The controlled hearth: How medieval monasticism reconciled austerity with the biological necessity of warmth

“ Benedict established the monks of the West in retreats, where the men of the earlier Middle Ages could secure, in the midst of troubled times and with men in the cities utterly neglectful of intellectual interests, a refuge from the disturbed life around them, and an opportunity for intellectual development, his sister Scholastica afforded similar opportunities for such women as felt that they were called rather to the intellectual and spiritual life than to the taking up of the burden of domestic duties and a wife’s labours. ”

“ For this is none other, as we read and sing, than the house of God in which to pray, the court of God to offer praise, the choir of God to sing unto Him, the altar of God whereon to celebrate, the gate of God whereby to enter heaven, the ladder of God to rise above the clouds. As a noble city is preserved with walls and gates and bars, so also is the monastery of the religious with many devout brethren, with sacred books, and with learned men. ”

“ The Rule of a monastery was the constitution or code of laws, which regulated the discipline of the house, and the Rule of St. Benedict dates back as far as the sixth century, though it was not introduced into England for more than a hundred years after it had been adopted elsewhere. Four hundred years is a very long time for any constitution or code of law to last unchanged, and though the English monasteries professedly were living according to the Benedictine Rule during all the Saxon and the Danish times, yet there is too much reason to believe that if St. ”

“ A single candlestick must suffice for light, and that must be of iron and straight from top to bottom. Vestments must be of common stuff, no more of silk or cloth-of-gold. All the pictures must come down. The brethren said their prayers in a chapel as severe as a Puritan meeting-house. In the midst of a time of monastic splendour, when monks of St. Benedict and even monks of Cluny rode abroad like knights or princes, Stephen Harding's household were separate from the world in all sincerity. ”

“ Both in theory and in practice the regular observance of the great abbeys and other religious houses was based upon the principle of common life. Monks and other religious were not solitaries or hermits, but they lived and worked and prayed together in an association as close as it is possible to conceive. The community or corporation was the sole entity; individual interests were merged in that of the general body, and the life of an individual member was in reality merely an item in the common life of the convent as a whole. ”

“ They like a cup in bed in the mornings."
She said it in all simplicity, and I made no comment upon the communication. If it had been my own house . . . . But it wasn’t, and I had no excuse for interference. *⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠* I bought Martha a thick stuff gown—and she needed it. Winter, which set in late that year, made up for its loitering by an intense severity. I could barely keep myself warm, even with the help of a big fire in my bedroom; Martha's little chamber next to the great water-cistern must have been bitterly cold. ”

“ He noticed at these times that it was very cold, and lifelong habit made him reflect that he would better go early to the church because it would be hard to get up steam enough to warm the building before time for service. After he had finished his morning chores and was about to start he noticed that the thermometer stood at four above zero.
That was certainly winter temperature; the snow lay like a heavy shroud on all the dead valley, but the strange, blind instinct of a man who has lived close to the earth stirred within him. ”

“ And as the bone was brittle and liable to mortify and destroy the marrow by too great rigidity and susceptibility to heat and cold, he contrived sinews and flesh—the first to give flexibility, the second to guard against heat and cold, and to be a protection against falls, containing a warm moisture, which in summer exudes and cools the body, and in winter is a defence against cold. Having this in view, the Creator mingled earth with fire and water and mixed with them a ferment of acid and salt, so as to form pulpy flesh. ”

“ To travel on was impossible, so we built ourselves a lodge, and tried to trap and kill animals enough to last us for food till the snow should disappear. They became, however, scarcer and scarcer, and we began to fear that the supply of food we had collected would not last us out till summer. We had, however, a good number of skins, and though we had intended to sell them, we made some warm clothing of them instead.
“We had too much to do during the day in hunting and collecting wood for our fire to allow of the time hanging very heavy on our hands. ”

“ This view of the outer world is all the monks ever obtain, for, having once taken the vows, they leave the convent no more; and they know little of what goes on in the busy haunts of men, where the passion of life reaches fever heat, save what they gather from the chattering of the throngs of summer idlers. In winter they live in a silent, white world, and the face of a stranger is very rarely seen. ”

“ Long vigils—fastings that wore away the strength of day—prayers that banished sleep from night—hoarded vengeance, that, like a fire, consumed its abode—affections crushed to the very earth—a memory whose love was with the grave,—a faith that had coloured itself with mortal passion,—all these had pressed too heavily on the springs of life and thought ”

“ The orthodox saying was that a monk out of his cloister was like a fish out of water; and it will be remembered that Chaucer's monk thought the text not worth an oyster. Indeed most of the monks managed to swim very well in the air, and the nuns too persisted in taking every sort of excuse for wandering in the world. Right through the Middle Ages council after council, bishop after bishop, reformer after reformer, tried in vain to keep them shut up. ”

“ If they do not sometimes pine and sigh for the busy haunts and the excitement of the great towns? Such questions are not easily answered, unless we get the answer in the fact that the monastic vows are faithfully and religiously kept; and there is no record of a Carthusian monk ever having broken his vow. Surely then there must be something strangely, even terribly attractive in that stern life which is so full of hardship and trial, and from year's end to year's end knows no change, until the great change which comes to us all, sooner or later, whether we be monks or revellers. ”

“ Wee have passed through water, and fire: Fire burneth (saith hee) and water corrupteth: When adversity comes upon us, it is as it were fire unto us: and worldly prosperities on the contrary are as water. The earthen vessell that is well hardened in the fire, fears neither water nor fire. Let us then study to amend our selves by the fire of tribulation, by bearing it patiently; for if the pottery be not firmly strengthened by fire, the water of temporall vanity will soften it and mingle it as durt. ”

