At many points in this module we ask you to think about the metaphorical shape of the monastery as well as its physical shape. To some extent every monastery is designed as a place away from the world, but as we see in the narrative, monasteries had to come into contact with the world.
How does the configuration of a monastic site reveal the monastery's relationship to the outside world? Monasteries contain bridges between their inner world and the world outside them--if not bridges exactly, then points of contact. What sorts of physical features structure this contact?
You could develop a good paper topic by reading the lives of Leoba and/or Ceofrith in the TEXTS section with just these questions in mind, and by looking at the physical structures where contact between inside and outside takes place. This is a seemingly obvious point, but the opposition between in and out has significant implications in the analysis of power structures and social relations.
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