The Contribution Of Medieval Monasteriess To European Life In The Early Middle Ages

Analyse the contribution of medieval monasteries to European life in the early middle ages. Monasticism began in around 270 AD when Saint Anthony decided to dedicate his life to praying in a desert to praise God by escaping decadent and materialistic city life. This spread to Western Europe in 5th century which marked beginning of monasticism in Medieval Europe. The monasteries were entirely self-sufficient and isolated, thus they did not have much contact with the outside world. Nevertheless, they had great contributions to European life in the early middle ages. This essay will analyze how the monasteries have contributed to the European life, by supporting people who want to devote themselves to God, offering hand to people in need of help,
“The Rule” told them to “relieve the lot of the poor”, “visit the sick” and to “respect the elders and love the young” (St. Benedict 27-29). To follow these rules, they gave spare clothes and food to the poor, created hospital-like facilities for the sick, created facilities for elderlies, and took in unwanted boys and functioned as orphanages. They also acted like inns by providing hospitality for travelers and pilgrims. The travelers even got bread and wine during their stay, and money to use for the rest of the journey before departure. In this way, the monastery improved the society by helping the unfortunate and the
As I have stated above, the monasteries functioned like hospitals as well. This was because the monks were the only people with knowledge who could offer medical treatment in the middle ages. Likewise, since they were self-sufficient and knew a lot about farming, they helped refine farming techniques which was very poor at the time. This led to the betterment of farmers’ lives and the revitalisation of the economy. Furthermore, Christianity was based on books, and the monks were the few people in the society of the middle ages who were literate. Monasteries were the only source of education at the time and they opened monastic schools to provided education for boys who had wished to dedicate their life to the religion. These monastic schools were the origin of universities in the 12th century. As well as providing education, the monks preserved knowledge by hand copying books which were very precious at the time. In many of the monasteries that still remain today, such as Mont Saint Michel Abbey, we can see a room called “scriptoria” where the monks hand copied books to preserve them. These handwritten books helped pass on knowledge over generations until paper printing machine was invented. It is evident that medieval monasteries had numerous positive contribution to European life in the early middle ages. The main contributions included disciplining people who dedicated their