Abbey

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An abbey is a Christian monastery or convent under the orders of an abbot or abbess, who are the spiritual father or mother of the community. A priory differs from an abbey only in that the senior monk bears the title of prior rather than abbot. The priories were originally offshoots of the abbeys, and the priors continued to be subordinate to the abbots; however, the current distinction between abbeys and priories was lost in the Renaissance.

History

The earliest known monastic communities consisted of "cells" gathered around a common center, which was usually the home of a hermit or anchorite famous for his saintliness or singular asceticism, but with no intention of formal organization. Such communities are not an invention of Christianity. An example had already been produced, at least in part, by the Essenes in Judea and perhaps by the Therapeutae, a monastic order established at the foot of Lake Mareotis near Alexandria in Ptolemaic Egypt.

In the earliest days of Christian monasticism, ascetics used to live in isolation, independently of one another, not far from some local church, supporting themselves by the work of their own hands and dividing up the surplus once their frugal needs had been satisfied. Increased religious fervor, aided by persecution, drove them further and further from civilization into mountainous solitudes or lonely deserts. The deserts of Egypt were swarming with the "cells" or huts of these anchorites. Antony the Great, who had retired to the Egyptian Thebaid during the persecution by Maximian (312), was the most celebrated of them for his austerities, his saintliness, and his power as an exorcist. His fame gathered around him a host of followers imitating his asceticism in an attempt to imitate his saintliness. The more he retreated into the wilderness, the more numerous were his disciples. They refused to separate from him and built his cell around his spiritual father. Thus arose the first monastic community, consisting of anchorites who each lived in their own small dwelling, united under a superior. Antony, as August Neander mentions (History of the Church, vol. III, p. 316, Clark's translation), "without any conscious design of his own, had become the founder of a new way of living in common cenobitism." Gradually, order was introduced in the groups of cabins. They were arranged in lines, like tents in a camp, or houses on a street.

Cenobitic monasteries

The true founder of the cenobitic monasteries (koinos: common, and bios: life) in the modern sense was Pachomius, an Egyptian of the early fourth century. The first community established by him was at Tabennae, an island on the Nile in Upper Egypt. Eight more were founded in the region during his lifetime, reaching 3,000 monks. Within fifty years of his death, his societies could number 50,000 members. These monasteries looked like villages or towns inhabited by a religious community that lived by the work of their hands, all of the same sex.

The buildings were separated. They were small and as humble as possible. Each cell or hut, according to Sozomen, contained three monks. They took their main meal in a common refectory or dining room at 3 in the afternoon, remaining fasting until that time. They ate in silence, hoods pulled low over their faces so that they couldn't see anything apart from the table in front of them. The monks spent all the time they were not engaged in religious services or study in manual labor. Palladius, who visited the Egyptian monasteries, found among the 300 members of the Panopolis monastery, under Pachomian rule, fifteen tailors, seven blacksmiths, four carpenters, twelve camel drivers and fifteen tanners.

Each community had its own administrator or oeconomus, who was under the supervision of a chief administrator installed in the main establishment. All the product of the monks' manual labor was remitted to him and he shipped it to Alexandria. The money obtained was used for purchases to supply the stores for the support of the communities, and what was left over was used in charity. The superiors of various monasteries met twice a year in the main monastery under the presidency of an archimandrite (miandra= group of sheep), and in the last meeting they gave a report on their administration during the year. The monasteries of Syria belonged to the Pacomian institution. We can learn many details concerning these in the vicinity of Antioch from the writings of Chrysostom. The monks lived in separate huts called kalbbia, forming a village on the side of the mountain. They were subject to an abbot and observed a common rule (they had no refectory, but ate the same food, simply bread and water, when the day's work was done, reclining on heaped grass, sometimes outside the hut). Four times a day they met in prayers and psalms.

Santa Laura, Monte Athos

The need to defend against hostile attacks, the economy of space and the convenience of accessing any part of the community from another, dictated a more compact and organized layout of the buildings of the monastic monastery. Great pillars of buildings were erected, with solid outer walls, capable of withstanding the attacks of an enemy, within which all the necessary buildings were arranged around one or in more open systems, usually surrounded by cloisters. The customary form of arrangement in the east is exemplified in the plan of the convent of Santa Laura, on Mount Athos.

