[Comments] Matrix by Lauren Groff

[bothers]

I wish my name was "Wulfhild Thrasher". Incredible.

[lostcheerio]

Ok another question!

Monasteries are remote. Is this because seclusion is better for quality of prayer? Is this to prevent interaction with the town? To make them be self-sufficient?

If something really bad happened at a monastery, how long would it take for news to reach the town?

If someone for narrative purposes needed to put a monastery in a town, could there be some kind of monastery/cathedral hybrid like Durham Cathedral maybe maybe?

[DeletedUser79558]

Originally Posted by lostcheerio

Ok another question!

You lie! Those are several questions! Now I have lost all respect for you, lostcheerio!

Monasteries are remote. Is this because seclusion is better for quality of prayer? Is this to prevent interaction with the town? To make them be self-sufficient?

It's partly symbolic (monasteries are "the desert" in homage to the desert fathers, who went into the literal desert to get away from people in order to think about god, etc; in a more metaphorical way, the monks and nuns are going into their "desert" to get away from people too. It's also partly non-symbolic too, as religious people known for their fervor tend to attract lay people wanting to be blessed, get their scrofula etc cured, begging for alms, and can infect the nuns and monks with their secularity, etc, and these people disrupt the monastery, causing noise and such, thus distracting from the reason the monks and nuns are there - to pray as much as possible. Of course, that falls apart a little when monasteries decide they need servants, when they're gifted land that already has people on it (though there are some villages that are cleared by monasteries to give them some more space from lay people), and when they need donations and thus encourage pilgrims to come and see their lovely relics, etc. That's when we see guesthouses become more common at the monastery, and increasingly they're further away from the main buildings as much as possible.

If something really bad happened at a monastery, how long would it take for news to reach the town?

Why would the monastery need to bother the town, other than maybe the local bishop if he has visitation rights? The monastery operates under clerical law, so even murder would be dealt with in-house. People from the nearby towns and villages might come to investigate if the monastery's representatives don't come to them for their regular reasons (picking up rents, selling stuff, buying stuff), but otherwise the monastery operates on their own. If it has servants, then chances are news would get out quickly enough unless it was kept quiet, but otherwise what happens at the monastery stays at the monastery.

If someone for narrative purposes needed to put a monastery in a town, could there be some kind of monastery/cathedral hybrid like Durham Cathedral maybe maybe?

You don't get new monasteries springing up in towns generally, but you do get towns springing up around monasteries. Durham, which you mention, was actually built as a monastery first, by monks fleeing Lindisfarne and the viking raids, about 6 miles north of the town of Durham; the town crept up on the monastery as years went by. You also get some infirmaries, leprosaria, etc being built in towns (or often the buildings being donated to the monastery and then put to use), partly to keep people away from the actual monastery. Cathedrals are a little different - they tend to be manned by canons, who are regular clergy (often Augustinian, but not always) who have all taken clerical vows (basically, they're all priests), and who are responsible for the cathedral. Even then, they tend to stay in the monastery grounds and not have much to do with the locals, if they can help it.

There are also beguines, which are similar to urban monasteries, but there's a big difference between a beguinage and a monastery - beguines are all lay women in an enclosed area within a town living their best godly lives, not nuns. They're also mostly found in continental Europe - I can't really think of any outside of the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

[DeletedUser79558]

Originally Posted by bothers

I wish my name was "Wulfhild Thrasher". Incredible.

Instead of Botherswulf, which we all know is your actual name.

My favourite medieval monastic historian is named Chrysogonus Waddell (he's a monk too).

[DeletedUser79558]

Finished it last night (I was reading it in tandem with Jenny Lawson's Broken which I also just finished). Won't say much about it until everyone's finished to avoid spoilerising it, but I enjoyed it mostly. Could have done with some more vision-y mystical stuff, but that may be because I finished off Alan Moore's Jerusalem not too long ago, so William Blake stuff has been popping into my mind quite a bit (and especially with the release of Pelgrane's Fearful Symmetry campaign for Trail of Cthulhu). Certainly up to her usual standard, anyway, and not much I'd argue with on a historical accuracy point.

[lostcheerio]

We love the Blake, around here. So much.

The Yeats and the Blake.

[DeletedUser79558]

Originally Posted by lostcheerio

We love the Blake, around here. So much.

The Yeats and the Blake.

I prefer Yeats, it's been a while since I've read him though. Blake can get a bit too christian-y for me, Yeats has that mythical almost pagan vibe to him.

[lostcheerio]

Yeats is a complete wackety-woo with his automatic writing and the widening gyre and the secular messiah that's coming in 2050 and all that jazz. Yeats is a deeply deeply weird dude. And then there's his wife George. Just choice weirdness, all the way through.

Are we in a period of chaotic acceleration? It does seem like we are. But is another Oedipus on his way? Ehhh...

[DeletedUser79558]

Originally Posted by lostcheerio

Yeats is a complete wackety-woo with his automatic writing and the widening gyre and the secular messiah that's coming in 2050 and all that jazz. Yeats is a deeply deeply weird dude. And then there's his wife George. Just choice weirdness, all the way through.

Are we in a period of chaotic acceleration? It does seem like we are. But is another Oedipus on his way? Ehhh...

I do like a bit of mere anarchy loosed upon the world, especially when I'm slouching toward Bethlehem.

[Fillyjonk]

The book so far is very well written and --- controlled? It is a slow read for me for all that is it short. I also wish there was a little more rough beastiness present, but I am finding the discussion SO INTERESTING.

