What Did Medieval Monks Do All Day?

[Music] throughout much of the church's history the monasteries and abbeys were full of workshops producing products surrounded by cultivated fields generating profits and large buildings how is this possible saint benedict of nursia founder of the benedictine community prescribed a rule for life in the monastic communities that he founded the rule was well a set of rules that regulated all of the details of daily life the organization of the monastery the schedule of liturgy and prayer various job descriptions how time and resources were to be spent how meals were to be consumed but the guiding principle of it all was a latin phrase that became a motto of the monastic life aura at labora pray and work saint benedict saw prayer and work as twin partners in a holy life a rhythm of prayerful worship and productive labor interwoven throughout the hours of the day throughout the seasons throughout the holy life the rule of saint benedict prescribed a schedule of eight gatherings for communal prayer every few hours throughout the day and night they were called the canonical hours lauds just before sunrise then prime an hour after the sun rose then turtle about mid-morning then sext at noon nons at mid-afternoon vespers at sunset and compline just before bed then they were to wake up in the middle of the night for matins at each of these canonical hours the monks would gather to pray and chant the psalms and take mass at one of them [Music] in the few hours between these canonical gatherings they worked because benedict had no patience with lazy monks returning to bed between services and there was all sorts of work to do the obvious cooking and cleaning and maintenance of the facility growing food and whatnot but also specialized work brewing beer making wine or cheese or some other crafts that could be sold with the revenue supporting the community some orders like the cistercians specialized in agriculture and developed techniques of land management irrigation and crop rotation others engaged in light manufacturing or textiles [Music] others undertook the copying of manuscripts often of the bible and so every few hours you'd go to prayer and then back to work a constant rhythm over and over day after day week after week month after month year after year [Music] think for a moment about the implications of aura at labora take a community of healthy young men with vows of poverty chastity and obedience they don't smoke they don't drag to excess they don't do drugs spend money party gamble play video games watch netflix none of that and they reinvest every penny they make back into the monastery what do they do with their time and energy well every three hours they alternate between prayer and work without fail for the glory of god what do you think will happen they get wealthy the monasteries accumulated at property they cleared forests they drained swamps they planted crops they tended flocks they sheared wool they made beer and wine and cloth they copied and sold manuscripts they had virtually no payroll other than room and board for the monks [Music] they were productive living machines like colonies of holy ants or hives of godly bees they lived to give glory to god by getting things done and a lot of land was donated to the monasteries the ancient and medieval economies were land-based wealth wasn't invested in the stock market land was the primary asset and the rents that land generated from tenant farmers so when a nobleman or king wanted to provide an endowment to a monastery he didn't transfer stocks into a mutual fund the monastery would be gifted with the deed to property and the rents from that property became sustainable revenue for the monastery which meant that over time the monasteries had larger and larger estates to manage more work to do more wealth produced over and over the pattern was repeated a new monastic order would be born and a new productive machine would start humming after a few generations the monastery had grown large and wealthy and probably it spun off daughter monasteries buildings would go up to house the monks in their workshops and warehouses but all of that wealth would gradually lead to a softening of discipline life became easier and prestige and power came into play and then reformers would come along the reformers would decry the blacks lifestyles of the monks point out the monks were missing the point that they had drifted far from the spirit of saint anthony and saint benedict and often they would break off to start a new monastic order hitting the reset button by returning to the principle of aura eth labora [Music]

Channel: Lakeshore Academy for the New Evangelization

Views: 223,386

Keywords:

Id: UmGa8edtQPM

Length: 6min 33sec (393 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 30 2020