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Monastic institutions were hard hit by the violence of the age of the ninth and tenth centuries. A number of monasteries were looted, burned or just abandoned during the century of turmoil from 850-950. Surviving bands of monks wandered through the land begging and stealing. Monastic discipline grew lax and morals lapsed. Surviving monasteries in the turbulent areas became the proprietary holdings of the dominant warlords who shared in the wealth of the monastery and frequently named the abbot. Bleak as this picture was many new proprietary monasteries were founded. Some of these, like the older monasteries, were poorly administered, did not observe their rule, and gained unsavory reputations for greed, violence, and immorality.
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The revised Benedictine Rule of 816 had provided for monasteries to be supported by landed endowment. Tithe income was a bonus that was subsequently added. Each monastery was to be ruled by an abbot under the supervision of the local bishop. The Rule called for the monks to occupy themselves with spiritual ministry in intercessory prayer and worship, but this had not been widely followed. Since it was customary for these monks to wear black habits, and since later monastic reforms would adopt other colors of distinctive habits, this group became known as the Black Monks.
In northern Lotharingia on the Meuse River at Brogne in 914 a monastery established by a wealthy young man named Gerard was notably different from others. This rigorous monastery gave impetus for other monasteries in that northern region to follow its lead.
In central Lotharingia at Gorze, near Metz, a reformed monastery was established in 933 through the labors of John, the abbot of the new monastery, and Bishop Adalbero of Metz. This Gorzean reform was also strict. Its influence was felt at Cologne when Bishop Bruno adopted Gorzean style reforms for the monasteries in his diocese. Bruno was the brother of Saxon Emperor Otto III. The Saxon brothers had been influenced by the powerful reform bishop of Hildesheim, Bernward (960-1022), who had been their tutor and spiritual counselor. From Cologne the Gorzean reform showed up in Saxony in the north and spread southward to Bavaria by 1022. It was the pattern for renewed discipline in all parts of the Kingdom of Germany by the beginning of the eleventh century.
In England at the monastery at Glastonbury, the Abbot Dunstan (909-988) led in a religious revival in monastic life. Eventually Dunstan became Archbishop of Canterbury (960-988) and extended his reforms to the clergy in general and other monasteries and nunneries. Unfortunately, these reforms were short lived; they succumbed to the Danish invasion.
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The most influential and impressive new development in monasticism in the tenth century developed in central eastern France at a tiny village called Cluny. William, Count of Auvergne and Duke of Aquitaine, established a monastery at his new hunting dog kennel at the village of Cluny in 910. The founding charter provided that neither William nor his heirs would act as proprietor over the monastery; rather, the Cluny monks would choose their own abbot and as a corporate body own and administer their own lands and financial affairs. This was a unique arrangement unlike any other foundation at the time. A few years later the papacy granted Cluny immunity from local episcopal jurisdiction with the understanding that the papacy would exercise the necessary supervision.
The Cluny monastery became a model institution providing both the inspiration and the active leadership in a reforming movement that swept through the monasteries in that vicinity. Abbot Berno (910-925), the founding abbot, worked with William in setting up the monastery. The Benedictine Rule as revised by Benedict of Aniane was strictly enforced. Almost from the first the experiment attracted attention and began to grow in population because of its reputation for serious monastic piety. This reputation also attracted growing numbers of legacies and gifts of land and wealth.
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Odo (926-42) was one of the two or three original monks who came with Berno from the monastery of Baume where they had lived before Cluny was founded. Odo secured the recognition for Cluny as an exclusive papal monastery and out-witted the local bishops who were seeking to appropriate Cluny's growing wealth. The contact with Rome resulted in Odo being invited to reform several monasteries there, including St. Paul's. Before his death Odo had personally supervised the reform of 17 neighboring monasteries around Cluny. Some proprietors had deeded their monasteries complete with landed endowments to the Cluny monastery. This laid the first foundation for what would eventually be a rather far-flung empire of monasteries and endowments. Other monasteries, such as Fleury, were merely subject to internal reform under Odo's direction. Already numerous monks from Cluny had been selected as bishops in key bishoprics across France. Powerful proprietors like the Duke of Normandy selected Cluny monks to be abbots of important monasteries in their areas. Such monasteries are called "daughter houses", and although they were heavily influenced from Cluny they remained under their proprietor's control.