I have had to stop to read two books for work---I meant to be done by now. :/

[bothers]

I have a print of William Blake's favourite watercolour The Ancient Of Days in my hallway, directly opposite the front door so it's the first thing visitors see when they arrive

I've just got to what I think was Marie's first vision? The thing with the different colours of fire after she goes for a swim in the pond. It took me quite a while to realise it was probably one of the mystic visions I'd been so excited to read about, but it's a lot more sedate than I was preparing myself for. But then again, the last book I read that was about nuns was Aldous Huxley's The Devils Of Loudon, so I was probably primed for an unrealistic level of sensationalism.

Speaking of! How common were murders in monasteries, Lemming? Seems like the perfect place to do a crime if you were of that bent, especially if you were also a fan of self-abnegation and inward-focused loathing? Was it even something that would go recorded?

[DeletedUser79558]

Originally Posted by bothers

Speaking of! How common were murders in monasteries, Lemming? Seems like the perfect place to do a crime if you were of that bent, especially if you were also a fan of self-abnegation and inward-focused loathing? Was it even something that would go recorded?

They did happen, though there's very little in the way of centralised records for them, other than the one I'm going to mention below. I certainly don't think they were any more prevalent than outside the monastery, though again few centralised records etc. It usually means going through documents related to a particular monastery to see what was recorded, but often things like death rolls (that's a listing of those who've died in a monastery, which doesn't always include manner of death, but often does, and not as you might be thinking, a nun with her jaws clamped over another nun's throat and rolling around like a shark or crocodile) and records of punishments doled out (which usually also describe what offence has been committed) do often exist (just about every monastery would have these, but not all have survived).

The Cistercians did a fairly good job of centralising their accounts of such, in the Statuta which were records of the Cistercian General Chapter, and to a lesser extent in the Magna Exordium, the history of the founding of the order and early history. Not everything got in there (I've found records from particular monasteries which contain details not included in the Statuta) but they give you a decent enough general background on what's occurring. One of the best secondary studies on the subject is James Donnelly's book gathering records of Cistercian laybrothers who revolted, since it also lists the various sources you can look through for other details. It's a little dated, and some of it is a little teleological in my view, but as a basic secondary source from which to launch your own investigations, it's not bad.

Anyway, what comes out of that is that we do have some records of killing, that are fairly accessible, and which paint a general picture, at least of one order (and one of the largest, if not the largest, at the time). Donnelly catalogues about 120 events of revolt, some just vague mentions, some not involving laybrothers or laysisters at all, some where the prior has ordered laybrothers to close doors to prevent Visitors from either entering or leaving, etc, and with a few which resulted in death (including one where a laybrother was buried alive by others). A lot of the physical violence recorded was directed at abbots and priors (especially when a new one had just been elected, and a particular element of the monastery was not pleased by their elevation), but very few ended in death - most were just beatings. The fact that of the 120 or so revolts (I think it was a little higher than that, and I'm not sure of the exact date range, but I think it went up to about the mid 13th C from the order's origins in the very late 11th C - it may have gone on further, but that was the info I was looking at, and I don't have my notes immediately to hand) only a handful led to death, suggests that it wasn't at all common - maybe 4 or 5 recorded over a 150 or so year period.

[DeletedUser79558]

Oh! Something that might be handy for lostcheerio for her scenario!

If a murder occurred in a monastery and no-one was immediately found guilty (either because they were caught red-handed, or confessed), an inquisitor might be sent to investigate. We have a general perception of inquisitors being all witch-huntery, putting people to death, torturing etc, mostly because of the Spanish Inquisition, but an inquisitor in the Middle Ages was simply someone sent to investigate something. One of the primary sources I have my students read right at the beginning of the course is a description of an inquisitor visiting small village...in order to ascertain what a local landowner had amongst his possessions when he died. Basically, checking a written inventory against what actually existed, what lands he owned, that percentage ownership he had over local mills, etc. That's the vast majority of what an inquisitor did. Much, much more prosaic than what we expect, which is why I introduce it right at the start of the year, as a "leave your preconceptions at the door" kind of thing.

So anyway, an inquisitor would be sent to investigate and write up an account. Eco's Name of the Rose is a much more action-oriented portrayal of what they'd do, if that gives you an idea.

[DeletedUser79558]

And entirely apropos of nothing, but one of my favourite bits of medieval nonsense, the phrase hocus pocus to denote some sort of magic trick. Most people think that's a more recent thing, and just gibberish* but it comes from the medieval church. If you went to church, you'd stand around (no pews) chatting to your mates, doing deals, feeding the goats you'd brought in to shelter from the rain, maybe shagging in a corner, while the priest stood at the altar with his back to you as he did his religious stuff - the audience being the altar and not the congregation. Then he'd bless the bread and wine, and turn to face the gathered worshippers, and say "this is my body [of Christ]..." but of course, everything was in Latin, so he'd turn around, producing the transubstantiated bread and wine in his hands, and say "hoc est corpus meum..." Hocus pocus is thus a corruption of hoc est corpus.


*named after the medieval Arab mathematician Al-Geber (Jabir ibn-Hayyan), and also the root of the word algebra. Bonus trivia nonsense!

[lostcheerio]

That is cool!

I was listening to a podcast today about gender and monastic life, the author being interviewed wrote a book called Marrying Jesus. It was pretty interesting! She talked about the churches not having pews and being public spaces — shagging though? Wow, villages be crazy.