This paper examines medieval monasteries as functional communities that embodied Christian ethical principles while serving broader social purposes. Rather than viewing monastic asceticism as extreme renunciation, the author argues that vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience were designed to create self-sustaining communities practicing Christian ideals. The paper traces how monastic life reflected Christ's teachings on wealth and worldly rejection, structured through hourly prayer rituals and communal work. It further explains monasteries' remarkable historical persistence by examining their roles during crises like the Black Death—as centers of learning, cultural continuity, and charitable service—which justified their accumulated wealth and elaborate artistic traditions.
In considering the asceticism of a medieval monastery, we must begin by noting that asceticism as a phenomenon is not peculiar to Christianity. To recall some obvious examples, ascetic renunciation of food and drink through fasting is practiced by Muslims during Ramadan, by Jews on Yom Kippur, while ascetic denial of sex is common among Hindu or Buddhist holy persons. The asceticism of a medieval monastery or convent is not even extreme among Christians. Looking at examples of intense Christian asceticism from St. Simeon Stylites to medieval flagellants during the Black Death to the Russian Skoptsy sect, we can recognize that life in a monastery is actually a mild form of asceticism. In other words, the vows that are taken by monks—poverty, chastity, and obedience—are not particularly extreme. Instead, they are intended to serve a larger social order, reflective of the spiritual beliefs of medieval Christianity. The asceticism is incidental to the real purpose of a monastery, which is to put Christian belief into practice.
The medieval monastery represents the ethical and economic ideas promoted by Jesus Christ constructed into a working society. Christ did not have much regard for wealth, preaching that the poor would inherit the earth while a rich man had the same chance of entering heaven that a camel did of passing through the eye of a needle. The presence of wealth in a monastery, which Bernard of Clairvaux found as offensive as the presence of amusing illustrations in tedious books, was of course intended to overcome Christ's disapproval of wealth by dedicating such aesthetic opulence toward the glorification of Christ.
Christ preached that his kingdom was not of this world. Thus the medieval monk or nun entered into a voluntary rejection of the world, which also entailed an attempt to live life closer in form to God's heavenly kingdom. This meant the sanctification of time itself. The day was broken up regularly and often by prayer rituals at specific hours, which started at dawn and concluded at 2 in the morning. This meant that every member of the community was obliged to pay ritual homage to Christ basically every two hours or so.
Between prayer times, the work and life were communal and entailed things permissible to Christians who had vowed poverty, chastity, and obedience. This basically made the monastery into a self-sustaining community that could exist outside of local power struggles. This made them valuable to society at large, since they could be counted upon to offer basic services to travelers or to the nearby community. Charity, after all, was one of Christ's great commandments.
"Black Death survival explains monastic wealth and persistence"
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