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Abbot Maiuel (954-994) was responsible for developing the administrative structure both for local administration at Cluny and for the administration of a growing number of satellite monasteries under Cluny's ownership and control. The abbot at Cluny would be the ruling father over the entire far-flung system. Satellite monasteries were called priories because a freely elected local leader called a prior supervised each. Each priory was subject to visitation by the Cluny abbot himself or his representatives. All priories were immune from the administration of their local bishops.
Maiuel also pushed for the reform of society in general and the secular church in particular. As early as 989 he was successful in convincing a synod of Burgundian Churchmen at Charroux to agree to excommunicate anyone who attacked a bishop, a priest, a deacon, or a lesser clergyman; anyone who a robbed a church or robbed from the poor. This was the beginning of the pax dei, peace of God, movement. As it developed in latter years more synods of churchmen met and approved the policy while leagues of powerful laymen in Burgundy and adjoining regions took oaths to preserve the peace. Eventually it was extended to cover pilgrims, women and children, laborers, tools, monasteries and cemeteries. Its major purpose was to impose a check on the violence generated by the growing numbers of warriors (lords and vassals) in a time when the major outside threats were subsiding.
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Abbot Odilo (994-1048) presided over Cluny's period of most rapid expansion in size, influence and prosperity. By the time of his death there were over 100 priories and countless other monasteries that had more or less been influenced by Cluny's practices including the so-called "daughter-houses". During Odilo's abbacy the Western Emperors favored the spread of Cluny's influence into Germany, especially under the early Sa1ian Emperors, Conrad II and Henry III. Cluny's influence was introduced into Italy about 1000. Cluny's prayer list continued to grow as did her land and wealth. To have you name on the list you had to display an appropriate attitude of contrition and make a suitable donation.
Cluny became a home of learning, liturgy and ecclesiastical art under Odilo's patronage. The chanting or singing of the mass and the prayers by monastic choirs was introduced here. A huge and elaborate marble church building was erected at Cluny. Many of Cluny's monks were men of the most influential families across France, England, northern Italy, and southwestern Germany. The luxury of the Cluny monastery, its priories and "daughters" perhaps contributed to the gradual drift away from the strictness that had characterized its earlier years.
Odilo was largely responsible for instigating the idea of the truga dei, truce of God, which is first mentioned in 1017. This was an effort to introduce restraint and Christian behavior into the role of the professional warrior. Warriors took oaths at first to stop their military actions between noon on Saturday and Monday morning. Later it was extended so that during the holy seasons of Advent, Lent, Easter and Pentecost, which corresponded with plowing and harvesting seasons, the truce would last from Wednesday evening to Monday morning. By 1047 Duke William of Normandy had adopted the "truce of God" as a policy of the realm which he enforced on his subjects.
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During the Abbacy of Hugh the Great (1049-1109) the population of the Cluny monastery increased from 100 to 300. Most recruits to the Cluny monastic system or to other Benedictine houses were from the seigneur (i.e., aristocratic) families of Europe whose relatives were among the richest and most powerful. The Great Church at Cluny, begun by Hugh the Great, was not completed until about 1130. It remained the largest church building in western Europe until the sixteenth century when St. Peter's basilica at Rome was deliberately designed to exceed it.
The novitiate, or probationary period, required of all Benedictine monks was normally about a year at Cluny, but it was shortened drastically in the late eleventh century. Professed monks were divided into two groups at Cluny: cantôres and conversi.
The cantors were those who had successfully completed the extensive training in the every more elaborate liturgy which developed at Cluny. Many of these had come to Cluny as young boys, oblates, dedicated by their families to monastic life. In the eleventh century oblates were admitted with great restriction; there was often a waiting list. Canons or other members of the clergy who took monastic vows as adults might also attain the rank of cantor.
The associates, or conversi, were professed monks who took their vows as adults. Many were illiterate--some were convicted criminals who had chosen monastic vows in preference to death or physical mutilation; quite a number had been canons.
There were usually a large number of laymen called only "servants" who were also resident at the monastery. About 100 lived there in the late eleventh century. There was in addition a large number of peasants in Cluny village and a few merchants.
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Hermit monks began to reappear in Italy in the eleventh century. Perhaps they were part of the upsurge of piety provoked by the lingering violence and corruption of the times. Romauld of Ravenna (died, 1027) was originally a Clunaic monk who founded two retreat communities for hermit monks in northern Italy, Calmaldoli and Fonte Avellana. John Gualbert (died, 1073), another former Cluniac, established the famous hermit community of Vallombrosa. A settlement of lay brothers handled all the administration and communication with the outside world. The hermits lived in the rugged mountains above the lay brother's settlement.
