Depending on the context in which it is used, the word cloister will refer various questions.
At the behest of the architecture, the cloister is that Quadrangular courtyard that is distinguished by having on its four sides or Benedict, a porticoed gallery with arches, which can rest on columns or double columns.
Generally, it appears followed by one of the lateral naves of a cathedral or of the Church of a monastery. Each of the galleries bears the name of panda and then in each panda the different spaces that the monastic or cathedral life in question will demand will be distributed.
In the group corresponding to the east, the common thing is to find a small room that has mostly acted as a library or as a study, even independently of the largest library that the most important monasteries have known how to have.
Following this is the agriculture room, a room that enjoyed enormous importance, since it used to be the meeting place of the entire community and therefore it was built with distinctive ornamentation. In the room, among other activities, the chapters of the rule of the order, the abbot The monastery leader organized and assigned the different tasks to the monks and the faults that some member had incurred were exposed.
Meanwhile, on the south side there is the heater, a heated space where the monks went to rest and warm up, next to it was the dining room and behind it the kitchen.
And on the west side, also known as the legos, were the alley and the cellar; the upper floor was used for the monks' cells and the common dormitory. The capitals of the columns corresponding to the Romanesque cloisters stood out for the beauty of their carvings and decorative details, therefore, they are considered as true works of art.
Most of the time it is accompanied by a garden and in its center a fountain or a well is built, in which four paths converge. Traditionally, the cloister has been used as a space for recollection and reflection.
On the other hand, in the field academic, is called the cloister, highest representative body of a university, which is made up of the university's professors.
Formerly, it was necessary that for the cloister to deliberate, at least 11 members were present, plus the rector or vice-rector. Among its main activities were: appointing substitutes for the chairs that will remain vacant, proposing the rector, electing the judges who would act in the lawsuits and causes of the academic jurisdiction, appointing the members of the finance board and the university fiscal union, approve or disapprove the accounts presented by the finance board, elect the members of all those positions essential for the administration and government of the institution in question, such as: members, officers, ministers, among others.
Meanwhile, currently, in Spain, the cloister is a body in which each of the sectors involved in the teaching of an institution are represented and, therefore, are part of the debate on all those issues inherent to the activity of the same , that is, it is not restricted to a special sector.
