Monastery is a community of men called monks, who have given up worldly life to serve God through prayer and work. The men live together ruled by religious vows. Similar institutions for women are generally called convents. Monastery comes from two Greek words meaning living alone. Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains founded the earliest monasteries. In Myanmar and Thailand, boys still spend some time in monasteries as part of their education. Ordinary people may visit most Buddhist monasteries, and the monks may go outside them. The largest monasteries in the world are in Tibet, especially in Lhasa and Shigatse.
The terms abbey and priory refer to the monastic status of Christian communities of men and women. Houses ruled by an abbot or abbess are usually senior to those ruled by a prior or prioress. Most priories are under the direct supervision of an abbey. A monastery differs from a friary, where members of a religious order called friars live. Orders of friars were founded for active ministry in the world, such as preaching and missionary or social work. As a result, friars go out more than monks, who generally spend most of their lives in monasteries (see Friar ).
Christian monasteries.
Early Christian monks lived alone in the Egyptian desert. In 320, Saint Pachomius, a Christian monk from Egypt, founded the first Christian monastery. In it, the monks lived and worked in separate cells, but they ate and prayed together. Pachomius eventually established nine monasteries for men as well as two for women. The monastic life became increasingly widespread and influential. By the early Middle Ages, which began in the A.D. 400’s, the monasteries of Europe were major centers of learning.
Skilled stoneworkers built hundreds of monastery buildings throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, which lasted from the 400’s through the 1400’s. The stoneworkers, called masons, lived in lodges on the building sites. Many of the larger monasteries took hundreds of years to finish. Many people gave money to their local monastery.
The abbey church was the most important monastic building. For this reason, most abbey churches were large buildings that dominated the surrounding landscape. Monks used to walk and meditate in the cloisters, which are partly enclosed passageways.
The abbot’s lodging was a separate building set apart for the abbot, so that he could entertain important visitors. The monks held daily meetings to discuss monastic business in the chapter house. The monks met for recreation or received friends and relatives from the outside world in the day room. The monks slept in the dormitory, also called the dorter. Sick and aged monks were cared for in the infirmary, a separate group of buildings with a chapel and a kitchen. The monks ate in the refectory.
The monks’ day.
The details of monastic life have varied from place to place and from age to age. In a Benedictine monastery of the 1100’s, the monks’ day began at about 2 a.m., when an official called the subsacristan rang the first bell. The monks came from the dormitory into the church. They sang psalms and prayers in the first office (service), called Matins. The monks sometimes returned to bed till daybreak. Sometimes, they remained in the church until the service called Prime at daylight.
After reading and meditation in the cloisters, the monks sometimes had a light breakfast of bread and ale. After Mass, the abbot and monks assembled in the chapter house for a meeting to discuss the affairs of the monastery. The monks did various kinds of work and took part in other services. They ate dinner in the refectory at about noon in winter and 2 p.m. in summer. Servants and peasants, employed by the monastery, did most of the manual and farming work. After dinner, many monks read, wrote, painted, or carved. Some worked in the garden, fished, or looked after the sick. The young monks were allowed to play bowls and skittles, a game in which players try to knock down wooden pins called skittles by rolling balls at them. The monks said Vespers (evening prayers) at 4 p.m. in winter and 6 p.m. in summer. Then they had a light supper. After the last service, called Compline, the monks went to bed at about 6:30 p.m. in winter and 8 p.m. in summer.
Famous monasteries.
The Church of England closed nearly all of the monasteries in Britain and Ireland during the Reformation, a religious movement of the 1500’s that gave birth to Protestantism (see Reformation ).
Most of the famous medieval monasteries in the United Kingdom and Ireland today are ruins. Many of them are in wild, remote spots deep in the countryside. Chief among such ruins is Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire, which belonged to the Cistercian Order (see Cistercians ). Other sites include the Cistercian abbeys of Rievaulx in North Yorkshire and Tintern in Gwent. In Ireland, one of the most famous monastic sites is Hoare Abbey at Cashel, in Tipperary.