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Reactionary semi-eremitic (part time hermit) Benedictines also appeared in France. Bruno of Cologne established a hermit community in the Le Grand Chartruese (in the Alps near modern Grenoble) in 1084. The ascetics in Bruno's community were called Carthusians. They combined a severely interpreted Benedictine monasticism with a semi-eremitic life style. The monks did not live in a single cloister but individually in separate huts coming together only a few hours each Sunday for common worship and fellowship. This order, partly because of its rigorous asceticism and strict discipline, survived through the period without becoming lax, and attracted sufficient endowments to allow expansion. Bruno later moved to Calabria (southern Italy) where he founded a similar ascetic community and lived there the remainder of his life.
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At Molesmes, France, in 1075 a group of hermits formed a community, but the endeavor failed. Monks who left the defunct community at Molesmes and moved to Citeaux in 1097-98 founded the Cistercian Order, known as the white monks. They rejected the Benedictine revisions of 816, limited scholarly activity and increased meditative, devotional reading and private prayer, substantially reduced the time given to corporate worship and prayer, and re-introduced physical labor as a part of the monks responsibility. They refused to accept as gifts anything except unimproved wilderness land, which they proceeded to clear and develop.
The "choir" monks that participated in the abbreviated corporate worship activity were usually ordained as priests, while the much more numerous "lay brothers," called conversi, lived according to an even less rigorous monastic regime involving still more time in manual labor than the choir monks.
All monks slept fully clothed in a large unheated hall, each on a straw mat. In winter they ate two times a day and slept seven hours; in summer they were permitted six hours of sleep and one meal a day. Their diet consisted of raw vegetables, bread, water, cheese and some fish. Cistercians were permitted to enjoy the warmth of a fire only at Christmas time.
Each house was autonomous under its abbot, but was subject to the annual visitation of the abbot of the "mother-abbey" the house from which the founding monks had originated. Moreover, there was a representative assembly of the entire order called the General Chapter that met each year at Citeaux, the house where the order was originated. The basic rules formulated at General Chapter were eventually composed by Bernard of Clairvaux into a document called the Carta Caritatis, The Charter of Love. The General Chapter also acted in a judicial capacity to settle disputes.
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Aside from the hierarchy of clergy from the papacy down to the lowly clerk we must remember to take note of the rest of the official representatives of Christianity. It may well have been the experience of many laymen in the Middle Ages that monks and friars had more direct influence on their daily lives than did the hierarchy of the clergy. The student must take care to distinguish between the various monastic orders and the various mendicant orders, discussed below.
The golden age for western monasticism ended early in the thirteenth century. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries not all the traditional monasteries survived. All declined in size and prosperity and became progressively lax in discipline. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) required all Black monks in each ecclesiastical province to come together periodically for purposes of self-regulation and visitation.
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The Black Monks in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. The existing endowed monasteries of Black Monks in the twelfth century used the 816 revision of the Benedictine Rule. These monastic foundations were supported partly by their landed endowments and partly by income from tithes. Monks employed themselves spiritually in intercessory prayer and worship, which by the eleventh century had become very elaborate. In addition they offered shelter to travelers, raised male orphans, and copied and studied manuscripts. The most widely influential example of this from of Benedictine monasticism in the tenth and eleventh centuries was that of Cluny (founded 910). While the abbot of Cluny came to head a network of over 300 priories all with handsome endowments, other Benedictine monasteries usually remained autonomous under their abbots. Under Abbot Peter the Venerable (1132-1156) the local monastic population at Cluny rose to about 450. The total roster of monks from all the Cluny priories has been estimated from the improbably small 2500 to the doubtlessly exaggerated 10,000.
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During the twelfth century the Cistercian order also grew dramatically. There were 343 separate Cistercian monasteries in 1153, all in newly opened frontier areas. Certainly Bernard of Clairvaux was the most outstanding Cistercian in the twelfth century. Bernard came to Citeaux in 1113 when he was 25 years old. The next year he joined a group of monks who were commissioned to found a new monastery at Clairvaux. Bernard became abbot of Clairvaux and became not only the most influential Cistercian and foremost Benedictine but also the most influential churchman in Europe in the early twelfth century. As abbot at Clairvaux, his monastery founded many new houses. The best examples of eloquent Latin written in the Middle Ages are found in his letters, sermons, and other works. His learned contemporaries ranked him with Gregory the Great or Augustine of Hippo. Indeed, not since Augustine had anyone spoken so frankly and candidly about his own personal religious experience. Until his death in 1153 he exercised an uncommon influence over kings, princes, emperors and even popes. He was the moving force behind launching the second crusade.
