A medieval monastery was an enclosed and sometimes remote community of monks led by an abbot who shunned worldly goods to live a simple life of prayer and devotion. Christian monasteries first developed in the 4th century in Egypt and Syria and by the 5th century the idea had spread to Western Europe.
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Definition
Timeline
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c. 330 CE - c. 379 CELife of Basil Great, one of the founding fathers of the Eastern Christian Church and Byzantine Monasteries.
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480 CE - 543 CELife of Saint Benedict of Nursia, founder of the Benedictine order and European monasticism.
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635 CELindisfarne monastery in Northumbria is founded by the Irish missionary Aidan.
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c. 700 CE - c. 715 CELindisfarne Gospels created in Britain.
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708 CETraditional founding date of Mont-Saint-Michel, France.
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c. 800 CEThe Book of Kells is produced in Ireland.
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883 CEA decree by Byzantine emperor Basil I is the first recorded evidence of a monastery on Mount Athos.
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910 CEThe Benedictine monastery of Cluny Abbey in Burgundy France is founded.
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963 CEThe Great Lavra monastery on Mount Athos is founded by Saint Athanasios.
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c. 1036 CEThe Benedictine Vallombrosa Abbey near Florence is founded.
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1098 CEThe Cistercian order is founded.
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Oct 1164 CE - Dec 1170 CEThomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, lives in exile in a monastery in France.
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1536 CEHenry VIII of England and Thomas Cromwell push a bill through Parliament which begins the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England and Wales.
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1539 CEParliament passes an act to close all monasteries in England and Wales regardless of size.
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Mar 1540 CEWaltham Abbey in Essex is the last monastery to close in England.
