Great post. IMO the great mistake of the reformers was getting rid of the monasteries. In the Orthodox Church, monastics are the soul of it, eg the Hesychast tradition that came to Russia.
It occurs to me that we need this medieval monastic spirit more than ever in our modern world of noise. There are so few religious houses now where one can go to truly experience a taste of what is written here, there is one in Oklahoma, Clear Creek Abbey. It seems to me that we who are in the world, with families and children ought to try to make our homes 'little monasteries'. We would greatly benefit from experiencing the life and prayer of the monks and then try to build a little prayer life for ourselves and especially our children that imitates that model. The Angelus and the Rosary should be cornerstones in a family prayer life, in my opinion. I truly love the Medieval spirit.
Well said, Jeremiah. There are indeed very few monasteries nowadays where one feels to some significant degree the medieval monastic spirit. Clear Creek is among them, and there are some others in the United States and Europe, but the fact is that most of us will never be able to spend large amounts of time near these institutions. Thus, as you said, we must do what we can to cultivate monastic virtues and medieval spirituality in the home.
But as well as Bernard’s “hospitality, charity, artistic and musical patronage, scholarship and education”, overwhelmingly monks were praying for the souls of the dead, singing masses satisfactory for those in purgatory. That was an essential part of the monastic life and a vital connection between the laity and regular clergy.
Thanks for sharing this. I came across a ruined abbey last week on the east coast of England, thought, another one! - amazing there are so many ruins still standing after 500 years since the dissolution. I struggled to imagine how pervasive and powerful the culture must have been and what a how traumatic the Reformation must have felt for so many people. We are still swimming in the waters that have been in motion ever since.
Well said, and traumatic it absolutely was—a profound cultural and psychological disruption in English society that historians have recently been more willing to acknowledge and explore.
In that article I cited, Bernard makes an observation regarding ruins that I think you would find interesting:
“If monasteries had continued in England, they would not necessarily have remained the same. Reformed or new orders might well have held sway. Norman and Gothic churches would very likely have been baroquized in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as were those of the German Catholic lands. So what we have lost – for example the Romanesque nave of Reading Abbey, now entirely vanished, with only rubble core walls from the former south transept precariously surviving elsewhere – might well have gone anyway, or been substantially remodelled. With roofs stripped of lead, and monastic precincts abandoned, buildings quickly deteriorated and turned into Shakespeare's 'bare ruin'd quires where once the sweet birds sang'. And those ruins surely had a powerful effect on English attitudes to the past, stimulating the characteristically English interest in antiquities, and, not least in the age of Romantic literature, in calling forth somewhat wistful and nostalgic attitudes to the past, manifestly not present at the time of the dissolution itself.”
I think we take cultural continuity for granted - but what does it do to us when something that has always been there as part of our culture and heritage is turned overnight into a ruin? Imagine living in Reading in 1540, the Abbey has been there for hundreds of years - longer than the Houses of Parliament or St Paul’s Cathedral have been part of our landscape, and now it is an empty shell, stripped of anything of value and the way of life that has been a huge presence in the town for longer than anyone can remember, no more.
I think the legacy is more complicated, a society cut off from its roots becomes restless, cynical and ambitious. It wasn’t until the 19th century that people could look back at that period with appreciation, even nostalgia.
It is a truly insightful and thought-provoking observation that "a society cut off from its roots becomes restless, cynical and ambitious," and I completely agree. In my view of history, cultural deracination is a fundamental cause and mode of social, moral, and emotional decline. Bernard's "characteristically English interest in antiquities" seems like gravely inadequate compensation for the traumatically abrupt and comprehensive loss of England's venerable monastic heritage and extensive network of flourishing, socially embedded monasteries.
I think we cut off parts of our collective memory to survive, it’s necessary but leaves us damaged in the process. If your world changes around you and you change what you think to confirm with this, what does that say about you? I can sense something of this now when we condemn our parents and grandparents for following in the footsteps of their parents and grandparents. It reminds me of the trial of Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons - where he is condemned for believing what his judges had believed until a few minutes earlier.
Regarding the painful dislocation of the period, have you read The Man on a Donkey by H F M Prescott?
It has been described as one of the best historical novels ever written - just be prepared to let it haunt you for several decades. Eamon Duffy’s historical work on this period is also excellent and gives an insight into the vitality of the culture that was swept away. We also forget the important role of women in the Church before the Reformation.
I'm familiar with Duffy's scholarship, which is excellent—Stripping of the Altars was a landmark in rediscovering the true nature of pre-Reformation English Christianity.
So you estimate that you would last for one week as a hermit! I think I could manage two (at the most.) I think the solution for most people i.e. married people with children, is to make your own home a place of solitude and peace, carving out this space within the busyness of domestic life.
