Copyright 2009 © Steven Till

http://steventill.com

The monastic way of life, a life of religious piety entirely devoted to God, had
longed favored the Benedictine form of monasticism in medieval Europe up until the
middle of the eleventh century. At some point during the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, various forms of monastic orders began to spring up, as the older ways
of monastic life were not able to satisfy the ascetic impulses of a growing number
of the population. These new orders and religious fervors of the medieval
population created a concern for traditional ecclesiastical leaders, as they had
to deal with controlling these new orders and the supposed “heresies” associated
with some of them; the ecclesiastical leaders also had the challenge of directing
the desires of the people into a positive benefit for the church and society as a
whole.

Beginning in the late tenth century in northern Italy, these new ideas of
monasticism really began to take deeper roots in the areas between Rome and the
Alps by the middle of the following century. Monastic communities such as the
order of Camaldoli and the order of Vallombrosa strongly contrasted with the
contemporary observance of Benedictine life. Orders like these and others spread
throughout medieval western Europe and were less involved with society in general,
content to live the ascetic life free of the temptations of the world. This idea
of asceticism became the popular form of monasticism and even influenced — to some
extent — older monasteries such as Cluny, under the direction of Peter the
Venerable.

These changes in western medieval monasticism were also influenced by the

declining role of the regular clergy in society. In the past, the monks had
controlled higher education, cultivating liberal arts and Bible knowledge, but
they could not handle a growing class of intellectual scholars that sought out
more than this, desiring an advance in knowledge of speculative thought and the
orders of law.

This loss in control contributed, in effect, to the monastic communities’ loss of

importance in the political arena as well. No longer did monarchs rely as heavily
on ecclesiastical money for the funding of their armies, as kings and rulers found
new sources of income to grow their military forces.The Benedictines at this time
also saw a loss of influence in the religious community as well. More and more
people began to turn to the cathedral, the parish church, and the new monastic
orders to express their religious devotions and piety.

By the 1130s, a new monastic order stood out among all the rest: the Cistercians.
Known for wearing white habits instead of black, the Cistercians sought after a
strictly ascetic life, claiming the manorial estates of the Benedictines
encouraged greed among the religious brothers, and the Cistercians wanted to avoid
such temptations and live like the apostles and Christ had lived. In as a little
as a century and a half, the Cistercian order manged to establish some 700
communities throughout all of medieval Europe.

I could continue on discussing the developments of the monastic orders —

Benedictine and Cistercian, as well as others — but as time permits, I would like
to turn now and briefly discuss what life was like in monastic community. For the
purposes of this discussion, details of the monastic community will be based on
the rules of St. Benedict.

Life in a monastery was strictly defined by a set of rules. The monks who lived
and worked in these communities followed a daily routine set forth by these rules.
It was a life of prayer and work devoted to God. The majority of the work monks
performed included working in the fields, building of monastic buildings, copying
and translating manuscripts, and on occasion, selling the monastery’s produce at
the market.

While the rules permitted monks to sell at the market, contact with the outside
world was limited. According to St. Benedict:

"When brethren return from a journey, at all the canonical hours of the day on
which they return, they should lie prostrate on the floor of the oratory, as the
Work of God comes to an end, and ask for the prayers of all, for any faults that
may have overtaken them on their journey, such as the sight or hearing of an evil
thing or idle chatter. No one should venture to tell another anything he may have
seen or heard while outside the monastery, for that does much harm."

Monasteries were self-sustaining communities. They had all the buildings necessary
to live like a small village. While not all monasteries were laid out in exactly
the same manner, we can get an idea of its organization by studying the design of
St. Gall.

Naturally, there was a church associated with each monastery. Just off the church,
there was a cloister, where the monks came to read and to think. The scriptorium
and the library were located in the northeast corner of the compound. To the south
of the church was the chapter house, the dormitory, and the refectory (where the
monks ate their meals). The kitchen was located to the west of the refectory, and
the cellar and pantry were located just north of the kitchen. All of these
buildings — chapter house, dormitory, refectory, kitchen, cellar, and pantry —
surrounded the main cloister.

The eastern area of the monastery included living quarters for novices/pupils of
the monastic school and the hospital, kept separate so as not to risk infection to
other members of the community.

Moving to the northern area of the compound, we find a house for distinguished
guests along with stables, a separate house for the abbot, an external school, and
a bakery.

To the south and west of the compound were the agricultural buildings and shops,
important to the support and self-preservation of these communities. These
included: workshops for shoemakers, saddlers, shieldmakers, tanners, swordmakers,
goldsmiths, and fullers; and other buildings such as a barn, a brewery, a wine
press, and stables for livestock such as horses, pigs, goats, sheep, and cows.

As mentioned before, this layout was specific to St. Gall, and not every monastery
was organized in the exact same manner, but it does give us a good idea of the
self-sustaining aspects of these communities.

Sources:

Cantor, Norman F. The Civilization of the Middle Ages. New York, NY:
HarperPerennial, 1994.

The Monastry as Living Space: The Plan of St. Gall, from Handbuch der deutschen
Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte I, p. 100.

“St. Werburg’s Mynster.” Regia Anglorum <http://www.regia.org/mynster.htm>.

Copyright 2009 © Steven Till

http://steventill.com