An Abbey (from Latin Abbatia, derived from Syriac abba, "father"), or nunnery is a convent Christian or convent, under the government of an Abbot or an Abbess, who serves as the spiritual father or mother of the community. The term can also refer to an establishment that has long ceased to function as an Abbey, but still carries the name, in some cases for centuries (eg Westminster Abbey).
Origins
It is the oldest known Christian monastic community also called monasticism, consisted of groups of cells or huts collected about a common center, which used to be the home of a hermit or anchorite famous for holiness or singular asceticism, but without any attempt at settlement ordered. This arrangement probably followed the example given in part by the Essenes in Judea. In the early years of Christendom and monasticism the ascetics were accustomed to living alone, independent of each other, not far from some village church, supporting themselves by the work of their hands, and the distribution of surplus after the limited supply of their own desires of the poor.
The rise of religious fervor, aided by persecution, drove them ever to go away from civilization in the mountain solitudes or lonely deserts. The deserts of Egypt were full of "cells" or hermits' huts. Antonio Abad, who had retired to the Egyptian Thebaid during the persecution of Maximian in 312, was the most celebrated among them for his austerities, his sanctity, and his power as an exorcist. His fame collected round created a lot of followers imitating his asceticism in an attempt to imitate his holiness. The deeper he retired to the desert, more numerous were his disciples and thus is converted to their faith. They refused to part with it, and built their cells around their spiritual father. Thus arose the first monastic community, consisting of hermits living each in his own house, united under a superior.
Anthony, as Johann August Wilhelm Neander, without any conscious design, had become the founder of a new way of living together, Coenobitism. "By order of grades are introduced in groups of huts. They were arranged in lines like the tents of campaign in a camp, or the houses in a street. From this arrangement these lines of individual cells became known as laurae, Laurai, "Street" or "rails."
The real founder of cenobitic (koinos common, and bios, life) monasteries in the modern sense was Pachomius, an Egyptian in the early fourth century. The first community established by him was in Tabennae, an island in the Nile in Upper Egypt. Eight others were founded in the region during his lifetime, the number of 3,000 monks. In fifty years after his death his societies could claim 50,000 members. These monasteries seemed to villages, inhabited by a religious community who work hard, all of the same sex.
The buildings were separate, small and humble character. Each cell or hut, according Sozomen, contained three monks. They took their main meal in a common refectory at 3 PM, time until which usually were fasting. They ate in silence, with hoods over their faces were not allowed to see anything, excepting what was on the table before them. The monks spent their time not devoted to religious services to study and manual labor.
Palladius, who visited the Egyptian monasteries on the end of the fourth century, found among the 300 members of the monastery of Panopolis, Pachomian under the general rule, 15 tailors, 7 smiths, 4 carpenters, 12 and 15 tanners or camel drivers camel. Each community had its own oeconomus or steward, who was subject to a steward stationed at the establishment of the head.
All products of the monks and their work with him were sent to Alexandria. The money raised from the sale was spent on the purchase of stores for the support of communities, and the rest was devoted to charity. Twice a year the superiors of the various monasteries gathered at the main monastery, under the chairmanship of an Archimandrite (the head of the top "of miandra, a sheepfold), and at the last meeting made known administration reports for the year. The monasteries of Syria belonged to the institution of Pachomius.
Historians learned many details about them, both of which were found in the vicinity of Antioch Chrysostom. The monks lived in separate cabins, kalbbia, forming a religious hamlet on the hillside. Were subjected to an abbot, and observed a common rule. (They had no refectory, but ate their meals together, usually bread and water only when the work day was over, lying on the grass planted, sometimes outdoors.) Four times in the day when they joined prayers and psalms.
Great Lavra on Mount Athos
The need for defense from attacks by the monasteries (tends to accumulate wealth in the same), the economy of space and ease of access from one part of the community to another, gradually gave a more compact and orderly arrangement of a monastery monastic buildings. Large piles of building construction, with strong outside walls, capable of withstanding the assaults of an enemy, in which all buildings line up around one or more open courts, usually surrounded by cloisters. The Oriental custom agreement is exemplified in the plan of the monastery of Great Lavra on Mount Athos.