Well said. I wouldn't last long as a hermit, but we can all incorporate small doses and specific aspects of eremitical life—prayer, wholesome homemade food, measured speech, affection for nature, moments of reflective silence and solitude—into our homes and families.
• The Carthusian order is semi-eremitic, and was since it's very start (Bruno's experience together with his friends); communities were typically made of about ten individuals who shared key moments of the day and weekly activities (not limited to the liturgy of hours and mass); very soon after Bruno's still very personal and non-normative experience, Guigo is credited for shaping the monastic order on significantly different principles compared to Bruno's initial vision; out-of-cell life gradually became so prominent that by the 19th c. solitude was a mirage; despite multiple interventions in the direction of trying to bring back the original spirit (Guigo's, not Bruno's), today's very small communities request the monk to cover roles that allow little room to solitude.
• I remember John Climacus (7th c.) – whose work is highly in favour of monastic life and equally critical of hermitic life – stressing the differences between the two paths and listing their respective challenges: the zealous monk is constantly tempted by the desire to lead a more solitary life; the hermit is constantly tempted by wanting to live a more charitable life.
Thank you for these contributions, Federico! I especially like that paradoxical dynamic that you captured so well in the last sentence: "the zealous monk is constantly tempted by the desire to lead a more solitary life; the hermit is constantly tempted by wanting to live a more charitable life."
It's hard to know if it would have been better—history is such an endlessly complicated thing—but I'm pretty sure that if France had won, the world we live in now would be massively different.
I really loved this post - dear to my heart. I was quite impressed by all those dots. We have so few now, which is probably why we are in such trouble...
Amazing that so many people chose this life. It seems difficult but obviously there were benefits I am not aware of. I wonder if it was a temporary way of life or people made it permanent.
May I include your work on my kids learning substack (I’m an amateur mum not an expert so excuse any mistakes) llamasinpyjamas.substack.com I’ll need to make it kid friendly otherwise I’d just restack but obviously I’ll source it all!
Ave Maria. Thank you for contributing to help understand the importance of the monastic life.
Thank you for reading and commenting. The monastic life is an incomparable treasure, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to write about it.
Great post. IMO the great mistake of the reformers was getting rid of the monasteries. In the Orthodox Church, monastics are the soul of it, eg the Hesychast tradition that came to Russia.
This comment brings to mind one of the monumental ironies of European history—Martin Luther was (temporarily) a monk!
It occurs to me that we need this medieval monastic spirit more than ever in our modern world of noise. There are so few religious houses now where one can go to truly experience a taste of what is written here, there is one in Oklahoma, Clear Creek Abbey. It seems to me that we who are in the world, with families and children ought to try to make our homes 'little monasteries'. We would greatly benefit from experiencing the life and prayer of the monks and then try to build a little prayer life for ourselves and especially our children that imitates that model. The Angelus and the Rosary should be cornerstones in a family prayer life, in my opinion. I truly love the Medieval spirit.
Well said, Jeremiah. There are indeed very few monasteries nowadays where one feels to some significant degree the medieval monastic spirit. Clear Creek is among them, and there are some others in the United States and Europe, but the fact is that most of us will never be able to spend large amounts of time near these institutions. Thus, as you said, we must do what we can to cultivate monastic virtues and medieval spirituality in the home.
But as well as Bernard’s “hospitality, charity, artistic and musical patronage, scholarship and education”, overwhelmingly monks were praying for the souls of the dead, singing masses satisfactory for those in purgatory. That was an essential part of the monastic life and a vital connection between the laity and regular clergy.
Thanks for sharing this. I came across a ruined abbey last week on the east coast of England, thought, another one! - amazing there are so many ruins still standing after 500 years since the dissolution. I struggled to imagine how pervasive and powerful the culture must have been and what a how traumatic the Reformation must have felt for so many people. We are still swimming in the waters that have been in motion ever since.
Well said, and traumatic it absolutely was—a profound cultural and psychological disruption in English society that historians have recently been more willing to acknowledge and explore.
In that article I cited, Bernard makes an observation regarding ruins that I think you would find interesting:
“If monasteries had continued in England, they would not necessarily have remained the same. Reformed or new orders might well have held sway. Norman and Gothic churches would very likely have been baroquized in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as were those of the German Catholic lands. So what we have lost – for example the Romanesque nave of Reading Abbey, now entirely vanished, with only rubble core walls from the former south transept precariously surviving elsewhere – might well have gone anyway, or been substantially remodelled. With roofs stripped of lead, and monastic precincts abandoned, buildings quickly deteriorated and turned into Shakespeare's 'bare ruin'd quires where once the sweet birds sang'. And those ruins surely had a powerful effect on English attitudes to the past, stimulating the characteristically English interest in antiquities, and, not least in the age of Romantic literature, in calling forth somewhat wistful and nostalgic attitudes to the past, manifestly not present at the time of the dissolution itself.”