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European warriors (knights) involved in the crusades were attracted to a type of organization combining the military and the monastic ideals. They guided and protected pilgrims to Palestine and nursed them if they became ill. They also took the responsibility of the protection of the Holy places in Palestine. Each of these orders was headed by a Grand Master or commanding general who answered only to the general chapter. Each order was divided into divisions called provinces, nations, or tongues, each under a Master. Smaller groups were called "commanderies".
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The Knights of St. John was an order organized about 1120 in Jerusalem to protect and serve the hospital dedicated to St. John the Baptist, built about 1050 by Italian merchants for the care of pilgrims. They subsequently established hospitals in Italian ports and the cities of France. They wore a black mantle with a white cross while serving the sick, a red tunic with a white cross when on the field of battle.
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The Knights Templars was organized in Jerusalem in 1119 when 8 French warriors took the usual monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and added a fourth vow to protect pilgrims. Their assigned campsite was near the Dome of the Rock where they believed the Temple had stood. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote a rule for them in 1128 and praised their piety and deplored their abject poverty in sermon and letter. The Templars thereafter became extremely wealthy through the many donations of lands and wealth for their activity. Pope Innocent II in 1139 exempted them from episcopal jurisdiction. Their habit was a white mantel with a red cross. The order's financial power, especially in France, brought it into conflict with the medieval monarchy there in the early fourteenth century.
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The Order of Teutonic Knights was organized at Acre, in Palestine, about 1198 during the third crusade. The Papacy approved them as an order in 1199. Their habit was a white mantle with a black cross. Most of the knights and most of their financial support came from Germany. Numerous hospitals were established. In 1211 and later in 1226 the Knights launched crusades to conquer and convert the Prussians and other Baltic peoples.
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The Mendicant Brotherhoods are easy to confuse with the regular canons or secular canons. They are also easy to confuse with the Monastic orders. The monastic orders are made up of monks; the mendicant orders are made up of friars. Monks traditionally live in cloistered seclusion; friars live scattered among the people. Monks live in monasteries that are heavily endowed with lands; friars live as wandering beggar/guests in the homes of the people of all classes.
There were four major mendicant orders that appeared in the thirteenth century with the original ideal of being non-endowed. The concept of "apostolic poverty" based on Scripture had great appeal. Click here for a short discussion of the conditions contributing to this popularity. Unfortunately, none of the orders were able to adhere to the ideal in practice. From the outset the brotherhoods enjoyed clerical status, but at first many friars remained laymen. That rapidly changed so that a fairly large percentage of friars held priestly orders. From the first they enjoyed papal privilege and exemption from episcopal supervision, a fact that many churchmen resented. Attempts failed to require the mendicants to have permission before preaching or hearing confessions. The controversy was briefly clarified when Martin IV (1281-85) gave friars permission to preach and confess anywhere without local churchman's permission. The mendicant orders targeted the growing urban populations that the secular church was unprepared to reach.
Each of the mendicant orders eventually developed a Second Order for women. The Poor Clares (Ladies) of St. Francis, the Dominicanesses, the Carmelitesses, etc. were cloisters for women. The women's orders were all monastic. They were much less numerous than their male counterparts. Their cloisters resembled the nunneries of the Benedictines and Augustinians, except they were stricter and less wealthy.
Both Preachers and Friars Minor also developed lay orders, called Third or Tertiary Orders. Tertiaries included both men and married couples who at first retained their property and their worldly livelihood while engaging in pious religious exercises, particularly penance, under the direction of friars. Toward the end of the thirteenth century some unmarried Tertiaries took religious vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience and the obligation to live in a community under a rule (Tertiarii regulares).
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Francis of Assisi founded the Gray Friars in Italy in 1210 and organized under a rule written by Francis in 1223. Francis (1181/2-1226) was the son of an Italian merchant of Assisi. He lived in wasteful prodigality as a youth, but was converted in 1207 to the life of a beggar (mendicant). Homeless and penniless, Francis and his friends wandered about preaching penance in the sense of moral conversion. Pressed by his followers, Francis secured permission from Pope Innocent III in 1210 to establish a lowly brotherhood. His followers finally persuaded him to write a rule for them in 1221. But his followers rejected the Regula Prima because it was too strict. In 1223 his second attempt, called the Bullata, merely incorporated the practices that had emerged by that time. It became the basis under which the Order of Friars Minor was chartered by Pope Honorius III in that same year.
