Episode 2 Saints and Sinners: Britain's Millennium of Monasteries


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When we think of monasteries in Britain,

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we think of Henry VIII and the Dissolution.

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But their story stretches back 1,000 years before Henry was born

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to the most remarkable of beginnings.

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The monastic system that would be torn apart by Henry

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began as a cult of extreme isolation

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on rocky islands and in desert caves.

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From these origins,

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the monasteries grew to dominate every aspect of public life.

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The story of Britain's millennium of monasteries

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is one of devotion and faith,

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but also of ambition,

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violence and greed.

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As the monks grew in power

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they transformed society,

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but they also absorbed its corruption.

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The difference between their original austere ideals and this,

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the palatial opulence

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of a high medieval monastery, is breathtaking.

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It's a contradiction they would never fully escape,

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and one that would eventually lead to their destruction.

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In this episode...

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..monasteries go from the shattered victims of Norse destruction

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to the guardians of medieval society.

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Massive new monasteries transform the skyline,

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as over 10,000 monks and nuns

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spread across the nation.

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In their hands, art is re-awoken,

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scholarship is saved,

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and music is transformed,

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and the monks spill beyond their monasteries

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as pioneers of business and social care.

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Yet the more influence they gain,

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the more they drift from their principles.

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Finally, their power becomes their weakness,

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and the monks are set up for a brutal fall.

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At the close of the 8th century,

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Lindisfarne, on the Northumbrian coast,

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was home to one of England's greatest monasteries.

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For over 150 years,

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its monks had dominated the spiritual lives of the local people,

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all the while growing wealthy from trade from the sea.

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Yet on the 8th June 793,

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they had an unexpected arrival.

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Unfamiliar longships appeared in these shallow waters.

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The occupants leapt out,

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splashed up the beach,

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and headed for the monastery.

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This was northern England's first Viking raid.

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It was a monk, Alcuin of York,

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who gives us the only contemporary account of what happened.

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"Never before has such terror been seen in Britain.

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"Behold the church of St Cuthbert,

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"splattered with the blood of God's priests, robbed of its ornaments."

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A chronicler tells how the monks were butchered, enslaved,

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or thrown into the waves to drown.

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Their sacred treasures were ripped from the monastery.

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And this was just the beginning.

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From Lindisfarne in Northumbria

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to Iona in the Hebrides

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to Skellig St Michael off the west coast of Ireland,

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Vikings tore into the rich and almost defenceless monasteries.

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Previously central to trade, learning and art,

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this once great network was left in tatters.

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Many monasteries fell into ruin.

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In a land harried by raiders,

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it must have seemed like the monks would never return.

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The next 50 years were a dark time.

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Soon, almost a third of the mainland had been settled by the invaders.

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In the absence of monks,

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the Saxon church was left in the hands of priests.

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They were sworn neither to chastity nor poverty,

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and some are thought to be leading disreputable lives.

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Yet in the middle of the 9th century,

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a new ruler appeared.

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King Alfred fought back against the invaders.

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And under his successor, a new nation - England -

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gradually started to take shape.

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As the invaders retreated,

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the stage was set for something that seemed impossible

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a few years before.

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The monasteries were about to enter their golden age.

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In the 10th century, the most important cathedral in England

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was Winchester's Old Minster.

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Its outline can still be seen today.

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In the year 964,

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armed men appeared at the Minster

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and threw the Saxon priests out of their own church.

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It seemed like the violence of Lindisfarne was happening again.

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But the armed men that came here to Winchester were no Vikings.

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The man in charge was an English bishop.

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And their mission was not to slaughter the priests

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but to replace them with monks.

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The bishop in command was called Aethelwold.

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A steely-eyed zealot,

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he had a particular loathing for regular priests.

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A biography written at the time said he had an especial hatred

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for the clergy here at Winchester, who were

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"involved in wicked and scandalous behaviour"

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and "constantly given up to gourmandizing and drunkenness."

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For Aethelwold, what this church needed was monks.

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But before the monks could be brought back,

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Aethelwold had to turn these forgotten holy men

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into a movement fit to save the nation's souls.

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Fortunately, he had a secret weapon.

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The Rule of Benedict was a set of strict instructions

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for monastic life,

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laid down in the 6th century by the Italian St Benedict of Nursia.

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The earlier Anglo-Saxons had known its ideas,

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but by now it had faded from view.

