This module describes the origins of monastic life, the daily routine of monks and nuns as an expression of their spiritual goals, and examples of the varieties of monastic experience found in SEAFARER.
Contents:
Part 1: The History of Monasticism
Part 2: Monastic Rules: The Textual Basis for Monastic Life
Part 3: Daily Life in the Monastery
Part 4: Ceofrith, Leofgyth, and Monastic Life in Other SEAFARER Texts
You can skip to any one of these parts by clicking the appropriate hyperlink.
To learn about the LINKS and IMAGES that accompany this narrative, click on the appropriate hyperlink above. Be sure to consult "So What?" after you have read one or two parts of the narrative. Sources used in the narrative are listed in the Bibliography and are cited here only by author and page or by author, title, and page.
"There are very few existing institutions in the Western European world that can trace a continuous history backwards for over sixteen hundred years," writes Lowrie J. Daly in the introduction to Benedictine Monasticism. "Even fewer can recount in their annals a significant involvement in almost every great event in European history from the present back to when Rome still stood in all its grandeur. Monasticism belongs in that select circle" (xi). Christian monasticism came into being in the late phases of the Roman empire. Thus, in order to understand monastic life in England in the seventh to the eleventh centuries, we need to learn about the lives of some Christians in the Mediterranean region four and five hundred years before. We also need to learn about monastic life in Ireland, for two reasons. Although Irish monasticism was closely connected to Mediterranean traditions, it was also distinctive, and the Irish were among the first to bring monasticism to Anglo-Saxon England. (Our focus is on monasticism in England and Western Europe, but you should know that monasticism is not exclusive to Christianity and that forms of monastic life in Eastern religions are considerably older than Christian monasticism.)
The word monk comes from the Greek "monazein," meaning "to be alone." Monasticism--with monasteries that grew to enormous size, including thousands of monks and nuns--grew out the decision of a few devout men and women to suppress their sexual desires, leave their (not always wealthy) homes, and remove themselves to isolated locations where they could pursue lives of prayer and contemplation. What caused them to do so? In part they were responding to exhortations to a life of denial and sacrifice, found in the writings of St. Paul and elsewhere; in part they were following the example of others. We will look at Paul's writings, at the formation of early communities, and then examine the texts that enabled monastic life to spread. There are multiple facets to monastic life, but two will be emphasized here: one is the relationship between monasticism and texts--rules for monastic life, and other texts written and read in the monastery; another is the role of the body in monastic life.
Monasticism originated in a desire for ascetic purification or asceticism, and so placed special emphasis on attitudes toward the body. In the Body and Society, an important book on the formation of early monastic communities in the deserts of Northern Africa, Peter Brown traces the impulse behind these communities to the teachings of Paul the apostle, a Pharisee who persecuted Christians until his conversion on the road to Damascus. Paul's letters, sent to newly converted congregations in the earliest decades of the Church, urged his followers to practice self-denial and to repress the disorderly desires of the flesh so that the spirit could live eternally. (Paul died around 60 A.D.; IMAGE01 (not yet available in the program) is a map of some of his travels, including his voyage to Rome, where he was martyred.) Paul's mission was to teach new s about sexuality and the body to those who had been converted to Christianity. For them--and for others, centuries later--his writings served as something like codes of law. Paul formulated the relationship of body to soul in terms that have never lost their currency. The body he saw merely as flesh, a fallen, temporary, and corrupt temple for the spirit, which was everlasting life housed in the body only for a short time on earth. He made the body "a clearly visible locus of order, " Brown writes (51), and it was by ordering or disciplining the body that Christians would learn to save their souls. Paul did not urge his followers to lead lives of celibacy, although celibacy was to become the path of all who chose monastic life, for the obvious reason that celibacy would undermine the family and the household structure that was essential to community life. Monastic life has always coexisted with life outside the monastery in a state of tension; to choose the monastic life is to sever one's ties to family and friends and to redefine oneself as part of a new community of affiliation rather than filiation (that is, of social rather than natural kinship).
