The Cistercians’ dedication to manual labour set them apart from their Benedictine counterparts and was seen as a defining feature of the Order. The Benedictines, in contrast, considered this as outdated, quirky and even inappropriate.
Benedictines were known for their liking for fine dining and a tendency to overindulge, the Cistercian and Carthusian monks were renowned for the severity of their diet and strict abstinence from meat.
The monastery was a hierarchical institution, and the brethren were organized according to seniority. This was based on when they had made their profession rather than their actual age.
The practice of offering a child to the monastery and the service of God was widespread at this time and was known as the oblate system. A number of parents gifted a child to the monastery, often a younger son who would not inherit his father’s lands or as an act of gratitude to God for the safe delivery of their offspring. These oblates received an education in the monastery and when they were seventeen years of age took the monastic vows and were professed as full members of the community. While the practice flourished in the eleventh century it was gradually phased out in the twelfth and explicitly prohibited at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. There were several reasons for this. The presence of these spirited young boys could severely disrupt claustral life and some, who had little interest in a monastic vocation, were troublesome and wayward. But above all it was crucial that the decision to enter the monastery was made by the postulant himself and was carefully considered. Thus the Cistercians stipulated that all recruits must be at least sixteen when they entered the monastery to embark on a one-year novitiate
Meals were eaten in silence and while the monks ate they listened to an edifying passage from the Gospels or the Lives of the Saints, thereby nourishing their minds while feasting their bodies. Any necessary communication was conveyed using sign language – for example, to sign for bread the monk made a circle with his thumb and first two fingers, since bread was usually round.
The sick usually carried a stick as a sign of their weakness and in many cases as a necessary prop, but they also covered their heads to show that they were in a state of penitence.
Sleep, like food, was regarded as a physical need and self-deprivation was a mark of holiness, showing one’s mastery over the senses. But it was also considered an important weapon in the war against evil since it was thought that the devil preyed on monks while they slept and were at their most vulnerable.
The chapter house, library, parlour and dormitory were usually situated in the east cloister range. The chapter house was an important place in the monastery because every day the community met here to discuss any business and deal with disciplinary matters. Each meeting began with a chapter of the Rule of St Benedict, which was read aloud, and it was this which gave the building its name.
The basic instrument of conversion was the rite of baptism, administered by churchmen as a means to nominally bring an individual or group into the Christian fold. However, a genuine change of faith on the part of the baptised was not compulsory. Even forced baptisms, such as those commanded by tenth-century kings in Norway, were considered valid by the Church. As such, while baptism was evidently an important rite, it cannot be taken as an indication of religious conversion in the sense that we understand it today. Priests seem to have been more concerned with harvesting souls than effecting long-term change on individuals.
On the other hand, the richest invested more and more in objects that were clearly meant to display and signify their fortune. Political and religious authorities reacted violently by prohibiting the flaunting of excessive luxury for moral and economic reasons, especially when it came to women’s clothing and jewelry. The display of luxury was considered indecent in a society profoundly affected by misery. In addition, it diverted money from productive investment by immobilizing it in unproductive, sterile, and therefore useless objects: luxury was seen as a way of hoarding and immobilizing wealth, which, in a Christian society, in order to be profitable, was meant to circulate.
Despite the revolutionary character of his work, Tyndale, like Luther, was staunchly opposed to social revolution. He wrote The Obedience of a Christian Man specifically to explain to his readers that there was a difference between exposing religious corruption and questioning secular rule.32 As far as he was concerned, Christ had taught people to love their enemy. If you were oppressed by the king or a lord, you should show your devotion to God though accepting your oppression, even if the king threatened you with death and seizure of all your property.33 Unsurprisingly, not everyone agreed. ‘If princes or rulers will deny [the scriptures] when they will be taken for faithful, the said people may deprive them their kingdoms and lordships,’ argued a French writer whose work was translated into English in 1536.34 As for the lords of the realm, by what right had they been appointed? According to Clement Armstrong, an evangelical London grocer writing in the 1530s, the lords had wrongly appropriated the trees and fields that God had given to the people. They had also unjustly appointed their relatives to enjoy the benefit of tithes exacted from farmers. Parliament was not mentioned in the Bible; therefore it should have no authority over the Church.
If the lord of your manor was a bishop and you paid rent to him, and if he wielded authority in a way that was contrary to the teachings of Christ – by selling pardons and indulgences, for example – then by paying him rent you were in effect supporting a sinner. Doubting his religious standing also cast doubt on a prelate’s secular position. This gave the English Bible a revolutionary flavour.
Perhaps the beverage that monasteries are best known for, however, is beer. In the Middle Ages, beer was locally produced because of its perishability, and it was brewed mostly by women in private homes, who sold any excess to neighbors and townspeople. Monasteries followed this same pattern on a larger scale, brewing their own beer for the brothers and their guests, and selling the leftovers.
it’s important to remember that medieval people drank beer from the time they were children, so their tolerance was quite high, and that beer was both less alcoholic and more nutritious than it is now.
Likewise, the illustrations in medieval manuscripts weren’t created solely for decoration, but for teaching and for meditation. While it’s reasonable to assume that the recipients of most manuscripts were literate, not everyone who viewed them was. The illustrations that accompanied texts were therefore another way in which the stories and lessons could be shared and understood. Pictures are powerful memory aids, serving to solidify the words that a reader takes