Quote:
Originally Posted by kerry
This may partly account for their success. Since they don't reproduce, wealth does not become concentrated in families producing entrenched hierarchies. Anyone can enter the abbey and have access to its wealth.
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Makes sense except for the part that they don't.
What I mean is that aside from some dramatic errancy before and during the Reformation, most monastics really did live in personal poverty and most of them really were (and are) true believers in their calling. A book about normal (in the sense of the majority of) monastic life would be about 2 pages long and bore people before paragraph 2, page 1.
Day 1. They wake before sunrise an dpray. Then they go to eat and pray. After they eat they pray. Then they go to their chores taking time-out to pray. Then eat punch and pray and then go back to work and pray a bit. Then pray before bathing and after bathing, before supper. Then after supper, nip out for a bit of prayer, followed by Bible study before saying prayers before bedtime.
Day 2. See Day 1. Except Sunday or Holy Days when there is no work, and they can relax with day-long worship and prayer (hence Holi-Days -- holidays).