Monastery of Santa Laura, Mount Athos (Lenoir)
This monastery, like the oriental monasteries generally, is surrounded by high white stone wall and strong, enclosing an area of 3 to 4 hectares (12,000 and 16,000 m²). The longer side extends to a length of 500 feet (150 m). There is only one main entrance on the north side (A), defended by three separate iron doors. Near the entrance is a large tower, a constant feature in the monasteries of the Levant.
There is a small flap in the door in L. The pregnant woman has two large open courtyards surrounded by buildings connected with cloister galleries of wood or stone. The outdoor patio, which is much larger, contains the granaries and warehouses, kitchen and other offices related to the refectory. Immediately adjacent to the Gateway as a result there are stories of two chambers, the opening of a cloister.
The inner courtyard is surrounded by a cloister, from which open the cells of monks. In the center of this courtyard is the catholicon or conventual church, a square building with an apse-shaped cross Byzantine dome, a dome is about narthex. Outside the church is a marble fountain, covered by a dome supported by columns. Opening from the western side of the cloister, but actually standing in the courtyard is the refectory, a large cruciform building, about 100 feet (30 m) each way, decorated with frescoes of saints inside. At the upper end is a semicircular recess, recalling the triclinium of the Lateran Palace in Rome, which is the headquarters of the hegumenos or abbot. This apartment is mainly used as a meeting room, the oriental monks usually taking their meals in their separate cells.
The annexed plan of a Coptic monastery, from Lenoir, shows a church with three naves, with cellular apses, and two ranges of cells on each side of a rectangular gallery.
Benedictine Monasteries
Monasticism in the West owes its extension and development to Benedict of Nursia (born in 480). His government quickly spread miracle of the founding of Monte Cassino parents throughout Western Europe, each country witnessed the construction of monasteries far beyond anything we had seen in size and splendor. Few major cities in Italy were without their Benedictine convent concerned, and quickly rose in all major population centers in England, France and Spain.
The number of these monasteries founded between 520 and 700 is incredible. Before the Council of Constance, 1415 BC, had established no fewer than 15,070 Abbeys for just this purpose. The buildings of a Benedictine Abbey uniformly organized and following a plan, changed this, if necessary (as it was in Durham and Worcester, where the monasteries stand close to the edge of a river) had been modified so according to local circumstances.
We have no existing examples of the monasteries before the Benedictine order. All of them have yielded to the ravages of time and violence of man. However, we have preserved for us an elaborate plan of the great Swiss monastery of St. Gall, built around 820, which puts us in possession of the general scheme of a monastery of the first class to the early ninth century.
This curious and interesting plan has been the subject of a memoir both by Keller (Zurich, 1844) and Professor Robert Willis (Arco. Journal, 1848, vol. V. pp. 86-117.) For the latter we are indebted to the bottom of the following description and to the plan, reduced from his elucidated transcript of the original preserved in the archives of the convent. The general appearance of the convent is a town of isolated houses with streets running between them. Clearly under the enforcement of the Benedictine Rule, which urges that, if possible, the monastery should contain within itself everything necessary for life, and the buildings more intimately connected with the religious and social life of its inhabitants . It should comprise a mill, a bakery, stables, and vacacasas, together with accommodation for the exercise of all necessary mechanical arts within the walls, to avoid the need for monks to go outside their boundaries.
Jumièges Abbey, Normandy
The general layout of buildings can be described as follows: The church with its cloister to the south, occupies the center of a quadrangular space about 430 feet (130 m) square. The buildings, as in all great monasteries, are distributed in groups. The church forms the nucleus as the center of religious life of the community. More closely with the church is the group of buildings assigned to the line and their daily monastic --- the refectory for eating, sleeping room, common room for social intercourse, the chapter house and discipline for religious conference . These essential elements of monastic life are aligned around a cloister, surrounded by a veranda, providing communication to shelter from the elements between the different buildings.
The infirmary for sick monks, with the doctor's physical home and garden, located to the east. In the same group with the infirmary is the school for novices. Outside school, with the house of your principal against the wall opposite the church, is outside the precincts of the convent, near the house of the abbot, who could have a constant eye on them. The buildings devoted to hospitality are divided into three groups - one for the reception of distinguished guests, another for monks visiting the monastery, a third for poor travelers and pilgrims. The first and third are placed to the right and left of the entrance of the monastery, --- the hospitium of distinguished guests that is placed on the north side of the church, not far from the house of the abbot, who for poor on the south side next to farm buildings. The monks are lodged in a guest house built against the north wall of the church.
