Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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It’s mid-August and the summer holiday season is in full swing. “Staycation” is the word of the season and a good many of you will, I hope, be planning a day trip or two to the magnificent monastic ruins that populate the English landscape.
If I have anything to do with it, you’ll come away enriched, educated and entertained by the experience and also a little surprised and confounded. How many people, I wonder, know that medieval monks and nuns went on holiday, enjoying activities that even after a distance of half a millennium or more are still considered the essential attributes of a good summer break?
That vacations were a feature of the monastic life does indeed seem somewhat counterintuitive. The various Rules governing life within the cloister set exacting standards, dividing the monastic day into periods dedicated to communal prayer, meditative reading and manual labour. It was believed that only through strict observance of the regulations would monks and nuns find spiritual contentment and be ultimately rewarded with a hasty passage through the pains of Purgatory and a place in Heaven. There was, therefore, no mention in any of the Rules of the need for a restorative fortnight break in the countryside.
www.thetablet.co.uk
I didn't realize they took vacations. I find that really cool.
If I have anything to do with it, you’ll come away enriched, educated and entertained by the experience and also a little surprised and confounded. How many people, I wonder, know that medieval monks and nuns went on holiday, enjoying activities that even after a distance of half a millennium or more are still considered the essential attributes of a good summer break?
That vacations were a feature of the monastic life does indeed seem somewhat counterintuitive. The various Rules governing life within the cloister set exacting standards, dividing the monastic day into periods dedicated to communal prayer, meditative reading and manual labour. It was believed that only through strict observance of the regulations would monks and nuns find spiritual contentment and be ultimately rewarded with a hasty passage through the pains of Purgatory and a place in Heaven. There was, therefore, no mention in any of the Rules of the need for a restorative fortnight break in the countryside.
Monastic minibreaks in the Middle Ages
Boozing late into the night and their letting hair – or tonsures – down: what medieval monks and nuns got up to when they went on holiday.
I didn't realize they took vacations. I find that really cool.