Some abbeys, though largely destroyed, possess particularly well-preserved features, such as the Refectory at Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire, the Gatehouse at Thornton Abbey in Humberside, and the Abbot’s Kitchen at Glastonbury in Somerset. Some abbeys have survived, either partially or intact, because they were converted into parish churches. Tewkesbury Abbey in Gloucestershire is an example.
Sometimes, a lodging was converted into a private home. For this reason, some lodgings have been preserved while the rest of the monastery is in ruins. Such converted lodgings can be seen at Forde Abbey in Dorset, Castle Acre Priory in Norfolk, and Much Wenlock Priory in Shropshire.
The most complete surviving monastic buildings are those that were attached to cathedrals served by monks. In such cases, the buildings were normally transferred to the new secular chapter and often survive almost intact, as at Durham or Worcester (see Cathedral ). Gloucester Cathedral has a set of well-preserved carrels (study cubicles) in the cloisters, against the window wall of one walk and the lavatorium (monks’ wash place).
A number of monasteries still house thriving religious communities, particularly in Ireland. Of these, most are Roman Catholic, but there are some Anglican monasteries. Existing Roman Catholic monasteries include Buckfast Abbey in Devon; Mount Melleray Abbey in County Waterford; Pluscarden Priory at Elgin in Grampian Region, Scotland; and Prinknash Abbey in Gloucestershire. Anglican monasteries include Nashdom Abbey in Buckinghamshire and the Franciscan monastery at Cerne Abbas, Dorset.
History and development.
The first monasteries were probably founded in Ireland between A.D. 432 and 461 by Saint Patrick, who converted the Irish people to Christianity. The scanty remains of early monasteries suggest that hermits lived in groups, each in his own hut or cell. Irish monks lived in small separate cells made of earth or sometimes of stone. There is a settlement of such monastic cells at the Skelligs, a group of small islands off the coast of County Kerry, Ireland. The Irish monks also built small wooden churches. Saint Columba, also known as Saint Colmcille, later established similar small monasteries in Scotland during the 500’s, such as the one on the island of Iona. But such independence was not permitted to Benedictines. In their monasteries, the monks lived together (see Benedictines ).
Christianity in England was disrupted by invasions of Angles and Saxons, and later by Vikings. But, in 597, Saint Augustine founded the first English Benedictine monastery at Canterbury.
Monasteries became most influential in England from the Norman Conquest in 1066 until the 1300’s. More than 300 new monasteries of various orders were built during this period. During the Middle Ages, monks educated children, helped poor people, and cared for individuals who were sick. The Cistercian Order developed an excellent breed of sheep and encouraged sheep farming. Much of the country’s trading prosperity was later to be based on the woolen industry, which developed from the trade initiated by the monks.
During the 1400’s and early 1500’s, the monasteries stagnated. Few new monasteries were founded, and some of the old ones closed. Little of the wealth of the monasteries was used for charitable work, such as helping poor people.
Partly because of the decline in the standards of the monasteries, King Henry VIII had them dissolved (disbanded). Another reason for dissolving the monasteries was that Henry needed money, and the monasteries had great wealth. During the 1530’s and 1540’s, the monasteries were disbanded, and their property was confiscated and sold. Many of the monks became paid clergy. Some were given pensions. A few of the monks were executed for disobeying the king.
From the 1600’s to the 1800’s, there was no monastic life in Britain (later the United Kingdom). During the 1800’s, some religious orders began to rebuild a few monasteries on medieval sites. In Devon, monks did most of the rebuilding of Buckfast Abbey Church, refounded in 1882.
During the late 1800’s, many Anglicans stressed the value of monasticism in the life of the Christian Church. As a result, Anglicans established monasteries that observed Benedictine and Franciscan monastic rules in several places.
