RELIGIOUS ORDERS

Lives of devotion

From the Benedictines to the Carthusians, the religious orders of mainland Europe gradually wove themselves into the spiritual and social fabric of medieval England

It is the early sixth century AD and Christianity is well on its way to establishing itself as the dominant religion across the former western Roman empire. Yet not everyone, it seems, is adhering to Jesus’ teachings. In fact, so appalled is one man by the people of Rome’s licentiousness – their preference for wine, women and song over abstinence, piety and prayer – that he decides to live as a hermit inside a cave some 40 miles east of what once was the imperial capital. at man is known today as Saint Benedict of Nursia, and the plan he hatched while living in isolation in the foothills of central Italy 1,500 years ago would change the course of history.

In his Dialogues, written in the late sixth century, Pope Gregory I wrote that Benedict’s “age was inferior to his virtue: all vain pleasure he condemned.” And such was Benedict’s disdain for “vain pleasure” that he came up with an idea for a religious order that would show an almost fanatical devotion to self-denial, prayer and hard work.

Benedict may have chosen to live in a cave, but he wasn’t totally solitary. Soon, he had attracted a small band of disciples, whom he commanded to establish 12 monasteries, each with 12 monks. Within a few years, some of the most powerful men in Rome were o ering up their sons to become monks under Benedict’s care. By the late sixth century, this network of ‘Benedictine’ monasteries was well on the way to becoming the foremost religious movement across western Europe.

Such was the power of the Benedictine revolution that it was only a matter of time before it would cross the water to England. And that’s exactly what happened in AD 597 when Saint Augustine made landfall in Kent and founded Canterbury Abbey the following year with a brief to spread the word of God among the Anglo-Saxons. It was a slow and stuttering process, but they would go on to replicate across England what they had already achieved in mainland Europe. From Thetford in Norfolk and Wenlock in Shropshire to Finchdale just outside Durham, they would eventually become an integral part of the nation’s social and religious fabric.

So what was the secret of the Benedictines’ success? Why did the brainchild of a little-known hermit in sixth-century Italy prove such a powerful force in medieval England? Part of the reason was that Benedictine monasteries didn’t just embed themselves in medieval communities, they also gave back to them, providing alms to the poor, medical aid to the sick, homes to the aged and shelter for travellers.

But what really made them stand out in a world beset by earthly temptations was the strictly defined list of rules that Saint Benedict devised for the monks that populated his monasteries.

“Idleness is the enemy of the soul,” Benedict had declared. “ erefore, the brothers should have specified periods for manual labour as well as for prayerful reading… When they live by the labour of their hands, as our fathers and the apostles did, then they are really monks.”

Ora et labora (prayer and work) was the Benedictine motto, and that was very much reflected in the monks’ daily routine. A monk’s day typically consisted of eight religious services (including one in the middle of the night), five hours of manual labour (such as domestic work, craft work and tending the monastery’s gardens and crops), four hours reading of the Scriptures – and very little sleep.

To enter the Benedictine life was very much to leave the temptations of the secular world behind: monks had to take vows of chastity, renounce all their worldly goods and, often, survive on one meal a day – typically a porridge-like broth made up of ground bread, hot water, herbs, fish and vegetables. And, for much of the time, silence reigned supreme: monks were often not allowed to speak at all in the church, kitchen, refectory or dormitories.

Led into temptation

To the 21st-century ear, it sounds like a harsh existence, but there was rarely a shortage of recruits willing to enter religious orders. The reasons that young men sought a life under vows varied according to their backgrounds. Sons of the aristocracy were sometimes encouraged to join the church in order to carve out a successful career. For those from less-exalted backgrounds, the attraction of entering a monastery could be more modest: the promise of a regular meal –a bonus in a society regularly haunted by the spectre of famine. But, above all, in a deeply devout age, joining a religious order o ered the opportunity to partake in the glory of God.

But, unfortunately, some people couldn’t resist also partaking of the glories of the flesh. In fact, by the late Middle Ages, so many were indulging in ungodly behaviour that the religious authorities instituted a series of “visitations” of England’s priories and monasteries to weed out o enders. And o enders is exactly what they discovered when they visited Canons Ashby Priory in Northamptonshire in the 1430s.

Here the inspectors found that the inhabitants were not only indulging in private feasting and games, frequenting the village inn and skipping services in the choir, but also wearing “short aild tight doublets with several ties to their hose” instead of their monastic habit.

There was an even more shocking and scandalous outbreak of bad behaviour uncovered in the abbey of Missenden in Buckinghamshire in 1531. A local canon, Roger Palmer, found himself accused of carnal relations with a married woman, Margaret Bishop – before promptly alleging that it was Missenden’s abbot, John Fox, who had shared Margaret’s bed. The whole messy business was resolved when Palmer was imprisoned and Abbot Fox was suspended from office.

