Monasteries - centers of education and religion

Benedict’s Rule

4. Monasteries that kept to Benedíct’s Rule could be considered very useful institutions because of various reasons.  First of all, these monasteries were the backbone holding together the society because it provided a sense of unity amongst the people. It was very effective in that it gave most people values and morals to fall back on by proposing that a certain lifestyle will help you reach salvation. For example, the Rule states that, “Not to wish to be called holy before one is so: but to be holy, that one may be truly so called.” Also, it became obvious that their main reason of existence was to facilitate learning and provide guidelines of a religion to follow and provide people with a route they should take in life to pass judgment day and go to heaven, achieving a better and more pleasant life than the difficult one they had to endure on earth. By telling people to be modest, not gluttonous, and hate no man, Benedict’s Rule was trying to train the people to becoming better individuals while also instilling academics within the kids, which made more of the population literate. This definitely opened doors for the society to be able to communicate more effectively with neighboring civilizations, keep records, and have more scribes to keep track of major historical occurrences.

5. The Rule reveals much about the social and economic structure of that time period. After reading through all the rules, it caught my attention that people were using the monastery not only for education and religion, but also looked at it for the guidance on how to run the society. This makes me believe that a strong, centralized, imperial government was probably lacking during this time because the guidelines in Benedict’s Rule are SO strict and intricate that it seemed like either you follow it or you don’t. If you don’t, that basically means you are a misfit, are going against everyone else, and are going to lack a sense of unity that the other followers now have. Also, it becomes prevalent that teachers were very much looked up to and honored as people of hierarchy because they were the people who taught the monks and instilled all of the strict values within them. After reading the section called, “Of the Daily Manual Labour,” which said, “From the Calends of October until the beginning of Lent let the brethren devote themselves to reading till the end of the second hour. At the second hour let Terce be said, after which they shall all labour at their appointed work until None.” This makes it very obvious that the followers were told to work on the fields and help out with the agricultural production, which helped with trade and providing for monks(who ate very little). These reasons lead me to believe that monasteries proved themselves not only to be centers of religion, but also provide the unity and guidance that the lacking centralized government would have given.