This monastery, like most of the Eastern monasteries, is surrounded by a strong and high stone wall enclosing an area of 12,000 to 16,000 m². The longest side extends about 170 m. There is only one entrance on the north face (A), defended by three separate iron gates. Near the entrance is a large tower (M), a constant feature in the monasteries of the Levant. There is a small L-shaped back door. The enclosure contains two large open courtyards, surrounded by buildings connected with cloistered galleries of wood or stone. The outer court, which is by far the largest, contains the granaries and storerooms (K), the kitchen (H), and other rooms connected to the refectory (G). Immediately adjacent to the gatehouse is a guest house accessed through a cloister (C). The inner courtyard is surrounded by a cloister (EE) to which the monks' cells open (II). In the center of this courtyard stands the Catholic or conventual church, a square building with an apse of the Byzantine domical type, accessed through a vaulted narthex (entrance). In front of the church there is a marble fountain (F) covered by a vault supported by columns. The refectory (G) is actually located in the outer courtyard, although its doors open onto the cloister. It is a large cruciform building, about 30m in each direction, decorated inside with frescoes of saints. a square building with an apse of the Byzantine domical type accessed by a vaulted narthex (entrance). In front of the church there is a marble fountain (F) covered by a vault supported by columns. The refectory (G) is actually located in the outer courtyard, although its doors open onto the cloister. It is a large cruciform building, about 30m in each direction, decorated inside with frescoes of saints. a square building with an apse of the Byzantine domical type accessed by a vaulted narthex (entrance). In front of the church there is a marble fountain (F) covered by a vault supported by columns. The refectory (G) is actually located in the outer courtyard, although its doors open onto the cloister. It is a large cruciform building, about 30m in each direction, decorated inside with frescoes of saints.

At the upper end there is a semicircular recess reminiscent of the triclinium of the Lateran Palace in Rome, in which is the abbot's seat. In Eastern monasteries the refectory is used chiefly as a meeting room, the monks taking their meals in their separate cells.

This plan is of a Coptic Church monastery drawn by Lenoir and shows a church with three naves with cellular apses and two rows of cells on either side of an oblong gallery.

Benedictine abbeys

Monasticism in the West owes its extension and development to Benedict of Nursia (born 480). His rule spread with impressive rapidity from the founding of Monte Cassino throughout Eastern Europe, and all countries saw the building of monasteries exceeding anything that had been seen before in spaciousness and splendor. Few large cities in Italy were without their corresponding Benedictine monastery, and monasteries quickly sprang up in the great population centers of England, France, and Spain. The number of such monasteries founded between the years 520 and 700 is staggering. Before the Council of Constance in 1415 no fewer than 15,070 abbeys had been founded from this order alone. The buildings of a Benedictine abbey were uniformly arranged on a standard plan which was modified when necessary to suit local circumstances. We have no extant examples of the earliest monasteries of the Benedictine order. All have succumbed to the passage of time and human violence. But an elaborate plan of the Swiss abbey of St. Gall, built around 820, does survive, showing the general layout of a first-class ninth-century monastery. The general aspect of the convent is that of a city of isolated houses with streets between them. It is clearly built according to the Benedictine rule, which established that, if possible, the monastery should contain everything necessary for life, as well as the buildings most intimately connected with the religious and social life of its boarding schools. It was to contain a mill, a bakery, stables and corrals, as well as accommodation to carry out all the crafts within the walls, so that it was not necessary for the monks to leave the confines of the monastery.

It is then possible to describe the general layout of the buildings:The church, with its cloister is situated to the south, occupies the center of a quadrangular area of about 430 square feet. The buildings, as in large monasteries, are distributed in groups. The church forms the nucleus, as the center of the religious life of the community. Closer to the church is the group of buildings appropriate to the monastic line and its daily demands: the refectory for dining, the bedroom for resting, the common room for socializing, the chapter house for religious and disciplinary conferences. These essential elements of monastic life were arranged around a cloistered courtyard, which contained a covered arcade allowing protected communication between the buildings from the elements. The infirmary for sick monks, with the doctor's house and the herbalist's garden lie to the east. In the same group as the infirmary is the novices' garden. The outer school, with the main teacher's house against the opposite wall of the church, is outside the convent compound, in close proximity to the abbot's house, who was to keep a constant eye on them.

The buildings intended for hospitality are divided into three groups: one for the reception of distinguished guests, one for monks visiting the monastery, and one for pilgrim travelers. The first and third are located to the right and left of the common entrance to the monastery. The hospice for distinguished guests is on the north side of the church, not far from the abbot's house; that of the poor guests is on the south side, near the group of farm buildings, which is clearly separated from the monastic buildings. The kitchen, butter room, and offices are reached via a passageway from the east side of the refectory, and are connected to the bakery and brewery, which are located a little further away. The entirety of the south and east sides are intended for workshops, stables and farm buildings. The buildings, with a few exceptions, were probably all made of wood, except for the church. In total there are 33 separate blocks.The church is cruciform, with a nave with 9 arcades and a semicircular apse at each end. The west end is surrounded by a semicircular colonnade, leaving an "open paradise" between it and the church wall. The entire area is divided by panels into several chapels. The main altar is situated immediately to the east of the transept, or ritual choir, the altar of Saint Paul in the east, and that of Saint Peter in the west apse. There is a separate cylindrical bell tower from the church on each side of the west apse.

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