Religion+and+Monasteries

=__**Middle ages, Religion and Monasteries**__=

**Introduction:**
Catholic Christianity was during the Middle Ages by far the biggest religion in Europe, and pretty much the only one in western Europe. Religion was dominating the medieval peoples lives, whether it was an ordinary peasant or an extraordinary King – their lives were all dominated by their religion. In this assignment I've chosen to focus on christianity, since it would be just to much work if I covered every single religion.

**The church's power**
Bishops, archbishops and other leaders of the church, who often descended from wealthy and noble families, were not uncommon to be seen sitting on the king’s council and playing leading roles in the government. In the christian church the pope was obviously the most important individual and he was the one with the most power. He had the bishops to lead the church with him. The pope was himself a bishop too, however, he was the bishop of Rome, and thereby the most powerful. Under the bishops the Arch Bishops served, and then the Arch Deacon. And then the Abbot, who was the superior of the monks. The Abbot usually had a second-in-command Prior at his side. The Dean was a monk who was working closer to the Abbot than other monks - and thereby had more power than his brethren- as a supervisor of the other monks. And below the Dean in the power pyramid we find the monks, who were the general worker at the church. If you find my description kind of confusing, here's the power pyramid of the catholic church;


 * The Pope
 * Bishop
 * Arch Bishop
 * Arch Deacon
 * Abbot
 * Prior
 * Dean
 * Monks

In the Middle Ages, the Bible was pretty much the law. In other words, if the Bible said so, that was the way it was supposed to be. Kind of like it is today in the lesser developed countries, where the Koran usually is just as powerfull as the Bible once were. With one key difference; most non-church people in some counties (the nordic ones, for example) couldn't read latin, which the Bible was written in. This lead to an extremely powerfull church.

To get a hold on just how huge christianity was, just take a look at this map, which shows you how it (christianity) was devided in Europe. Aswell as parts of islam in north Africa and west Asia.

Notice that islam appears to be enormous aswell. However, have I chosen to limit this text to christianity.

**The Great Schism of 1054**
Furthermore, this obviously maps christianity from how it was after The Great Schism, which, in short, was the separation of the christian church into the western- and the eastern christian churches.

As you might have guessed it was in the year 1054 A.D. that the split occurred. It was because of the differences between the traditions in the christian church of the Greek speaking Eastern of the Byzantine empire and the Latin speaking Western that the split took place.

It is because of The Great Schism of 1054 that we today have The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

__The Monasteries__
A monastery was where the people working for the church lived. It was also throughout the middle ages just about the only place you could go to for an education. The monks where the most educated members of the society (not uncommonly the only educated members of the society), and because of that, an obvious choice for an educator. It also had its own library, hospital and guest house. The list goes on and on.

**Building layout**
In a typical layout of a Benedictine monastery, the most imortant bigger buildings were grouped around an inner court. This inner court was called a Cloister. The Cloister was a covered walkway located around a quadrangle. Beyond the buildings surrounding the Cloister they had vegetable gardens, orchards, grain fields and if the monastery was built on a stream; often a mill.

**The life in a monastery**
The life in a monastery required a daily routine of worship, reading (mostly the Bible), and manual labor. Each day began and ended with services at the monastery church. In addition of the time that the monks spent in church (several hours a day) the monks spent several more hours, every day, reading the Bible, praying private prayers (Hah, say that three times fast!) and meditation. However, for the majority of the day, the monks worked with their hands, doing everything that has got to be done to maintain a large establishment as a monastary.

__**Good to know:**__

 * The biggest religion in europe was during the middle ages christianity.
 * A monastery is a huge establishment containing libraries, schools, dormatories, hospitals, kitchens etc.
 * The church was tremendously powerful. Well religions in general had a more forceful grip over the people.

Also, be sure to check out this site; @http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/ It is great if you want to know more about the Middle Ages in general.. Be aware though, the site contains some complicated language.

**Sources:**
http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/ http://brian.hoffert.faculty.noctrl.edu/REL100/20.ProtestantReformation.html http://www.britainexpress.com/History/medieval-monastery.htm http://www.learner.org/interactives/middleages/religion.html