All authorities agree that Christian monasticism begins with St. Anthony (A.D. 251-356), who as a young man (in 271) heard a priest reading the Gospel in church and took literally Christ's words: "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven: then come, follow me" (Matthew 19:21) (see Knowles, Christian 10). Anthony attracted large groups of followers to his settlements in the desert, and those who lived in isolation there came to be known as the "Desert Fathers." Their settlements were located along the River Jordan and the Dead Sea, and along the Nile River and the Red Sea (IMAGE02 -- not year available in the program).
The lives of these early saints were recorded by those who came to follow and learn from them. These texts are known as hagiographies; they are obviously inspirational (and, to us, exaggerated) accounts, and were read by monks as part of their devotional exercises (just as narratives of heroic deeds are supposed to inspire bravery in those who hear them and were recited before battles). The life of Anthony was written by his contemporary Athanasius of Alexandria (A.D. 296-373); it recounts the saint's heroic resistance to the temptations sent to test his vows of poverty and purity; like other hagiographies, this life has much in common with secular stories about brave individuals who struggle against supernatural forces and prevail. During such temptations and torments the holy person's body becomes significant as a material object--that is, as a sign of his or her sanctity, and, we might say, a text on which marks of suffering are written just as the sufferings of Christ in the Passion were "written" on his body. These stories seek to demonstrate that denial of the body through fasting and penance--often exceptionally severe--is a way to ensure the soul's happiness hereafter. Anthony was the first saint who did not die a martyr; martyrdom was, in the early church, embraced as a Christ-like way of death, and in the Middle Ages--when much of Western Europe was Christian--martyrdom acquired a figurative meaning. LINK 1 will help you learn about the history of martyrdom and its role in saints' lives. Texts, written and remembered, are also important in Anthony's life; he is the patron saint of the book. LINK 2 discusses Anthony and "the book," and gives you a chance to study this second important connection to monastic life.
The lives of the desert fathers were one of the chief means by which monastic life spread from the lands of its origin throughout western Europe and to England. We have seen a commemoration of Anthony's highly individual form of monastic life, his temptation by demons, and his glorification as a saint, in Matthis Grunewald's altarpiece (the Isenheim altarpiece), created for a monastic order called the Antonines, and now located in a museum in Colmar, France (LINK 3 ospital run by this order.) It was not only through narratives of heroic deeds of suffering that these texts contributed to the spread of monastic spirit; they also described routine practices and observances that others could imitate: these lives help to explain how monasticism developed from the isolated experiences of a few into a practice followed by thousands. These lives also contributed to the codification that helped monasticism spread in a regulated way.
Famous though he became, Anthony's isolated, ascetic existence was not the only model for monastic life who lived in the early Christian period. Equally influential, and ultimately more successful, was the model created by the monk Pachomius (A.D. 286-346), who founded a community of monks at Tabemmeso (sometimes spelled Tabennesi) in A.D. 320. (IMAGE02 -- not year available in the program) At Tabemmeso, monks carried on trade with outside communities, grew their own food, and produced many of the items necessary to their communal existence. According to George Ovitt, Jr., the contribution of Pachomius was "the organization of communal labor in order to create an economic basis for the religious life" (84, and see n. 66). "With no preceding model," Knowles writes, Pachomius created "a monastic congregation which had all the elements that were to be gradually rediscovered and applied" by others many years later. Pachomius created a text that organized the lives of his followers--the first monastic rule--and created an elaborate administrative program to supervise the lives of his followers, who were so numerous that their settlements became small towns, with one or two thousand followers living in each (Knowles, Christian 14). The rule of Pachomius described the basic composition of the monastery, which was to include, among other units, a library, kitchen, bakery, and shoemaker's shop; all of which constituted what Brown calls an "alternative village" (245).
