Links to articles about monastic life

[themediaevalmonk]

Recently got recommended this article about life at Cluny! I'm about half way through it, but wanted to share. It's really interesting and best of all, free online!


https://www.medievalists.net/2025/04/daily-life-medieval-monastery/


Some interesting parts of it (so far):

Early in the second half of the eleventh century, a monk named Bernard wrote a detailed account of the daily life of the monastery, which he called the 'Customs of Cluny.' The work was dedicated to Abbot Hugh, for, wrote Bernard, "whatever I have apprehended of the way of religion is rather of your gift than of my own industry." It still contains the most complete and detailed account of the occurrences of everyday life in a great medieval monastery.

Another quote:

If the obedience lay within half a day's ride of Cluny, the dean returned to the monastery every Saturday before Vespers to spend Sunday there. He ambled along and was forbidden to gallop, or even to run on foot, except when in peril of fire or of death. However great the heat, he was not allowed to take off his frock and ride only in his cowl. When on the road at the times for the services of the Hours, he dismounted, pulled his hood off his head, and said the service.

Last one:

Once or twice a day, according to the seasons, there was a short time when the monks were allowed to talk in the cloister, and then either the chamberlain or his junior was always present to hear if any of the monks, novices, or children needed anything. The monk who found that his cassock, shirt, or drawers were torn but worth mending, put them at dawn under one of the arches of the chapter-house, and the junior chamberlain carried them off to the tailors' workshop and brought them back before Vespers. Shoes and stockings to be mended were put on the stone below the arch, and bed coverlets on the wall by the step of the dormitory or dorter. If a monk's shoes wanted greasing he first washed them in a special trough, then got some grease from the chamberlain and went to the kitchen to rub it in, or, if he liked, the chamberlain had it done for him. When new drawers were given out, each monk wrote his name on them in ink, and the chamberlain took them back to the tailors' shop to be marked in thread.

Every Tuesday, clothes to be washed were piled up in a chest in the cloister. The keeper of the granary admitted the washers when the monks were at morning Mass; and another monk was present to keep a record, either in writing or by tally, of the clothes taken away. These were brought back on Saturdays after the service of None, and he sat in the cloister watching to see that no monk was so careless as to take anything not marked with his own name. Clothes and everything else left about in the cloister were taken into the chapter-house and put behind the pulpit. At the daily morning meeting, after the words "Let us speak about our Order" were said, anyone who had lost anything got up to see if it was there; if he found it, he begged pardon and asked the prior for leave to take it: this was granted unless it was a monk who was in the habit of losing his clothes, and then he suffered some penalty for it.

[judejuggs]

Oooh I love sources that go into the nitty gritty details of daily life > especially the laundry stuff in the last section. It takes a lot of organization and a lot of work to keep such a densely populated place clean!

There have been times in my life where I had to do laundry by hand and its so much work WITH running water and modern detergents. I always think about how much work it was for people before...

I really like Absolute History's video about laundry. Maybe it wasn't the monks themselves doing it but someone was out there soaking linens in fermented piss!!

[themediaevalmonk]

Thanks for sharing this video! I plan to give it a watch so I can learn more about laundry. In my Brother Cellanus rewrite, I've touched upon laundry slightly, but Radbod has a laundress so it's not a main plot point lol. I need to learn what poor Bave goes through.