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A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone ().A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which may be a chapel, church, or temple, and may also serve as an oratory, or in the case of communities anything from a single building housing only one senior and ...
While the practices of female monastic communities varied, they were united by a commitment to a life of prayer, contemplation, and service to others. Teachings from Shenoute of Atripe, an influential figure in the development of the monastic tradition in Egypt and for his writings on monastic life were also implemented throughout monasteries.
Early Benedictine monasteries were relatively small and consisted of an oratory, refectory, dormitory, scriptorium, guest accommodation, and out-buildings, a group of often 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 period.
Monasteries in this area were historically founded mainly by kings, bishops and nobles.There were a number of reasons individuals might found a monastery, largely self-serving ones: to reserve a burial there, which came with perpetual prayers by the monks on behalf of the founder's soul, sheltering a princess, widow, unmarried or bastard, in the case of kings.
Among the monasteries which excelled in the art of copying were the Studium, Mount Athos, the monastery of the Isle of Patmos and that of Rossano in Sicily; the tradition was continued later by the monastery of Grottaferrata near Rome. These monasteries, and others as well, were studios of religious art where the monks toiled to produce ...
The wealthiest reformed monasteries were far richer than ordinary secular minsters, and the Domesday Book shows in the late eleventh century some possessed land worth as much as all but the greatest lay magnates, [28] but rich and important unreformed houses such as Chester-le-Street and Bury St Edmunds flourished into the eleventh century. The ...
A priory was a smaller structure or entities which depended on the monastery. Some were small monasteries accommodating five or ten monks. Others were no more than a single building serving as residence or a farm offices. The outlying farming establishments belonging to the monastic foundations were known as "villae" or "granges".
In the grand scheme of intellectual advancement, monasteries and monastery schools make up a small portion of the larger whole. They were, however, important in their own right in their contribution to the preservation of textual philosophical and scientific tradition. Monasteries provided a stable environment for learning in Medieval Europe.