The Monks Day
| Morning |
Main services |
| Mid day |
first meal |
| Afternoon |
work |
| Early Evening |
rest then second meal |
| Evening |
early to bed |
| Night |
church services |
The Abbey was home for about 100 monks who
spent their time worshipping God. The first monks came to the Abbey
from Clung in France, so the monks were called Cluniacs which had risen
from another type of monk, the Benedictine order. Each day they attended
eight services in the Abbey Church
The Monks day started at 3.00 am when they went to the first of eight
services in the Abbey Church. The services could last up to two hours.
Although everyone stood all through the services, the monks had misericords
which meant they could rest their rear on a small shelf.
At 9.00am the monks would all go to the Chapter House for their daily
meeting. Their was a short church service and one of the rules of St
Benedict was read out to remind everyone of the rules of the Abbey.
The Abbot would give orders for any special
jobs that had to be carried out, important letters were read out and
matters of the day discussed.
The first meal of the day was at mid-day. The monks ate a diet with
no meat- they ate mainly bread and vegetables and beans. To drink they
had wine or beer, as drinking water could be dangerous. There were usually
two meals a day but on Fridays during Lent and on Saints days there
was only one meal. During mealtimes the only person speaking was one
of the monks who read aloud from the Bible or other religious writing.
The monks ate their second meal at sundown.
In the afternoon the monks would work on their jobs. Many of the monks
would have been busy copying books. As the abbey was founded in the
days before printing presses, an important job of the monks was to copy
out books using a quill pen. Each new copy of a book had to be written
out by hand. The Abbey had over 300 books in its library.
In the late afternoon, there might have been a few minutes when the
monks could take time from their duties to rest in the cloisters and
talk. Normally, they spent the rest of their day in silence. The cloisters
were a roofed walkway around a courtyard. Nearby there was a warming
room where a fire was kept alight all day.
Before becoming a monk a man had to spend at least a year in the abbey
before he took the vows that would mean that he had to stay the rest
of his life in the abbey and have no things of his own, never to marry
and to obey the Abbot who was in charge of the monastery. A monk’s
life was about poverty, chastity and obedience.
The health of the monks was generally good, for several reasons. Firstly,
they had a healthy diet and did not overeat. Secondly, the toilets in
the abbey were very good for the period, as they opened straight on
to the Kennet. This meant that all waster was quickly carried away and
could not spread disease. Monks that were ill or old went to the infirmary
where monks who were skilful in the uses of herbs would try and cure
them of their ills.
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