The group of buildings associated with the material needs of the property is located south and west of the church, and is clearly separated from the monastic buildings. The kitchen, pantry and offices are reached by a passage from the west end of the refectory, and are related to baking and brewing, which are placed further. All the southern and western portions devoted to workshops, stables and farm buildings. The buildings, with some exceptions, seem to have been of one story, and all but the church was probably built of wood. Everything includes thirty-three blocks apart. The church is cruciform, with a nave of nine bays, and a semicircular apse at either extremity. That to the west is surrounded by a semicircular colonnade, leaving open a "paradise" between it and the wall of the church.
The whole area is divided by screens into various chapels. The altar is located just east of the transept, or ritual choir, the altar of St. Paul in the east, and San Pedro in the western apse. A cylindrical tower, away from the Church on each side of the western apse.
The court "cloister", on the south side of the nave of the church has on its eastern side of the "pisalis" or "calefactory" the brothers' common room, heated by underground pipes. On this side of the later monasteries we invariably find the chapter, the absence of what this plan is somewhat surprising. It seems, however, from the inscriptions on the plan itself, the walk north of the cloister serves the purpose of a chapter, and was equipped with benches on the long sides. Calefactory Above is the "dormitory" opening into the south transept of the church, to allow the monks to attend the evening services promptly. A passage at the other end leads to the "necessarium, a part of the monastic buildings always planned with extreme care.
The south side is occupied by the refectory, from the west end of a hall where the kitchen is reached. This is separated from the main buildings of the monastery, and is connected by a long passage with a building of the house baking, brewing, and the servants' bedrooms. The upper floor is the vestiarium refectory, where the clothes of the brethren were kept. On the west side of the cloister is another two-storey building. The cellar is below, and the pantry and store room above. Between this building and the church. Opening a door to the cloister, and the other to the outside of the monastery area, is the room "for interviews with visitors from the outside world." On the eastern side of the north transept is the "scriptorium" or writing-room, with the library above.
East of the church is a group of buildings comprising two miniature conventual establishments, each complete in itself. Each has a covered cloister surrounded by the usual buildings, ie refectory, dormitory, etc., And a church or chapel, on the one hand, placed back to back. A separate building that belongs to each one contains a bathroom and a kitchen. One of these diminutive convents is assigned to "oblati" or beginners, the other to the sick monks as a "nurse."
The residence "doctors" is contiguous to the infirmary, and the physical garden at the northeast corner of the monastery. In addition to other rooms, contains a drug store and a camera for those who are seriously ill. The house "for bloodletting and purging" that bordered on the west.
Outside of school, "north of the convent area, contains a large hall divided in two by a screen or partition, and surrounded by fourteen small rooms, called the homes of scholars. head-master's house is opposite, built against the side wall of the church. The two "hospitia" or guest houses for the entertainment of strangers of different degrees, including a large common room or dining room in the center, surrounded by dormi-apartments. Each is equipped with its own brewhouse and bakery, and for travelers of a higher order has a kitchen and storeroom, with bedrooms for their servants and stables for their horses. There is also a hospitium "for strange monks, abutting the north wall of the church.
Beyond the cloister, on the opposite side of the convent area to the south, is the "factory", containing workshops for shoemakers, saddlers (or shoemakers, sellarii), knife and grinders, plate models makers, tanners, fullers, smiths and goldsmiths, with their houses in the rear. On this side we also find the farm buildings, the large barn and threshing, milling, malting.
Facing the west are the stables, ox-sheds, goatstables (gl, piggeries, folds, together with the servants "and" working-class neighborhoods. In the south-eastern corner is the house of chicken and duck, and poultry , and the house of the keeper. Inside is the kitchen garden, the beds with the names of plants growing in them, onions, garlic, celery, lettuce, poppy, carrots, cabbage, etc, eighteen in total. In Just as the physical garden displays the names of herbs, and the cemetery to the trees, apple, pear, plum, quince, etc. are planted.
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