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.
More about: Medieval MonasteryDefinition
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.
