Role of Moasticism in Development of Art During Middle Ages

Learning Objective

• Compare and dissimilarity some of the monastic orders that were formed during the Middle Ages

Central Points

• Because of the ubiquitous power of religion, and especially Christianity, monasticism flourished in medieval Europe.
• Medieval monastic life consisted of prayer, reading, and transmission labor.
• From the 6th century onward, most of the monasteries in the Due west were of the Benedictine Order, founded past Benedict of Nursia, who wrote influential rules for monastic life.
• By the 11th century, the Cistercians reformed the Benedictine way of life, adhering more than strictly to Benedict'due south original rules and focusing on manual labour and self-sufficiency.
• During the rule of Pope Innocent Iii (1198–1216), 2 mendicant orders, the Franciscan and the Dominican, were founded.
• Francis of Assisi founded the guild of the Franciscans, who were known for their charitable piece of work.
• The Dominicans, founded by Saint Dominic, focused on pedagogy, preaching, and suppressing heresy.

Terms

Benedict'southward Dominion

A book of precepts written by Benedict of Nursia (c. 480–550) for monks living communally nether the authority of an abbot.

mendicant

Certain Christian religious orders that take adopted a lifestyle of poverty, traveling, and living in urban areas for purposes of preaching, evangelization, and ministry building, particularly to the poor; more generally an austere lifestyle that includes poverty and begging.

Christian monasticism

The devotional exercise of individuals who live ascetic and typically cloistered lives that are defended to Christian worship.

Monasticism in the Middle Ages

Christian monasticism is the devotional do of individuals who live ascetic and typically cloistered lives that are dedicated to Christian worship. Monasticism became quite pop in the Middle Ages, with faith being the most important force in Europe. Monks and nuns were to live isolated from the earth to become closer to God. Monks provided service to the church by copying manuscripts, creating art, educating people, and working as missionaries. Convents were especially appealing to women. It was the but place they would receive any sort of didactics or power. It also let them escape unwanted marriages.

The Benedictines

From the 6th century onward most of the monasteries in the Westward were of the Benedictine Gild. The Benedictines were founded by Bridegroom of Nursia, the near influential of western monks and called "the begetter of western monasticism." He was educated in Rome but shortly sought the life of a hermit in a cavern at Subiaco, outside the urban center. He then attracted followers with whom he founded the monastery of Monte Cassino, betwixt Rome and Naples, around 520. He established the Rule, adapting in part the earlier anonymous Rule of the Principal (Regula magistri), which was written somewhere south of Rome around 500, and defined the activities of the monastery, its officers, and their responsibilities.

By the 9th century, largely under the inspiration of Emperor Charlemagne, Benedict's Rule became the bones guide for Western monasticism. Early Benedictine monasteries were relatively minor and consisted of an oratory, a refectory, a dormitory, a scriptorium, guest accommodation, and out-buildings, a group of oft quite separate rooms more reminiscent of a decent-sized Roman villa than a large medieval abbey. A monastery of about a dozen monks would have been normal during this flow.

Medieval monastic life consisted of prayer, reading, and manual labor. Prayer was a monk's first priority. Autonomously from prayer, monks performed a variety of tasks, such as preparing medicine, lettering, and reading. These monks would also work in the gardens and on the state. They might besides spend time in the Cloister, a covered colonnade around a courtyard, where they would pray or read. Some monasteries held a scriptorium where monks would write or copy books. When the monks wrote, they used very neat handwriting and would draw illustrations in the books. Equally a part of their unique writing way, they busy the first alphabetic character of each paragraph.

The efficiency of Benedict's cenobitic Rule, in improver to the stability of the monasteries, made them very productive. The monasteries were the key storehouses and producers of knowledge.

Saint Benedict
Saint Benedict, the founder of the Benedictine Monastic Rule, by Herman Nieg, Heiligenkreuz Abbey, Austria.

