Medieval monasteries post-medieval

 The twelfth century was a high point for monasteries.  With very few exceptions (primarily the cathedrals), all urban churches then either were monasteries or houses of canons regular, where priests shared their property in common like monks, though they devoted their days to ministering to the community rather than the reading, writing, and prayer of the monastery.  A great many new monasteries had been established in the countryside.

But what happened to these monasteries?  Although many of the churches are still there, many have been repurposed, as parish churches, as museums, as Protestant churches, as private houses, even as theatres.

 How did this happen?  Well, monasteries began going downhill (by twelfth-century standards) in the late Middle Ages.  Abbots of important monasteries were appointed by the pope, and he tended to appoint his friends (or those who came up with a suitable "donation").  Many of these abbots were the titular heads of multiple monasteries.  They lived more like lords than monks, often having a town house where they spent most of their time, rather than at the monastery.  For example, the Cluny museum in Paris is called that because the building was a town house of the abbot of the Burgundian monastery of Cluny (the museum now houses many medieval artifacts, such as the head of an Old Testament king originally on the facade of Notre Dame).

During the early modern period (sixteenth-eighteenth centuries), a lot of old monasteries stopped having a regular life, or monks at all.  Some continued, but with a much more comfortable life than the twelfth century would have considered appropriate.  The houses that continued assumed they would always continue.  The monks rebuilt, made inventories of their property, and expected their life to continue indefinitely as it was.

Thus in France the French Revolution (starting 1789) was a great shock.  The country went officially atheistic, and monks were ejected from their monasteries, many of which passed into the hands of private individuals.  The carvings on many churches were defaced, which is how the royal head seen above was knocked off.  Some monasteries were repurposed as prisons.  Although France returned to Catholicism under Napoleon, most monasteries never regained their monks.  Something similar had happened in Great Britain two centuries earlier, when Henry VIII turned Protestant, and in those parts of Germany where the local ruler adopted Lutheranism.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries some monasteries were reestablished, though far fewer than earlier.  Most are a little more relaxed than the twelfth century would have tolerated; for example, modern monks may watch TV.  A few are very strict, however, most notably the Trappists, a group formed by reforming a branch of the Cistercians, back in the seventeenth century.  But the indefinite future for which early modern monks planned clearly no longer exists.

© C. Dale Brittain 2023

For more on monasticism and other aspects of medieval history, see my ebook Positively Medieval, available on Amazon and other online bookstores.  Ebook or paperback.

Hours of Prayer

 All the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) stress the importance of prayer.  The Jewish Bible talks about praying multiple times a day.  One of the most important Christian texts of the New Testaments is the Lord's Prayer, that Jesus taught his disciples.  Followers of Islam are expected to pray five times a day; it is one of the Five Pillars of the faith.

Although in majority-Muslim countries it is common to hear the call to prayer coming at regular intervals, with everyone expected to stop what they are doing for a few minutes of prayer, the intervals are not nearly so set for Jews and Christians.  Still, many Christian households have regular morning and evening prayers (as referred to in the hymn often sung in church, "Sweet Hour of Prayer"), and there are Jewish prayers that attend the Sabbath.

Medieval monks had not just five but eight specified hours of prayer.  These were the times that all the monks were expected to be in church, performing the liturgy, singing the psalms.  If they were away from the monastery they were still expected to stop what they were doing for an interval of prayer.  These times were called the "canonical hours."

 

(This is the monastery of Paray-le-Monial in Burgundy.)

Churches, including cathedral churches, parish churches, basilicas and other churches without monks would also ring the bells for these canonical hours, even if there were no formal services associated with them.

The first one in the morning was Prime (you already guessed that, didn't you), coming at the first hour of the day, that is right after sunrise.  This were followed by Terce, halfway to midday, Sext, at midday, None halfway from midday to sunset, Vespers at sunset, and Compline as it was getting dark.  You will note that until you get to Vespers it's all measured in hours from sunrise, one, three, six, and nine.

Compline was time for bed, but monks did not sleep through the night.  Deep in the night (midnight) they rose for Nocturns, the night office, followed by Lauds as dawn was starting to lighten the sky.

It is difficult to say exactly how these canonical hours would correspond to our clocks, because until the late Middle Ages hours were not a set length.  That is, it was always assumed that there were twelve hours of day and twelve of night year round, so the hours had to be shorter or longer.  (See more here on medieval ideas of time.)

This meant that in the summer they really had to hustle to get both night offices (Nocturns and Lauds) in, plus get the monks enough sleep.  In practice a nap during the day was allowed.  In the winter, the monks would often not bother going back to bed between the Night Office and Lauds, or between Lauds and Prime, if they'd already had enough sleep since Compline.

The one big meal of the day was at None, what we would call the middle of the afternoon.  Since they'd been up and working since the sun first rose, they were plenty hungry.  My own thought is that the term "noon meal" (the meal at None) slowly crept its way back toward midday, and with it the definition of "noon."  (See more here on medieval meal times.)

During the summer, monks (at least at less austere monasteries) might have a little snack earlier, and there would often be some soup (origin of the word supper) between Vespers and Compline.

 

© C. Dale Brittain 2021

For more on the medieval church, see my ebook Positively Medieval, available on Amazon and other ebook platforms.  Also available in paperback.

 

The Medieval Church

In an earlier post, I discussed medieval Christianity in broad outlines.  But religion (Christianity in this case) is not the same as the institution (the church) whose purpose is to support that religion.  This is why, for example, one can still be a good Catholic in the modern world even if deploring some things that some priests have done.

Medieval people made the same distinction.  From the middle of the twelfth century on, there were always plenty of people--people who considered themselves good Christians--who mocked priests, bishops, monks, anyone who they themselves did not think was behaving as a good Christian should behave.  Wealthy churchmen frequently came in for criticism in the late Middle Ages.  Martin Luther's criticism came out of a long tradition.

For that matter, "the medieval church" was not a monolithic entity.  One cannot speak of the medieval church any more than one can now speak of the government.  (Though some try!)  First question:  which one do you mean?  Federal government? state? local?  If federal, which branch, executive, legislative, judicial?  If executive, the president himself or the civil service?  If legislative, House, Senate, or the staffers?  And so on.

In the medieval church, there were many different individuals and groups, all of which had their own agenda.  Most notably, bishops and monasteries were often at odds.  The bishops had been established by the fourth century in most cities of the old Roman Empire, and they considered themselves to have "apostolic succession."  That is, a bishop would have been consecrated by another bishop, himself consecrated by an earlier bishop, and so on, supposedly back to Saint Peter.  So bishops felt that cities were their cities, and that they were firmly in the tradition of Jesus's first followers.

The monasteries saw things differently.  Although they had been established more recently--rarely before the sixth century in the West and often much later--they believed that they, and only they, were truly "apostolic," because they tried to follow the life of the apostles as described in the New Testament Book of Acts.  That is, they gave up all personal possessions and shared everything in common.

(Sounds communist, doesn't it!  It's also biblical.)

Monasteries resented bishops, who might live like lords, coming around to "correct" the life of monks who felt that the only person who needed correcting was the wealthy and powerful bishop himself.  Monks and bishops did try to get along in a spirit of Christian charity, but monasteries might try to free themselves legally from their bishop's oversight.  The cathedral and the chief monastery in a town were often in competition as to who had the best, most impressive church.

And then there were the popes, basically ignored in practice (though honored in theory) throughout the early Middle Ages, until they abruptly made themselves the head of the church hierarchy in the eleventh century (click here for more details).

© C. Dale Brittain 2015