offers as early examples Abbot Gundeland's "Altenmünster" of Lorsch abbey (765-774), as revealed in the excavations by Frederich Behn. Lorsch was adapted without substantial alteration from a Frankish nobleman's ''villa rustica'', in a tradition unbroken from late Roman times.

Another early cloister, in the abbey of Saint-Riquier (790-799), took a triangular shape, with chapels