The pleasures and pains of life as a medieval monk

Our podcast editor ELLIE CAWTHORNE tells us about a recent episode focusing on life in a monastery in the Middle Ages, and why it wasn't necessarily all that bad

-  ELLIE CAWTHORNE

Lack of contact with the outside world; lots of reading, cooking and housework; long stretches of silence and fragile truces with those you live with; maybe an obsession with gardening. While this could be describing the first lockdown, I’m actually talking about life in a medieval monastery. Historian Danièle Cybulskie joined us on the HistoryExtra podcast recently to offer an insight into the realities of cloistered abbey life, and I must admit, it doesn’t sound as bad as I had imagined.

Firstly, for most of the Middle Ages, the brothers had not been forced against their will into a monastery. “The idea of consent was really important,” stresses Cybulskie, “people didn’t want you to be a monk if you hadn’t made that choice for yourself.” In fact, any prospective holy men were allowed to test out the monastic lifestyle for a year (in a kind of “monk lite” experience featuring comfier clothes and less work) before committing.