I think we take cultural continuity for granted - but what does it do to us when something that has always been there as part of our culture and heritage is turned overnight into a ruin? Imagine living in Reading in 1540, the Abbey has been there for hundreds of years - longer than the Houses of Parliament or St Paul’s Cathedral have been part of our landscape, and now it is an empty shell, stripped of anything of value and the way of life that has been a huge presence in the town for longer than anyone can remember, no more.
I think the legacy is more complicated, a society cut off from its roots becomes restless, cynical and ambitious. It wasn’t until the 19th century that people could look back at that period with appreciation, even nostalgia.
It is a truly insightful and thought-provoking observation that "a society cut off from its roots becomes restless, cynical and ambitious," and I completely agree. In my view of history, cultural deracination is a fundamental cause and mode of social, moral, and emotional decline. Bernard's "characteristically English interest in antiquities" seems like gravely inadequate compensation for the traumatically abrupt and comprehensive loss of England's venerable monastic heritage and extensive network of flourishing, socially embedded monasteries.
I think we cut off parts of our collective memory to survive, it’s necessary but leaves us damaged in the process. If your world changes around you and you change what you think to confirm with this, what does that say about you? I can sense something of this now when we condemn our parents and grandparents for following in the footsteps of their parents and grandparents. It reminds me of the trial of Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons - where he is condemned for believing what his judges had believed until a few minutes earlier.
Regarding the painful dislocation of the period, have you read The Man on a Donkey by H F M Prescott?
I have not. I just looked it up, and I'm intrigued.
It has been described as one of the best historical novels ever written - just be prepared to let it haunt you for several decades. Eamon Duffy’s historical work on this period is also excellent and gives an insight into the vitality of the culture that was swept away. We also forget the important role of women in the Church before the Reformation.
I'm familiar with Duffy's scholarship, which is excellent—Stripping of the Altars was a landmark in rediscovering the true nature of pre-Reformation English Christianity.
So you estimate that you would last for one week as a hermit! I think I could manage two (at the most.) I think the solution for most people i.e. married people with children, is to make your own home a place of solitude and peace, carving out this space within the busyness of domestic life.
Agree 💯
Well said. I wouldn't last long as a hermit, but we can all incorporate small doses and specific aspects of eremitical life—prayer, wholesome homemade food, measured speech, affection for nature, moments of reflective silence and solitude—into our homes and families.
Thanks for sharing! I'm adding two annotations.
• The Carthusian order is semi-eremitic, and was since it's very start (Bruno's experience together with his friends); communities were typically made of about ten individuals who shared key moments of the day and weekly activities (not limited to the liturgy of hours and mass); very soon after Bruno's still very personal and non-normative experience, Guigo is credited for shaping the monastic order on significantly different principles compared to Bruno's initial vision; out-of-cell life gradually became so prominent that by the 19th c. solitude was a mirage; despite multiple interventions in the direction of trying to bring back the original spirit (Guigo's, not Bruno's), today's very small communities request the monk to cover roles that allow little room to solitude.
• I remember John Climacus (7th c.) – whose work is highly in favour of monastic life and equally critical of hermitic life – stressing the differences between the two paths and listing their respective challenges: the zealous monk is constantly tempted by the desire to lead a more solitary life; the hermit is constantly tempted by wanting to live a more charitable life.
Thank you for these contributions, Federico! I especially like that paradoxical dynamic that you captured so well in the last sentence: "the zealous monk is constantly tempted by the desire to lead a more solitary life; the hermit is constantly tempted by wanting to live a more charitable life."
Thank you, I thoroughly enjoyed this piece of writing. I wonder where we would be now if England were to have remained Catholic.
You're welcome Erika, I'm so glad you enjoyed the article.
I’ve been wondering if it would have been better for France to have won the contest for North America.
It's hard to know if it would have been better—history is such an endlessly complicated thing—but I'm pretty sure that if France had won, the world we live in now would be massively different.
I really loved this post - dear to my heart. I was quite impressed by all those dots. We have so few now, which is probably why we are in such trouble...
I'm so glad you enjoyed the post, Shannon. Thanks for reading and commenting.
This is fascinating, but I just don't think I could live all by myself...But good for those who loved it!
Amazing that so many people chose this life. It seems difficult but obviously there were benefits I am not aware of. I wonder if it was a temporary way of life or people made it permanent.
Definitely difficult, but for those who were called and faithful enough to answer the call, the benefits far outweighed the difficulties.
Once you make your final vows, it's permanent.
May I include your work on my kids learning substack (I’m an amateur mum not an expert so excuse any mistakes) llamasinpyjamas.substack.com I’ll need to make it kid friendly otherwise I’d just restack but obviously I’ll source it all!
Yes you may, and I hope that it proves useful as educational material!
Thanks!