THE MONASTIC WORLD

Families might dedicate one or more of their children to the church, promising to send them to monastic communities for life. Parents had many possible motives for doing so: assurance of a place in heaven for themselves or their children; a desire for the education of their offspring; care for children whom they themselves could not support; donation to the most important cultural and political entity in society; and perhaps others. Something like this practice still exists: the boarding school, where children are delivered for extended periods of time to an institution charged with educating them. Entering a monastery was far different from entering a boarding school, however; it meant giving up the right to any private property. Parents could not, under any circumstances, give things to their children, either directly or though others. Rather, any letters, gifts, or tokens were to be given to the abbot, who could dispense them as he saw fit.4 In other words, parents donating their children to a monastery effectively lost all contact with them. This was, of course, a stressful time for the family. Hildegard records that her parents delivered her to the Disiboden-berg monastery “with sighs.” Those two words convey much!

By accepting these children into the community, monasteries in turn promised to feed, clothe, house, and educate them. But this took money, and the children came to the monasteries with significant money, or the equivalent in goods and land. Daughters especially would come to the communities with endowments, or dowries, as though they were brides coming to a wedding. The endowment became the property of the monastery, and the number of such novices entering an establishment determined the wealth of the institution. Some monasteries became very wealthy as a result of these endowments.

From a modern perspective, one of the most unusual features of monasti-cism was the position of recluse (male anchorite; female anchoress). Such a person withdrew completely from public life and, in Hildegard’s day, went to live in a small cell, or “anchorhold.” It was connected to the sanctuary of a church by a small window through which the recluse could experience the liturgies and receive Communion. Another window, facing the outer world, allowed for the exchange of food and other necessities of life, through which the recluse, who had achieved a reputation for sanctity, could provide spiritual advice. By the thirteenth century, a third window was customary, through which the recluse could be in contact with an assistant. The service in which one became a recluse had much in common with the burial service, and cell the person entered was referred to as the “tomb.” When Jutta and Hildegard entered Disibodenberg, they did so as recluses, Jutta the recluse and Hildegard her companion.

Formal education could be had only through the church, at first through monastic communities, and later through church schools. Here both male and female novices learned to read and write Latin, absorbed the rituals of the services, memorized the major body of poetry from the Bible (the psalms), experienced the writings of the church fathers, and, where possible, were exposed to the educational system derived from the classical world of Greece and Rome: the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music).

Daily life within the monastery was organized by the Rule of Saint Benedict. Benedict of Nursia (480-547) wrote the Rule as a guide for his own monastic communities of men, and by about the seventh century it was adopted for communities of women. Both Disibodenberg and Rupertsberg were Benedictine communities and were required to follow the Rule.

All monastic communities were required to perform a round of liturgical observances each day, known as the Work of God, or Opus Dei. These were the office hours, and there were eight of them, placed at regular intervals throughout the day. Their goal was the recitation of the complete body of 150 psalms each week. This was the monks’ and nuns’ private worship, although in cathedrals the public could attend matins, lauds, vespers, and compline. Here they are, with the approximate performance times:

Monastery when it was 6:00 a. m. In fact, the process worked the other way around—it was 6:00 a. m. when the monastic community was called to prime.

Moreover, the length of the day changes over the course of the year. The times for sunrise and sunset vary depending on the season. In summer, sunrise comes early, there is ample daylight for work, and nights are short. Conversely, in winter, the days are short and the nights are long. Latitude is the determining factor in this variation: closer to the equator, days and nights are relatively equal in length throughout the year; farther from the equator (in Europe, farther north), the more drastic the difference gets in summer and winter. Bingen lies almost exactly at the latitude of 50°N, very close to Mainz. Currently in Mainz, on the summer solstice (the longest day of the year, June 21), the sun rises at 5:18 a. m. and sets at 9:40 p. m., for 16 hours and 22 minutes of daylight. The situation is almost reversed on the winter solstice (December 22): sunrise occurs at 8:23 and sunset at 4:28, for only 8 hours and 5 minutes of daylight. The eight office hours, along with masses and meals, had to be accommodated to these changing lengths. All meals, for instance, had to take place during the daylight hours.5 Matins, at two to three hours’ performing time the longest of the hours, could be a leisurely affair in winter but quite hurried in the short summer nights.

The Mass was the public worship of the community. Benedict mentions the Mass only incidentally, because his monks were not priests and so had no responsibilities for saying Mass. Later in the Middle Ages, especially in secular cathedrals, a main mass of the day took place between Terce and Sext—that is, at approximately 10:00 a. m. If a second mass was needed, and often for special occasions it was, it took place early in the morning, shortly after lauds.