Monastic Life In Early Medieval Europe

The monastic life in early medieval Europe went one of two ways, either life in a monastery working as a monk or nun or life as hermit, secluding oneself from the rest of world with very scarce resources. Despite the difference of the two lifestyles there was a main goal in common: complete and utter devotion to the christian religion and God. The main origin of the monastic life was starting come out of the end of the fourth century as Christianity had been announced the empire’s official religion. The rise of Eastern monasticism had been inspired with people such as St. Jerome and St. Anthony who were well known hermits or as some called “Desert Fathers”. Shortly after, monastic life began to enter the West through people coming in from the

These men were sworn to a hard life without a single thing to their name, forced to face the desert in homemade shelters or old abandoned places. They went through these harsh circumstances, giving their life to God, and “fighting off the ever-present temptation to return to the world.” Eventually, this idea of monasticism had migrated from the East to the West and was first seen throughout the Mediterranean. Although, in the west, it was formed into a different living style. The monks and nuns still gave every end of their life to the Lord, but rather they lived in religious communities with others that shared the same religious values. They still lived in seclusion, but rather it was seclusion from the everyday temptations from the outside society. There were also monks that lived their independent life, living under no distinct rule called sarabaites and people who went from to and from monasteries that called themselves gyrovagues. Even though there were many forms of the monastic life, they all lived under a common set of beliefs and most monks and nuns followed the same set of

Benedict, also known as benedictine rule. Through his lifetime, St. benedict originally sought out his monastic life as a hermit but eventually preferred the communal lifestyle compared to a secluded one. In the mid-sixth century, he found Monte Cassino which became “one of the largest monasteries and most important intellectual centers in Europe.” His rule came from the motto of “ora et labora” which meant “pray and work”. Within his rules, was a very detailed description on how a monk would spend their days with the monastery walls. They had a scheduled day, that started around two to three in the morning, with certain times of prayer, meals, work, and singing. Their times of prayer, work, and reading would change throughout the year depending on the season. The work the monks did either consisted of general work on the fields or specialized jobs that craftsmen would be responsible for. The Benedictine rule for reading and work was meant to give people the perfect balance of both. The normal day would consist of about three hours of reading scriptures or other religious text and about six hours of work. This was meant for the people of the monastery so they didn’t become too mentally or physically drained with an uneven amount of one activity over the other. The lives of these men and women were in no means meant to be easy, but rather meant to show the