All About the Brothers

Mention the word "monk" and two images come up into my mind. One is a Shaolin kungfu master with intense discipline. The other is a man of prayer. Here, we studied about two groups of monks that descended from the Benedictine order: the Cluniacs and the Cistercians.

Again, I'll reiterate that the Benedictine order is all about work and prayer. The Cluniacs only did prayer, while the Cistercians did prayer AND work.

The Lazy Cluniacs

The Cluniacs led a luxurious and exclusive lifestyle. They populated the glorious Cluny Abbey. When the first Abbey wasn't big enough, they constructed (or I should say listed people to construct) a bigger Abbey. And that's how we get Cluny I, Cluny II, and Cluny III.

Their lives were rather antisocial. No talking for the rest of the day. Their vocal cords were only restricted to singing. Of course, I'm sure this rule only applies to the younger and less powerful monks. Someone has to give them orders, right? Someone (the abbot) has to be talking to the Kings to influence their power, right?

We visited the Cluny museum and entered the Clocher de l’Eau-Benite, which is that significant leftover building from the past glory. The building was tall. Imagine many towers of that size piled up together. During the day, the sole light source would illuminate the building from the top, and Gregorian chants would reverberate throughout the halls.

My not-so-professional conclusion: As the number of monks increases, they want to build a larger hall so that their singing will sound louder. Does it give the songs more "oomph" when it reaches Heaven? I don't know. But the Brothers seem to think so.

Other lifestyle details of the Cluniacs: It seemed like the monks had a social hierarchy of their own within the Abbey. Each monk had his own separate task, and only a few of the more powerful clergy could actually read. Because they had no printers back then, some of the monks were tasked to manually copy the manuscripts by hand. But you know, you don't really have to know how to read when you copy manuscripts. If you don't know how to read, all the better. See less, know less. That's how the powerful establish control over their subordinates.

For a huge abbey constructed by the townspeople, there wasn't direct access for them to enter the Abbey. Its all about waiting and bureaucracy (history and present day don't really differ much). There were specific sites in the abbey that were designated for waiting. Like all tourist attractions, there were upper limits to how many people who can wait in there.

In the abbey, there were many buildings within the Abbey designated to store food.

So why did people chose to be monks? It probably was a socially high-ranking position. The exclusivity must have made them somewhat elitist. The promotion to Abbot was probably the most powerful position available to a non-aristocrat. Constant access to delicious and high quality food. Easy job and no manual labor. Easy merits (via praise and worship) to enter Heaven. The only downside was no reproduction, but hey, who's to know about that?

Speaking about the Abbot. The Abbot has a HUGE mansion all to himself. It had many rooms, book collections, and art stuff.

Unsurprisingly, Cluny declined later on because of poor leadership and financial issues.


The Hardworking Cistercians

To reiterate, the Cistercians were the hardworking brothers that couldn't stand the lazy lifestyle of the Cluniacs. They believed that work was equally important in gaining merits to going to Heaven.

They worked on many things. Just to list the few that we saw in this trip: grape growing, wine-making, dairy, cheese-making, salt mines construction, building constructions. It was to a point that everywhere we go, we see a Cistercian heritage. Literally! In Cluny, in Macon region, in Beaune, and all the way to Jura!

Cistercians. are. everywhere.

It was they who developed the wine-making and cheese-making industry. And it was this development that partially contributed to the development of Europe into the powerful force from Renaissance onwards.

And there we have it, an influence of the Church that does not involve meddling into political affairs, starting Holy Wars and condemning people to the stake. In contrast, it was the humble lifestyle of the Cistercians that changed the landscape of Europe.

For that, I really admire and respect the Cistercian monks.


Memorable quotes:

"Do you think the Abbot keeps mistress in his mansion? Why does he need so many rooms?" (Me to Louisa in the Abbot's house)

- Wei Jie Tan