Cistercian Movement

The adjacent wave of monastic reform later the Benedictines came with the Cistercian motility. The first Cistercian abbey was founded in 1098, at Cîteaux Abbey. The keynote of Cistercian life was a return to a literal observance of the Benedictine Rule, rejecting the developments of the Benedictines. The about striking feature in the reform was the render to transmission labour, and especially to field piece of work. Inspired by Bernard of Clairvaux, the chief builder of the Cistercians, the Cistercians became the main force of technological diffusion in medieval Europe. Past the end of the 12th century the Cistercian houses numbered 500, and at its height in the 15th century the club claimed to have close to 750 houses. Almost of these were built in wilderness areas, and played a major part in bringing such isolated parts of Europe into economical cultivation.

Mendicant Orders

During the rule of Pope Innocent III (1198–1216), two of the almost famous monastic orders were founded. They were called the mendicant, or begging, orders because their members begged for the food and clothes. At their foundation these orders rejected the previously established monastic model of living in one stable, isolated community where members worked at a merchandise and endemic property in mutual, including land, buildings, and other wealth. Past contrast, the mendicants avoided owning holding, did not piece of work at a merchandise, and embraced a poor, oft itinerant lifestyle. They depended for their survival on the goodwill of the people to whom they preached. They would usually travel in pairs, preaching, healing the sick, and helping the poor. Francis of Assisi founded the guild of the Franciscans, who were known for their charitable piece of work. The Dominicans, founded by Saint Dominic, focused on pedagogy, preaching, and suppressing heresy.

The Dominican Society came into being in the Middle Ages at a time when organized religion was starting to exist contemplated in a new way. Men of God were no longer expected to stay behind the walls of a cloister. Instead, they traveled among the people, taking every bit their examples the apostles of the primitive Church. Like his contemporary, Francis, Dominic saw the need for a new type of organization, and the quick growth of the Dominicans and Franciscans during their first century of beingness confirms that the orders of mendicant friars met a need.

The inspiration for the Franciscan Society came in 1209 when Francis heard a sermon on Matthew 10:9 that made such an impression on him that he decided to devote himself wholly to a life of apostolic poverty. Clad in a rough garment, barefoot, and, after the Evangelical precept, without staff or scrip, he began to preach repentance.

Francis was shortly joined by a prominent young man townsman, Bernard of Quintavalle, who contributed all that he had to the work, and by other companions, who are said to have reached eleven within a twelvemonth. The brothers lived in the deserted leper colony of Rivo Torto about Assisi, but they spent much of their time traveling through the mountainous districts of Umbria, always cheerful and full of songs, yet making a deep impression on their hearers by their earnest exhortations. Their life was extremely ascetic, though such practices were apparently not prescribed by the starting time rule that Francis gave them (probably as early every bit 1209), which seems to take been nothing more a collection of Scriptural passages emphasizing the duty of poverty.

Like to Francis, Dominic sought to institute a new kind of society, ane that would bring the dedication and systematic education of the older monastic orders similar the Benedictines to behave on the religious bug of the burgeoning population of cities, but with more organizational flexibility than either monastic orders or the secular clergy. Dominic's new order was to be a preaching lodge, with its members trained to preach in the vernacular languages. Rather than earning their living on vast farms as the monasteries had done, the new friars would survive by begging— "selling" themselves through persuasive preaching.

Dominic inspired his followers with loyalty to learning and virtue, a deep recognition of the spiritual power of worldly deprivation and the religious state, and a highly developed governmental construction. At the same fourth dimension, Dominic encouraged the members of his society to develop a "mixed" spirituality. They were both active in preaching and contemplative in written report, prayer, and meditation. The brethren of the Dominican Order were urban and learned, equally well as contemplative and mystical in their spirituality. While these traits had an impact on the women of the order, the nuns especially captivated the latter characteristics and made them their ain. In England, the Dominican nuns blended these elements with their ain defining characteristics and created a spirituality and commonage personality that set them apart.

Saint Francis
Saint Francis of Assisi, founder of the Society of Friars Minor.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-herkimer-westerncivilization/chapter/the-rise-of-the-monasteries/

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