass windows. However, in the Padise church the most notable elements beside the tracery in the windows are the relief ornaments of the carved corbels supporting the vaults. Several ordinary and fabulous animals are depicted on the corbels: the hare, the wolf, the monkey, the lion and the unicorn; they represent metaphorically the human temptations in the struggle between good and evil. There are also geometric shapes and bearded old men. The latter are seen as depictions of St. Bernard, the founder of the Cistercian Order. The Cistercian oratory was usually divided into two by a screen or a partition wall: to the east were the places for choir monks and to the west the places for lay brothers and lay persons. It is surmised that the crucifix, which was painted on both sides, the back and the front, and was stored in Risti Church until the Soviet era and is now exhibited in St. Nicholas Church in Tallinn, was originally placed above the screen in Padise.

The principal floor

Today the principal floor level, or more exactly, the church, can be accessed from the courtyard by a narrow staircase in the church wall. Initially it may have joined only the two floors of the cloister galleries. The church had two carved portals at the different corners of the courtyard. The system of two entrances dates back to the early Cistercian period when two communities – the choir monks and the lay brothers – lived in the monastery; they had to be physically separated and had separate entrances to the church.

The lay brothers usually lived in the western range and entered the church through the western portal. By the 14th century, when the Padise Monastery was built, the number of lay brothers in Cistercian monasteries had diminished drastically, in places they had disappeared altogether. It is therefore possible that there were no lay brothers at Padise and the western portal was used by the few lay persons who were allowed to enter the church.

To determine what function the rest of the rooms on the principal floor had is not as easy as in the case of the church. The written records about the use of rooms in the monastery do not exist and the architecture of the rooms does not give us clear, unambiguous answers. As a rule, the most important rooms in the monasteries were in the eastern range. The room adjoining the church was the sacristy. The function of the rest of the rooms is debatable. Today it is possible to go from one room to the next in the eastern range through door openings, but in the monastic times the rooms were accessible only from the cloister-walk. The sacristy was usually adjoined by the chapter hall, the meeting place of the choir monks. The next room, which is a little smaller, may have been a parlour or parlatory; it also served as the prior’s office, where he talked to the monks and assigned them tasks. The Cistercians discouraged idle talk and valued silence. In most areas of the monastery speaking was not allowed. All the necessary conversations had to be conducted in the parIour, the room for speaking. The word ’parlour’ as well as the word ’parliament’ both come from the Latin word parlare ’to speak’. The Cistercians, just as some other monastic orders, used an original system of hand signs to communicate simpler messages to each other in silence.

In the southern range, where the ceilings have collapsed, there was a well-lit hall with three vaults and large windows on the sunny side. This may have been the monks’ day room. The monks’ sleeping quarters, the dormitory, or the dorter, was traditionally situated on the upper floor in the eastern range, above the chapter hall. But no traces of any heating system have been found in the eastern range at Padise, so it is doubtful whether the monks were able to sleep there in our northern climate.

On the main floor of the earlier building from the period before the St. George’s Night Uprising and projecting southwards from the cloister there was probably the monks’ dining hall – the refectory; it is completely destroyed now. The smaller room between the two halls was a kitchen. It is widely known that according to their original rule the ascetic Cistercians were forbidden to eat meat, thus fish was important for their diet. By the 14th century when the Padise Monastery was built this rule had gradually slackened: the experience had shown that because of the meagre and non-varied diet the monks did not live long and died early. Recent archaeological excavations have yielded a large number of cow, pig and sheep bones, which proves that meat was eaten at Padise.

The basement floor

Unlike the ordinary monasteries but similarly to Teutonic knight’s castles there was a basement floor at Padise. In ordinary monasteries the cellars were mostly used as storage rooms for the provisions and were located outside the cloister. In the Padise monastery there was, exceptionally, a kitchen in the basement of the western range, proved by the remains of a mantel chimney. In the wall a peculiar well survives, which is accessible from two floors and two kitchens. Underneath the eastern end of the church there is a beautiful four-vaulted room with a central octagonal pillar. This was a chapel, the only sacred space on the basement floor: it contained the side altars dedicated to various saints, which could not be placed in the small monastic church. The foundation of one altar is still visible, the foundation of the other altar is marked in the floor. Wheel crosses are incised into the plaster high up on some walls under the vaults, these were the consecration crosses characteristic of Catholic sacred rooms, although the colour has long since disappeared.

The gate leading to the cloister garth

A fortifed gate in the western outer courtyard led to the cloister garth or the inner courtyard, which lay at the heart of the monastery. The gate was furnished with a portcullis, as demonstrated by the vertical grooves on both sides of the gate. To the left of the entranceway behind a small door opening there is a dark chamber where the central heating of the church – the heat storage hypocaust – was once situated. On the right a small door led to the rooms in the western range. When one enters through the gate today, there is nothing to identify the cloister garth because the cloister galleries surrounding the courtyard are missing. Another missing feature is the decorative small garden designed for silent contemplation for the monks. The cloister galleries have been completely destroyed, except the remains of three carved square pillars in the south-east corner of the courtyard. The outlines of the two-storeyed cloister galleries are, however, easily traceable as the depressions for the vaults can still be seen in the masonry on the courtyard side. Due to the basement floor the Padise church portals were placed several metres above ground, for this reason the two-storeyed cloisters were built. The bottom half of the western cloister gallery survives as this was built into the basement in the earlier, pre-St. George’s Night Uprising period. In the wall of the eastern cloister, near the undercroft  chapel door there is a segmental arched niche. It must have been a book closet – armarium – as this was a traditional place for it in Cistercian monasteries.