As the lives of the monks living in the desert became better known, they attracted visitors and observers who wrote about them. Athanasius was one; two others are important: Basil (A.D. 329-79), who lived for a year among these monks (A.D. 357), and John Cassian, who lived with the monks for fifteen years (A.D. 415-29). Like Athanasius, the other two wrote texts of special importance to the future of monasticism: Basil wrote a series of commentaries and observations that were formulated loosely into a "rule," and Cassian wrote a collection of Institutes and Conferences that recorded discourses of famous monks, whose teachings Cassian passed on to monks at the monastery of Lerins, in southern France. As Cassian's interest in the desert fathers shows, interest in monastic life had spread since Anthony's time and had become more organized; it had also acquired a history in which monastic practices and standards were preserved. (Some of Cassian's ideas are discussed in the context of work in LINK 7.) Athanasius's own career explains how these ideas traveled: after he wrote the life of Anthony, he lived for a time in Trier (now in northwest Germany, in 335-37) and later in Rome (339-46; see Knowles, Christian 25).
Eventually those practices, the details of daily life on the monastery, were codified. There are several such codifications, all of them drawing from Basil's and from Cassian's recollections. The most famous and influential of these texts is the Rule of St. Benedict. Benedict's rule is a short document written by St. Benedict (480?-547?), who was born in the province of Nursia in Italy and who studied in Rome for a time. He found the city not to his liking and became an anchorite--a hermit --living in a wilderness near Rome. Benedict's most famous monastery was founded at Monte Cassino, and this is where he wrote the Rule that served as the guide for Western monasticism for the next 1500 years. Benedict's name and rule have become synonymous with monastic life--Benedictine monasticism is the form that is assumed to have been the standard in the early Middle Ages--so it is important to remember that much of this prominence has been attached to Benedict in the modern period, and that the varieties of monastic life available in the early Middle Ages were considerable.
One of the most important and idiosyncratic was the Irish or Celtic tradition (note pronunciation of "Celtic" with a hard C, as if "Keltic"). Celtic monasticism is famed for its asceticism; Brooke writes that it "bred stern ascetics and the most ruthless denunciation of the human body recorded in western Catholic ascetic literature before the eleventh century" (42). The Irish also influenced monasticism on the continent. Irish monasteries proliferated on the Continent and in England; Bede's Ecclesiastical History is filled with praise for the asceticism of the Irish but is also critical of certain unorthodox customs of Irish monks regarding the means of determining the date of Easter and other liturgical issues. There are ample sources for studying Irish monasticism and its many distinctive features (LINK 4). St. Columbanus founded two monasteries on the continent, one at Luxeuil (Gaul) and another at Bobbio (Italy) and was the author of an exceptionally severe rule. IMAGE03 indicates the location of Lorsch, St. Gall, Luxeuil, Reichenau, and some other important Irish monasteries on the continent.
It is not such a long leap as one might think from the monasticism of the desert fathers to monasticism in Anglo-Saxon England; the lives of the fathers explain why. They were known and read in early England and served as models for saints' lives written there. In the 590's, Gregory sent an archbishop named Theodore and an abbot named Augustine to England to oversee the establishment of the Church there. IMAGE04 traces Augustine's route in 596-97. They brought with them the knowledge of monasticism that was current in Rome at this time, and in England they encountered Irish monasticism, which had already been introduced there by wandering Irish monks. The development of monasticism in England are fully discussed by Whitelock in the Beginnings of English Society, pages 169-80; we will also trace this development in Bede's Ecclesiastical History and in the two lives discussed in the fourth part of this narrative. IMAGE05 shows the location of some important monasteries, including Bede's at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow. Monasticism in England falls into three periods: the early age, Bede's, which was its most exuberant and productive period, a long phase of decline created by the Viking invasions of the eighth century and continuing through the reign of King Alfred (who died in 899), and a reform begun in the early tenth century. The focus on monastic life in our texts will give us a rich field for the study of women in monasticism, a subject of a recent important article by Gillian Overing and Clare Lees (on reserve). See LINK 5 to get started. The fourth part of this narrative will give you further information.