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By reintroducing the rule,

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Aethelwold believed he could create a breed of purer monks,

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in newly disciplined monasteries.

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Beginning in Winchester,

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they would take back the spiritual guardianship of the nation.

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Professor Sarah Foot explained what happened next.

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So, what happens here, and it happens here at Winchester,

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is it's often called the monastic reform, or the monastic revival -

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but I think really we should call it a monastic revolution.

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It fundamentally changes the nature of the religious life

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for monks and nuns living inside monasteries,

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all of which now have to follow the Rule of St Benedict exclusively

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and very rigidly, but it also changes the way of life for those clergy

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who decide they don't want to do this,

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-who get driven out of places like Winchester.

-Interesting.

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So, it really is a revolution - it's a revolution in terms of the

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transformation of the religious life at this stage.

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It is. It means people who are going to call themselves monks or nuns

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have to live inside community -

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they're going to be walled away from the outside world,

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they're going to follow their strict rule of life which determines

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their social organisation, the kind of food they can eat,

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when they can eat it, and which radically alters the amount of time

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they spend in prayer,

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especially in formal liturgical worship inside the cathedral.

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So this variety which we've seen in Anglo-Saxon monasteries -

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-that's ending?

-Yes, that's gone.

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So what you find now is a uniformity of observance.

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All monastic house were following the same rule in the same manner,

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so if you're in Winchester, if you're in Worcester,

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if you're in Ely or Peterborough,

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at six o'clock in the morning, they're all saying the same office,

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the same way, together. And it's always this central unifying idea

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that one right rule of life will govern all monks and nuns,

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the whole church, the whole nation.

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So it does feel revolutionary, doesn't it?

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It's removing some freedoms and imposing quite rigid rules.

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Very much imposing rules. But there were plenty of English people

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who thought this was a really good thing, and who then flocked

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to these communities that Aethelwold reformed.

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Aethelwold's hostile takeover was a spectacular success.

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Not only did he reinstate monks here at Winchester,

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but his act rippled out across the country

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in an astonishing rebirth of monastic life.

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And the monasteries weren't just revived -

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Aethelwold had set them on course to become the religious

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and cultural powerhouses of the Middle Ages.

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Following the Winchester revival,

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the Benedictine revolution spread across southern and central England

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in the 10th and early 11th centuries.

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Cathedrals like Winchester were converted into monasteries,

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while a wave of new monasteries were also founded.

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Anglo-Saxon aristocrats donated land and money to the monks,

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and a new network of monasteries was soon growing in power and prestige.

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The new funds, and the revived sense of mission,

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led to an artistic reawakening.

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The skill of illumination was reborn,

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with exceptional manuscripts like the Benedictional of St Aethelwold,

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in which vibrant colour and gold leaf testify to the new confidence

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and wealth of the monasteries.

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Yet the nobles who donated money to the monks

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were getting something in return.

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Under the Benedictine Rule, the monks had to worship together

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eight times daily.

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They would pray for the souls of their benefactors,

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and as well as offering silent prayer,

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they would come together to sing.

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The more beautiful the singing,

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the more powerful, and valuable, the prayer.

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With better organised choirs, and patrons to impress,

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the stage was set for a breakthrough

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that would transform Western music.

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# Hallelujah... #

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For centuries, monastic music

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had meant a simple single melody or chant.

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But now a new sound was born.

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THEY SING

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Known as polyphony,

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it added new musical layers

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of increasing complexity and beauty.

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SINGING CONTINUES

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And it was perfected in the English Benedictine monasteries.

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THEY SING

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This music wasn't heard for 1,000 years.

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Professor Susan Rankin

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was responsible for bringing it back to life.

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At Corpus Christi College, Cambridge,

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she explained how it lay hidden in one tiny but astonishing book.

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Susan, what is this beautiful little manuscript?

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It's a Troper, a liturgical book,

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a book of liturgical music,

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which is an absolute treasure chest of Anglo-Saxon music

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made at Winchester in the 1020s, 1030s.

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And what makes it so special, then?

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-It's the oldest surviving collection of two-part music, full stop.

-Gosh.

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And this is the music for two voices,

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which was an incredibly new thing to hear at the time,

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and this is what makes this book exceptional.

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So what am I looking at here?

