Introduction

What is this blog going to be about? Why am I doing it?

I want it to be fun. I have no wish to write a learned treatise. A quirky blog is more my style. I want to engage your interest in how monks actually lived and operated. My posts will not be referenced :

I' ve had enough of that  from teaching it when I was a librarian! (maybe I'll do a list of items used sometime). Instead I hope you will trust that  my stuff  is based on wide reading from the growing collection of  Monky Books in my man cave and some happy hours  eating and researching in the British Library.

My man cave

 I shall primarily be referring to the Benedictine tradition from  1066 to the 1530s, but I am not limiting myself too much at this stage. Crucially I want you also to know about our St Albans experience so every post  will contain this in italics.

I live in St Albans : within a few yards of the foremost English Abbey of the early Middle Ages. Every day I see the huge gatehouse of the former Abbey, as I walk into the town. I can easily take a walk across the vast green space beside the abbey church where the  monastic buildings stood. So much has disappeared, but for me the atmosphere is still there. Go inside the former abbey church (now the Cathedral since 1877) and there is a real presence - this building is alive - and what was it like for the monks here? How did they live? Going wider why did men (and women) dedicate themselves to God in such an extreme way?  It was so hard!

St Albans Abbey as it is today

Today there are still monks. I first realised this when I observed the plethora of orders spread about in front of me on St Peter's Square in Rome in 1975. Soon after that I was living in Enfield, north London and worshipping at the Priory of Christ the King, Cockfosters, run by Olivetan Benedictines. They wore white robes rather than the usual black and I was fortunate to hear Dom Edmund Jones preach regularly (usually between 5 and 10 minutes! Brilliant). I was first  married by a Benedictine. The communities at Cockfosters (unusually men and women) have  since moved to Turvey in Bedfordshire.

Earlier than this I can remember while visiting the great Baroque Abbey at Einsiedeln in Switzerland defending the monastic life to a group of young students with whom I was staying. I had already experienced the Baroque abbeys of Birnau (Germany) and St Florian (Austria) and was overcome by their exuberance and atmosphere. How did they relate to the usual austere view of monasteries? Seeds were being sown and now that I am retired and under the influence of that hulking great building over the road I am reflecting on what all this means.

I regret that the image of monasteries is being sullied now by the revelations of child abuse in Roman Catholic schools there. Ampleforth and Downside are the latest to hit the headlines. Ettal in Bavaria was some years ago. This is deeply shocking. This blog is not going to be an apologia : there were many dedicated monks in the Middle Ages as well as plenty of examples of where things went wrong. Indeed the whole history of monasticism is a succession of new beginnings with new orders of monks seeking to get back to a purer form of monasticism abiding by the rules.

The most famous set of rules  of these was the Rule of St Benedict from the 6th century. Yes, 6th century Italy!This was not the first set of rules and was not the only one used by monks thereafter but It became the most important and I shall refer to it occasionally. It was only by reading it (107 pages) that I realised how far short my own belief and practice as a Christian are  from it. But then I am  a lay person : to be a monk required vows and discipline!

But what use were monks? I can remember arguiung about this at Einsiedeln. I believe that it requires us to try to get into the mindset of the Middle Ages. Monastic foundations were usually paid for by royalty or nobiity as a kind of insurance policy against their sins in this world and hope for the next.Yet these places were the great centres of learning and produced chronicles : without them culture and society would not have developed at the same pace. Also it was here that bands of dedicatedt individuals prayed to God for the health and fortunes of their benefactors, and the whole world. The results can be seen in the magnificent buildings that they left behind behind : now sometimes cathedrals  and local churches. But the number  that were destroyed in England and Scotland is huge and many of us have no idea that a monastic foundation was in our own neighbourhood. eg

I am primarily interested in England but will not resist bringing in Scotland and some examples on the continent so we can appreciate the contrasting experience in Catholic countries. eg the story of Cluny has to be told.

Now the nub of all this : I am interested in practical everyday things like how they managed to get

up ; beer ; food ; toilets ; music.

I shall move in each post from general remarks on the topic and concluide with our likely St Albans experience in the Middle Ages. And occasionaly I will not resist going to other countries and later periods as a fascinating contrast. eg  how it all turned out in 18th century Germany in Baroque times.

Finally I said I wanted it to be fun. The video I am posting below from Youtube IS very informative and a good introduction. (it was made in 1950 for schools)You may not get through it all but the VOICE is so like Harry Enfield and one of his spoof films that I have to share one of these with you too.......