The Rule of Benedict is a short text of 73 chapters. Following introductory chapters on monastic life and the role of the abbot, the rule contains chapters on spiritual instruction, on the Divine Office and prayer, a section on correcting faults in behavior (important to later traditions of penance for the laity), rules for daily conduct and admission to the monastery, and the duties of monastic officials (including the abbot, prior, and gatekeeper). Knowles points out that Benedict did not found an order and had far less influence in his time than Basil, Anthony or Pachomius. But Benedict's rule, Knowles writes, has three features that make it overwhelmingly attractive: it is short and concise (other are disorganized and very long); it is moderate and flexible (others are severe and rigid); and it teaches well: it contains the wisdom needed to guide those seeking to live the monastic life. Although the main function of the rule was practical--to regulate the daily life of those living in monasteries, and to make sure that the spiritual significance of daily routines was not missed--the rule also had to inspire with simple, direct advice. To read some sections of the Rule, consult LINK 6.
The Benedictine rule coexisted with other early rules. The rule observed in the Life of Ceolfrith is not the rule of St. Benedict, although it has often been thought that Ceolfrith, and Bede after him, followed that observance. The Life makes it plain that Benedict Biscop compiled the rule followed at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow (see section 6 of the Life in TEXTS). The rule of Benedict of Nursia was also known at the English monastery; Benedict Biscop would have learned about it on his travels on the continent. When his letter of privilege from Pope Agatho is mentioned (Section 16), Benedict is said to be acting in accordance with "the rule of the holy father Benedict." The procedure of electing the abbot, Peter Hunter Blair notes, was also Benedictine (199), and so were other features of early monasticism in England.
The Rule stresses the symbolic importance of the parts of the daily routine. Another text in SEAFARER, the Colloquy of Abbot Ælfric, outlines the daily routine for a boy who came to the monastery to study. In response to his master's question, the student states, "I am a professed monk and I sing seven services each day with my brethren, and am busy with song." The services included here are among those that shaped the monk's every day. You will find a schedule of the canonical hours in Daly, the Benedictine Rule, pages 359-61. Monks arose at 2:30 a.m. and retired at 6:30 p.m. in Winter, with the hours shifting to 1:30 and 8:15 in summer. The Colloquy names the services as follows: Matins and Lauds, 2 a.m.; Prime and Mass, 6 a.m.; Tierce, 9 a.m.; Sext, 12 noon; none at 15:00 or 3 p.m.; Vespers at 1800 or 6 p.m.; and Compline at 2000 or 8 p.m. (Go to TEXTS: Colloquy to read this material.)
This schedule gives us some idea of what monastic life was like. It was, Knowles writes, "a common life of absolute regularity, of strict discipline, of unvarying routine." On the average, he calculated that the monk spent four hours in liturgical worship (Opus Dei, "Work of God"), another four reading or praying (lecio divina or spiritual reading), and perhaps six or more in manual labor (opus manuum). Of these, public worship was the most important, with reading and private prayer taking second place (Knowles, Monastic 4-5). Conversation was generally prohibited; the monks ate in silence, listening to a public reading of scripture or a text of one of the Church Fathers. After prayer, the most important activity was reading. As monasteries became larger, monks could fulfill their duty to read only by hearing books read to them in public; this also created a demand for the production of a large number of books and generated work for the monastery's scriptorium. Monastic libraries were not large; indeed, by modern standards they were minuscule, with even great monasteries having fewer than a thousand books and good libraries holding 400 or more (Daly gives estimates, 278-79). Brooke and others note that eventually the first of these activities, liturgical worship, became more complex and demanded more of the monks' time.