Among the Gray Friars each friary, as the local organization was called, was headed by a guardian. Each friary selected a location in their community where they would convene for a meeting periodically. Friars did not live together. Individuals lived as roving beggars ministering to, counseling and hearing the confessions of one and all as they saw the need. A minister-provincial headed groups of friaries in an ecclesiastical province. Every three years guardians and ministers-provincial and selected friars from each friary met in General Chapter under the Minister-General. In 1239 they adopted the Dominican innovation of the executive governing board at the provincial level. They had also by that time adopted the educational strategy pioneered by the Dominicans after which they served as teachers and preachers. The Franciscans become the most numerous of the mendicants and the most effective missionaries first to the European cities and then to distant places in Africa and Asia.
Dissension in the order developed between those called "spirituals" who determined to follow Francis' command literally and have no ownership or control of real property or money. Their opponents called "conventuals", favored using property held for them by other benefactors. This group obviously favored having some kind of group ownership over the building where they convened for their meetings. Such buildings were called convents. The papacy favored the conventuals. In 1247 Pope Innocent IV established provincial procurators to administer their funds and eventually, in 1242, declared all property received by the order to be papal property and exempt from episcopal control.
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Dominic was an Austin canon from Osma, in Spain, who came to southern France to help convert the heretical Cathari in 1205. He aspired to organize an order that would train canons like himself to be teachers and preachers. He organized his first house in southern France. Pope Honorius III recognized the order in 1216. The Augustinian Rule as interpreted by the Norbertine canons was adopted. The Preachers assumed mendicant status in 1220 emphasizing personal poverty but not collective poverty. They rejected the limitations of a parish assignment and a praebend, the support typical of the non-preaching canons. By the time Dominic died in 1221 it had become customary to refer to them as friars instead of canons because they, like the Friars Minor, were not limited to a single parish and were dependent on the benevolence of those to whom they preached.
Each local group of Dominicans collectively owned their common property, which could consist of anything from a small house to huge chapel. Their local groups were all called "houses." Priors were appointed to head each house. Priors did not serve for life, but until replaced by the governing board of the province. The Prior-provincial was likewise a temporary appointment, but the Master-General had his appointment for life. The General chapter was held annually consisting of all officials and during 2 out of 3 years elected members from all the houses.
At first unique with the Order of Preachers was a plan for education. Later the Franciscans adopted a similar structure. A doctor, teacher, was appointed at each house whose responsibility it was to teach the members the basic liberal arts, a little philosophy and basic theology. Each province had one of its houses designated as the studia particularia that was to emphasize more advanced theology. Finally houses of higher studies, studia generalia, were established in university communities (Paris, Oxford, Cologne, Montpellier, and Bologna).
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The earliest phase of this order consisted of a group of hermits called Williamites, founded near Siena, Italy, in 1156. Later another group, called the Bonites, was founded about 1217. In 1243 Pope Innocent IV required all the hermits of Tuscany, to adopt the Augustinian Rule, and in 1256 Pope Alexander IV included all other hermits in the same organization created the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine. The Popes had intervened because of the argument that had developed about the similarity between the gray habits of the Franciscans and the Bonites.
The Austin Hermits were organized almost identically with the Order of Preachers with some minor variations, e.g., the provincial superintendents was titled a Vicar General. The emphasis on eremitic life, the life of the hermit, was expressed in a more monastic and contemplative life style than was typical of other orders of friars. This seemed to protect them from some of the vices that so frequently characterized the other mendicant orders. Their houses consequently more nearly corresponded to the monasteries of the Black monks than to the Franciscan convents or Dominican houses. They were, nevertheless, recognized as one of the four great mendicant orders and were loosely referred to as "friars" or "eremitic friars" even though they preferred to retain the official designation as hermits and think of themselves as monks. In their educational activity they emphasized the study of Augustine. Their ministry, however, paralleled that of the other mendicant orders in preaching, teaching, and hearing confessions among the lay population.
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The Carmelites were founded in Palestine during the crusades as an order of lay hermits. They were forced out of the Middle East by the Muslim resurgence early in the thirteenth century. They settled in Cyprus, Sicily, France and particularly in England. They abandoned their hermit life style and adopted the collective monastic life of the cloister. In 1247 Innocent IV officially authorized the necessary relaxation of their rule to allow them to develop an organization like the Preachers and declared them to be a mendicant order of friars.
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