HOW CLERICS LIVED

5.1 The clergy

The clergy was not a homogeneous estate because great differences existed between the higher and lower clergy depending on their member’s place of residence.

• The higher clergy included the Pope, bishops and the abbots and abbesses of the great monasteries. They enjoyed sizable fiefdoms and revenues. The lower clergy included priests and the monks and nuns of the monasteries, who lived in poverty.

• The secular clergy, who lived amongst the laypeople, and consisted of bishops and priests, were distinguished by where they lived. The regular clergy, who lived in a monastic community, consisted of abbots and monks or abbesses and nuns.

5.2 The activities of the Church

Feudal society was deeply religious. The Church preached Christian doctrine and administered the sacraments, but was also influential in other areas of life beyond religious affairs.

• Politically, the Church intervened in the affairs of the Christian kingdoms, counselled the kings and arbitrated in their disputes.

It also curbed violence through the ‘Peace of God’, which forbade attacking defenceless people or places, and the ‘Truce of God,’ which prohibited waging war on Sundays, holidays and certain times of the year.

• Economically, the Church was a privileged estate which did not pay taxes, possessed sizable fiefdoms* and received donations. It was also entitled to the tithe, or one-tenth of all harvests.

• Socially, it controlled the behaviour of the people and the fulfilment of religious obligations. It also attended to the poor and the sick, it gathered the orphans, it sheltered the persecuted and it provided accommodation to pilgrims. The bells of the churches and monasteries even regulated working and resting hours and were the most common reference for measuring time.

• Culturally, the Church organised education and financed numerous works of art.

In the Early Middle Ages, the Church had great prestige. For that reason, it was present at the most important moments in people’s lives: at birth, through the sacrament of baptism; at weddings, through the marriage ceremony, and at death, through the funeral rites

Skills progress

Making connections

1 Classify the following members of the clergy according to their wealth and the place they lived: priest, nun, bishop, abbess.

Organise information

2 Prepare an outline on the activities of the Church.

Handling images

Provocative questions

3 Look at the images and answer these questions: a) What activities did monks carry out in monasteries? b) What did their habits look like? c) Which parts of the monastery were dedicated to prayer, and which were for the exclusive use of the monks? What was each one used for? d) Which areas of the monastery were used for economic, social and cultural activities?

5.3 The life of the regular clergy. The monasteries

Monastic life was very important in the Middle Ages. Monasteries were built in the countryside and had different parts for each function: a church for praying and cells for the monks. They also had spaces for a variety of activities: economic, such as the vegetable patch, winepress, stable, forge and carpentry workshop; social, such as the hospice and the infirmary; and cultural, such as the school, library and scriptorium or writing room, a place where very old codices or books illustrated with miniatures were copied by hand. Monks obeyed the rule or law which regulated each order and wore its habit. In the Early Middle Ages, the most important order was the Order of St. Benedict, or the Benedictines, founded in the 6th century by St. Benedict of Nursia.

The Benedictines wore black habits and took vows of poverty, obedience and celibacy. They were governed by the principle of ‘ora et labora’ (pray and work), which combines prayer with manual labour. They ate an austere diet of soup, bread, vegetables, eggs, fruit, wine and beer; meat and fish were eaten only on exceptional occasions.

Their habit was a black tunic fastened with a belt, a scapular, which hung over the chest and back, a coat or cowl with a hood and wide sleeves, stockings and shoes.