Knowles stresses that the monks rarely undertook heavy manual labor, which was performed by salaried workers, serfs, and tenants (Daly 248). Labor was important as a way to vary the daily routine and to ensure that monks avoided idleness, which Benedict called "the soul's enemy" (see Brooke 60-62). But as monasteries became larger, work became more important and diversified. It became important for certain monks to devote more of their time to managing resources, including door-keepers, cellarers, chamberlains (who managed the clothing, washing and shaving of the monks), the sacrist, who maintained the church's treasures and equipment, and others. The monastery, therefore, was a place of much manual labor even if not of the most arduous servile work (Brooke 67-69). However, manuscript illustrations from the twelfth century (well after the period we are discussing here) show a monk cutting grain (IMAGE06). Illustrations from a twelfth-century manuscript of Bede's Life of St. Cuthbert (composed by Bede in the first quarter of the eighth century) give us additional images of monastic labor, although these too are not contemporary with SEAFARER texts. These illustrations show a monk digging and building (although with the help of an angel) (IMAGE07), and a monk directing men not in monastic habit to put out a fire (IMAGE08). However indirect their involvement in physical labor seems to be in some of these illustrations, monks were increasingly preoccupied by such tasks and responsibilities. Brooke observes that "we are almost tempted to think that the material structure had become so heavy as to obscure, for many monks, the worship and prayer for which it all existed" (he cautions against exaggerating this view, however page 72).
Ovitt has questioned if the traditional assumption of a dichotomy between monastic austerity and physical labor is valid. He notes that labor was "a sign of humility" for St. Anthony and other early monks (The Restoration of Perfection, page 88-90). Ovitt has written extensively on the relation between technology, work, and monastic life; see LINK 7.
Many practical questions about monastic life haven't been raised thus far. Who joined monasteries, and why? At what age? What happened to monks and nuns who disobeyed the rules? How did monastic life accommodate the tensions between old and young, sick and healthy? How did life for women in monasteries differ from men's monastic lives? Answers to these questions vary from text to text. Two monastic lives are included in SEAFARER, the life of a seventh-century abbot named Ceolfrith, and the life of an eighth-century nun called Leoba (or Leofgyth: we use both forms of her name, as do our sources). These lives reveal the complexity of monastic life and the history, power, and appeal of this way of living for so many women and men of the Middle Ages. As you read these lives, be sure you are familiar with the locations of their monasteries--hers at Wimbourne in the south-central part (shown here in relation to the Continent) and his in the north. (IMAGE09) Both lives are available in the TEXTS menu of SEAFARER.
As a text, the Life of Ceolfrith is not only about monasticism but reveals, in its opening words, that the document itself is delivered as monastic discourse: the life of "the most holy Abbot Ceolfrith" is recounted to "dearest brethren" about their "most reverend father and superior." We are reminded that it was under Ceolfrith that Bede, the most prominent historian of early medieval England, received "the habit of holy religion." The audience of the text is monastic, therefore, and we can expect that the document will amply indicate those aspects of monastic life in which Ceolfrith excelled and in which, by direct implication, the audience of the text is likewise expected to strive for perfection. As the miracles in this life (LINK 8) and in Leoba's (see LINK 9) show, both texts are hagiographies; his life is also clearly a homily.
The text skips over Ceolfrith's early years (a common feature of hagiography) and begins his "life" with his monastic life at about age 18. Ceolfrith enters the monastery at Gilling, which has been governed by his brother, Cynefrith (2); kinship plays the deciding factor in Ceolfrith's choice of a monastery, suggesting a relationship between the house at Gilling and Ceolfrith's own family that is not discussed. Ceolfrith subjects himself "to the regular way of life according to custom," meaning to the monastic rule, at Ripon (3); he also studies monastic life in East Anglia, and become exceptionally learned in the rule (4). The emphasis on learning the rule shows that Ceolfrith combined theory and practice--that he both knew about and lived the life correctly.