“ The country manor-house of the fourteenth century, with courtyard and chapel and hall and dovecote, speaks of an age of peace once more, when life on a thousand little manors revolved round the lord, and the great mass of Englishmen went unscathed by the Hundred Years' War which seamed the fair face of France. Then begin the merchants' elaborate Perpendicular houses in the towns and villages of the fifteenth century, standing on the road, with gardens behind them, and carved beams, great fire-places, and a general air of comfort ”

“ When the many merits which fancy has added to their own, are all warm from the thought; all fresh, too, with the gloss of novelty, untarnished with recent differences, and unworn by daily use. How pleasant the hurry of their arrival, and the many preparations to receive them! In winter, the warmest seat by the fire; in summer, the coolest by the open lattice. ”

“ There were “three doors in the forepart of either aumbry and a lock on every door, and every monk had a key for the said aumbries, wherein did hang in every one clean towels for the monks to dry their hands on, when they washed and went to dinner.”
We who see the cold damp-stained cloisters of the old monastic buildings as they are to-day, as at Westminster for example, may well feel a difficulty in realising what they were in the time of their glory. Day after day for centuries the cloister was the centre of the activity of the religious establishment. ”

“ In the men's workshop are several clever workmen--a shoemaker, a carpenter, a blacksmith, and two silversmiths; there are not more, because the best artisans on the estates of St Germain live by the walls of the abbey, so that they can work for the monks on the spot and save the labour of carriage. But there were always some craftsmen on every estate, either attached as serfs to the big house, or living on manses of their own, and good landowners tried to have as many clever craftsmen as possible. ”

“ The second kind of labour which every owner of a farm had to do on the monks' land was called handwork, that is to say, he had to help repair buildings, or cut down trees, or gather fruit, or make ale, or carry loads--anything, in fact, which wanted doing and which the steward told him to do. It was by these services that the monks got their own seigniorial farm cultivated. On all the other days of the week these hard-worked tenants were free to cultivate their own little farms, and we may be sure that they put twice as much elbow grease into the business. ”

“ But we must not speak harshly of the ancients because they were slow in improving their methods of heating, for in truth the modern world has not done as well in this direction as might have been expected. In a book of travels written only sixty years ago may be found the following passage: "In Normandy, where the cold is severe and fire expensive, the lace-makers, to keep themselves warm and to save fuel, agree with some farmer who has cows in winter quarters to be allowed to carry on their work in the society of the cattle. ”

“ Some one knocked at the door, and a poor old man walked in. He was wrapped in something that looked like a great horse-cloth; and he required it truly to keep him warm, for it was cold winter; the country everywhere lay covered with snow and ice, and the wind blew so sharply that it cut one's face. The little child had dozed off to sleep for a moment, and the mother, seeing that the old man shivered with the cold, rose and placed a small mug of beer on the stove to warm for him. The old man sat and rocked the cradle ”

“ As Prior indeed he had to do the work which St. Benedict had designed for the Abbot. He must be in practice what the Abbot was in theory—the father of the Conventual family. As will appear later the Abbot, especially of such a monastery as Westminster, was apt to be drawn into the vortex of public affairs to an extent which left him little leisure for the essential duties of his position. To some extent also it must be admitted that the Prior did not share the full life of the brethren. He had a separate house at the end of the Dark Cloister running parallel to and south of the Refectory. ”

“ In the early golden age of monasticism only men and women with a vocation, that is to say a real genius for monastic life, entered convents. Moreover, when there they worked very hard with hand and brain, as well as with soul, and so they got variety of occupation, which is as good as a holiday. The basis of wise St Benedict's Rule was a nicely adjusted combination of variety with regularity; for he knew human nature. Thus monks and nuns did not find the services monotonous, and indeed regarded them as by far the best part of the day. ”

“ Benedict required the Abbot to provide in the monastery an infirmary for the ailing, and to organize particular care of them as a special Christian duty. The wording of the rule in this regard is very emphatic. “The care of the sick is to be placed above and before every other duty, as if, indeed, Christ were being directly served in waiting on them. It must be the peculiar care of the Abbot that they suffer from no negligence. The Infirmarian must be thoroughly reliable, known for his piety and diligence and solicitude for his charge.” ”

“ When the frost and snowe is great, they heate their houses in maner before said, and will by letting in the water or opening the windowes, temper the heate and colde at their pleasure. In y͏ͤ buildings of the monastery they vse no other matter but that which is ministered vnto them by the fire, for they take the burning stones, that are cast out as it weere sparkles or ceindres at the firie mouth of the hill, and when they are most enflamed, cast water vpon them, wherby they are dissolued and become excellẽt white lime and so tough that being contriued in building it lasteth for euer. ”

“ To be short, there is not a point of locution figurative, more frequent in the Prophets, then those that are drawn from metals and from fire, which for the reason of its proprieties and effects, as it is one of the most commodious and necessary things of all others, according as it is said before, for it bakes our viands, it warms us, and doth revigour us against the colds ”

“ Strange to say there is no austere gloom about the Trappist. His face invariably bears the stamp of serenity, often that of half-subdued gaiety. The life he leads is nevertheless a very hard one. No fire is [Pg 56] allowed in the winter except in the chauffoir or stove-room, and there the monks are permitted during excessive cold weather to come in for fifteen minutes only, the man nearest the stove yielding his place to the new-comer. The chauffoir and the hospital are the only artificially heated apartments in the building.
The Trappist takes but one meal and a slight refection per day. ”

“ It was in these establishments,—so severely simple in their architecture,—that the lamp of piety and learning was preserved during the darkest period of our history; sending forth its light not only among the British islands but to Continental Europe; and here were followed up even the decorative arts,—as illumination, embroidery, and jewellery. Such, no doubt, was the famous monastery of Iona, which, as an able historian says, “soon became, morally and religiously, a spectacle as glorious as any that Christendom could afford.... ”