Charlie Fenton’s Reviews > The Medieval Monastery > Status Update

‘First, there were far fewer nunneries than male houses; probably around one-sixth as many. Estimates vary but some suggest that at the peak of monasticism in England in the thirteenth century, the total number of nuns was only about 2,500. At the Dissolution these numbers had fallen to perhaps 1,500, living in about seventy Benedictine nunneries, thirty loosely defined Cistercian houses and one Cluniac convent.’

‘Although monasteries were intended to be oases of contemplation and peace, their calmness was frequently jarred by the pattering of servants, builders and visitors. Monks themselves, however, were prohibited from talking during church services, in the dormitory at night, and during mealtimes in the refectory.’

‘Reading was an integral part of a monk’s life and as late as the twelfth century monasteries were the largest storehouses of religious knowledge and ideas. Some had large libraries: in the thirteenth century Rievaulx Abbey had 212 volumes and by 1332 Canterbury Cathedral Priory already owned 1,831 books.’

‘The second Monastic Order also followed the Regula Benedicti but took its name from the extremely wealthy abbey of Cluny in central France to which it owed ultimate obedience. Cluniac monks differed from others in that they devoted most of their day to prayer.’

‘By far the largest and wealthiest of these Orders were the Benedictines. They took their name from a set of rules for communal living which had been adapted from an earlier text by the sixth-century Italian abbot, St Benedict of Nursia (c.480-c.547). These rules - the Regula Benedicti - spelled out how monks should spend their time between spiritual and physical work, what they should eat’