Ceolfrith does not only read about and learn about the monk's life, he also works. We are told that he holds the "office of baker," suggesting two things: labor is divided (baking is an "office"), and nobody merely thinks about monastic life without working at daily tasks. Simultaneously Ceolfrith learns about the priesthood; the combination underscores the link between holiness, hard work, and humility. We need to remember, at the same time, that Ceolfrith belongs to a well-connected family (hence his quick ascent to leadership). His ordination draws to attention the "clericalization" of the monastery, by which is meant the appearance of priests among monks. This is why it is noted that Ceolfrith was learning how to become a priest (4) and why Benedict Biscop (not Benedict of Nursia) is called "our pastor and abbot of blessed memory" (5). Benedict Biscop, who calls on Ceolfrith as his "fellow-worker" to help found the new monastery at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, is a model for Ceolfrith . Much is made of Benedict's travels to the continent (he has visited 17 monasteries), and this extensive experience of monastic traditions elsewhere makes his request for Ceolfrith's help even more significant. The new monastery depends on land, measured in units of "hides", donated by the king, another sign that aristocratic connections supported the spread of monasticism. There is more in LINK 8 about Ceolfrith.
The Life of Leofgyth contains details about life in double monasteries that were segregated by sex (Par. 2). The monastery was a permanent enclosure for the woman who joined it. We learn that "any woman who renounced the world and wished to be associated with their community, entered it never to go out again, unless a good reason or matter of great expediency sent her out by the advice [of the abbess]" (2). Bishops enter only to say Mass; the abbess dealt with the outside world only through a window.
The kind of discipline maintained in the female monastery occupies a large part of the Life of Leofgyth. Like Ceolfrith, Leofgyth comes from noble parents (6), and before we learn about her we hear first about another noble person, Tette, who was sister to Ine, king of Wessex (who resigned his title in 726 and left England to die in Rome; see Stenton, 71-73). The account of Tette introduces a major theme into the life of Leofgyth, that of strict discipline. Tette is used as a model for Leofgyth, who was Tette's pupil and who "used delightfully to recount from memory" stories about Tette. Tette is paired with an unnamed "certain nun" who was so strict that other nuns grew to hate her (4). LINK 9 continues this discussion and includes another miracle. Miraculous events are very common in hagiographies. Their significance is partly typological--that is, they recall a pattern, in this case a pattern of death and resurrection, that associates the saint with the life of Christ. Though Leofgyth demonstrates both learning and discipline, it is chiefly learning that is stressed. With her nuns she sets about "the study of celestial learning." Leofgyth, the "blessed mistress," sets the example. She is such a good teacher that many of her pupils "were afterwards made mistresses over others; so that there were either very few, or no monasteries of women in those districts which did not desire teachers from her pupils" (11).
We cannot minimize the importance of theLife of Leofgyth as a representation of the career of a learned woman in the early Anglo-Saxon period. We cannot underestimate its value simply because women with her opportunities were obviously rare. The monastery she led was perhaps a large one, although of course "no small number of handmaids of God" could mean almost any number (11). In any case, she would seem to have had a career of significance nearly equal to that of Boniface himself, and one of the lasting impressions created by this work is its demonstration of the affection between the cousins, in particular Boniface's respect for Leofgyth (he wanted to be buried in the same grave with her).
Monastic life is directly portrayed in the Colloquy , which suggests what education was like for young boys in the monastery. There is an indirect portrayal of monastic life in the Dream of the Rood. We see that when the dreamer has his vision other "speech-bearers" are at rest (line 3) and that he seems to be lying prostrate in prayer before the cross (line 24), which was a common posture to assume during certain devotions. The narrator describes himself as being along "with a small troop," probably a group of monks. See TEXTS for helps in reading both works in reference to monastic life; read the Introduction to teach text, and then consult the Gateways to teach for connection to modules.
Monastic life was being adapted for those outside outside the monastery, and such monastic practices as penitential discipline had, already in the eighth century, become fundamental lay religious observance.
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