During the long Middle Ages in Europe, abbeys fulfilled a double function: a religious building for the monastic life of the different Christian orders and a cultural center. As a place of worship, the abbey can be a monastery or a convent.
A center of prayer and work
Each abbey is governed by a religious order. In the case of the Benedictine monks, daily life in the abbeys was very simple, as they dedicated themselves to prayer and work. As expressed in the motto of Saint Benedict, they dedicated themselves to ora et labora, prayer and work. Prayer had several modalities: matins early in the morning, lauds at noon, and vespers during the afternoon. All these daily prayers are known as the “hours of the divine office .”
As for work, it depended on each abbey, but the cultivation of fields and gardens, small-scale livestock activity, bread making, shoe manufacturing or tailoring were common. In some cases, the abbeys had an inn to receive pilgrims heading to the holy cities of Christendom.
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The abbot or abbess is the person in charge and the spiritual leader of the religious community that lives in the abbey.
As for its functions, there are basically two: carrying out the administration and enforcing the rules that govern monastic life (the rules of a religious community are known as rules, the best known being the rule of Saint Benedict). Below the abbot or abbess were the prior, the subprior, and the rest of the members of the community.
Among the daily activities that were carried out we can highlight the following: taking care of the church, making candles, taking care of religious vestments or maintaining the cemetery.
Regarding the election of the abbot or abbess, it is the members of the community who elect him or her by general agreement. In most communities, the election of the abbot was done by secret ballot.
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The library and the scriptorium are the abbey’s rooms dedicated to intellectual activity.
Most abbeys had and have a library. In it there was a scriptorium, the place for copying the manuscripts, which were prepared by the scribes.
Illustrators also work on the manuscripts, who were dedicated to decorating the manuscripts with ornaments.
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