What role did monasteries play in both religious and secular society during the Middle Ages?
What will be an ideal response?
Answers will vary. By the year 1000, most monasteries were acting like large corporate entities, accruing revenue from a variety of industries and acting as overseers of a peasant population on lands that had been donated by wealthy benefactors. This allowed them to spend more time in contemplation and prayer, but at the same time, there was the perception that the monasteries had deviated from their original intention of being spiritual enclaves and had instead become more secularized. There was significantly less adherence to the Rules of St. Benedict, for example, and the impression was that monasteries were no longer holy institutions. In the positive sense, monastic sequestering did help to foster an atmosphere of learning and, some scholars argue, the maintenance of literacy because monasteries became repositories of learning and libraries. Monasteries also served as copy centers for scribes, who would hand copy both Christian texts and more ancient works by Cicero and Virgil.
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