Thinking with Space: Locating Distributed Cognition in the Eleventh-Century Monastery of Cluny

Abstract:In this paper, I examine the functions of cognition between monk and environment, focusing on the everyday craft of monasticism at the Burgundian abbey of Cluny. By the eleventh century, Cluny operated at the center of a powerful monastic empire, and its population of monks tirelessly attended to the upkeep and maintenance of the monastery in addition to their primary duties of learning, reading, prayer, and Mass. To study Cluny's everyday cognitive operations, I adopt a dynamic systems-based methodology of analysis composed of extended mind theory, distributed cognition, and cognitive archeology. I apply this dynamic systems-based analysis in the form of three case studies, demonstrating that medieval life at Cluny constituted a computational and cognitive system wherein cognition was distributed spatially between monk and monastery, socially through tradition and culture, and across time through the construction of task settings.