Yet bad behaviour was far from the only cloud to loom on the Benedictine horizon in the high Middle Ages. Generous tax breaks and donations of huge swathes of land had turned what had once been modest communities into vast, sophisticated businesses that employed serfs and hired labour to work the fields – all at a significant profit. is meant that monks could dedicate more time to scholarly pursuits such as producing illuminated manuscripts, and cementing their reputations as hubs of literacy and learning.

But, as some denizens of the monasteries grew fat on their profits, they found themselves increasingly at odds with the old Benedictine maxims of austerity and self-restraint. “I saw his sleeves lined at the hand, with squirrel fur, and that the finest in the land,” observed Geoffrey Chaucer of the spendthrift monk in his 14th-century work e Canterbury Tales. Yet the disparity between the Benedictine philosophy and the reality on the ground was bringing rival religious orders to the table long before that.

God’s holy warriors

The best known of these other groups were the Cistercians, who rose to prominence in 11th-century France. Gaining traction across the British Isles in the wake of the Norman Conquest, they advocated a return to the hard manual labour and austere lifestyle championed by Saint Benedict himself and, to this end, moved against the “excessive” amounts of sculpture and art that was often found in monastic buildings.

The Cistercians accused the Benedictine monks of eating too much, and too well. at was certainly not a charge they could level again the Carthusians, who spent most of their time praying in solitary cells. is most austere of religious orders established 10 monasteries across the British Isles between the late 12th century and the Reformation (including London Charterhouse), yet were simply too severe to rival the Benedictines and Cistercians in both size and popularity.

“The Cistercians accused the Benedictine monks of eating too much, and too well”

While the Carthusians dedicated their lives to isolation and prayer, the Knights Templar had a very different calling: to protect Christian pilgrims travelling to sacred sites in the Holy Land. Via a combination of martial prowess (“They were the fiercest fighters of all the Franks,” conceded the Muslim chronicler Ibn al-Athir) and financial acumen, this band of holy warriors – all of whom swore an oath of poverty, chastity and obedience – became an international powerhouse. Not only did they acquire a sizable fleet of ships and buy the Mediterranean island of Cyprus from Richard the Lionheart, they also served as a lending institution to European monarchs and nobles.

In many ways, the Templars were victims of their own success, their vast wealth helping pitch them into conflict with French king Philip IV, who would engineer their downfall at the start of the 14th century.

And the same could be said for the monastic orders back in England. Across the course of the Middle Ages, they had produced some of the most extraordinary works of architecture to have graced the British Isles. For every Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire, Tintern Abbey in south Wales and Cluniac Acre Priory in Norfolk (all of which can be seen today), there were any number of monastical masterpieces dotted across the country – testament to the unique status that these religious orders acquired. The monasteries had ruled England’s skylines and spiritual lives for a millennium. With the accession of Henry VIII to the throne in the 16th century – hungry for money, power and a son – all that was to come to an end.

AN ISOLATED EXISTENCE

Many medieval women also chose to follow lives of poverty and prayer – but few took it to greater extremes than the anchorites

Joining a religious order was far from a male-only pursuit. Legend has it that Saint Benedict of Nursia had a twin sister called Scholastica, who founded the first convent of Benedictine nuns near Monte Cassino in the sixth century AD.

Whether that tradition is true or not, nunneries were soon to become an established part of the medieval landscape. Just like their male It was an austere way of life but, on the scale of ferocious self-denial in the service of God, it wasn’t a patch on the anchorites.

The word ‘anchorite’ comes from the Greek anach rein, meaning ‘to retire or withdraw’. Anchorites (the majority of whom were women) gave up their lives to be walled up in a cell until death. They would be witnesses at their own funerals, receiving the last rites, and have the door to their room sealed or bricked up.

The earliest recorded anchorites in England date to the 11th century, but in terms of numbers (around 200), they reached their height in the 13th century. Notable anchorites include Christine Carpenter, who was released from her cell in Shere church, Surrey, but missed isolation so much that, in 1332, she was given permission to be re-enclosed.

However, perhaps the most famous English anchorite was a woman with a man’s name: Julian of Norwich. Born in c1342, Julian was walled up in the East Anglian city at some point in the late 14th century. Like all anchorites, Julian would have dedicated her time to intense prayer and contemplation. Yet during her decades of total isolation, she did something even more extraordinary: she became the first woman to write a book in English.

That book, Revelations of Divine Love – in which Julian describes a series of mystical visions she experienced in earlier life – has been described as a stunning literary achievement. That’s quite an accomplishment for a woman who would never meet any of her readers.

---

Words: Spencer Mizen

PICTURE CREDITS: GETTY IMAGES X6, ALAMY X5