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You're looking at the chant for a whole series of different ways

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of singing Kyrie Eleison,

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which is what is sung at the beginning of the mass,

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and that's how you would sing it if you didn't have a second singer,

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and it's perfectly self sufficient.

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HE SINGS

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But what you find later on in the book

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is a second voice

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to put with that.

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So you marry up the original single voice with this later voice.

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Here is the second voice for this Kyrie.

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THEY SING

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So this practice of polyphony would have been taking place

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-throughout monasteries?

-I think it would have been sung in many,

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many monasteries. If you think about the fact that monks had to sing

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the Opus Dei, so the work of God, every day,

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in order to celebrate God on behalf of king and country,

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the monks were doing this not for themselves but for everybody else.

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Susan, it must feel wonderful to think you've uncovered

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this lost sound, you've brought it back to life.

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Well, the music was not heard from probably the late 11th century,

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and the moment when I heard that music was amazing,

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because it's wonderful music.

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And if this one book hadn't survived, we wouldn't really know that much.

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It transforms the history of early medieval music.

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THEY SING

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Only in monasteries, where talented individuals had time and money

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to push the boundaries of their art

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could such an harmonic breakthrough have taken place.

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SINGING CONTINUES

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Yet, within a few short years,

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the monasteries were shaken by another great upheaval.

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In 1066,

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William the Conqueror's Normans

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crashed into the Anglo-Saxon establishment,

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wiping out its power and swallowing up its land.

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Yet if the invasion brought destruction to the nation,

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for the monasteries, it was a godsend.

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Because the Normans didn't just keep the Anglo-Saxon monasteries,

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they rebuilt them on an epic scale.

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In the process, they created the vast stone monastery,

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the city of God, that we know today.

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The most incredible example of all stands in Durham.

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Under the Anglo-Saxons

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this green was Durham's market.

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But the Normans threw out the market and replaced it with a military

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religious complex. They built their castle here and they built,

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within the same protective enclosure,

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an astonishing vast new abbey.

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Just as their castles stamped the secular authority of the Normans

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on the country, their monasteries, or abbeys, larger than any buildings

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ever seen in the British Isles,

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declared that this invasion had been blessed by God.

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Garrisoned by monks, each abbey was a Christian fortress.

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The key to the new monasteries lay in architectural ideas

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the Normans brought over from the continent.

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Monks were engaged in an unending fight against evil,

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and their new fortresses were to surround and protect them

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as never before.

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These new ideas can be seen in a remarkable document,

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the only European architectural drawing to survive

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from the fall of Rome to the early Middle Ages.

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It includes the earliest surviving example of the structure

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that was to define the monastery more than any other - the cloister.

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Dr Giles Gasper from Durham University explained how this plan

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was the template for all future monastic buildings in Britain.

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Giles, this looks incredible. What are we looking at?

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We're looking here at the plan of the Abbey of St Gall,

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which is a great Swiss monastery from the 9th century, from the 830s.

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It's a wonderfully detailed plan

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of the whole monastic complex.

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What it seems to be is an idealised version

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of what a monastery should look like.

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If we start from the outside

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-we have animals...

-Pigs...

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Pigs, sheep, goats. We have a little house for chickens here,

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a little chicken egg,

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and we have a vegetable garden.

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The cemetery.

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Then we get into the beating heart of the monastery,

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the reason for this other activity.

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So, the main monastery church and then this four-sided shape,

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the cloister, so this is both for monastic living,

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monastic sleeping - importantly - so that they can serve their church

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and get on with their monastic job, which is effective prayer.

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And the cloister seems to be a peculiar invention

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of the Middle Ages and is taken on from the 9th century,

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the date of this map, on into the high Middle Ages and becomes really

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a characteristic feature of medieval monasteries in the western world.

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And it really is contained, isn't it?

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If you look at where the more sort of general, worldly sections are,

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the animals, the plants, you can actually see that the cloister

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-is almost entirely cut off.

-Yes.

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This is very different to earlier monastic sites that we see,

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Anglo-Saxon sites, where it's all a bit haphazard, it's evolving,

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you've got your industry, your trade, your agriculture -

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-but this is really ordered, really formalised.

-Yeah.

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-So it's a body, a spiritual body, with its beating heart.

-Exactly.

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In the building campaign the Normans unleashed across England,

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the idealised blueprint of St Gall

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became a physical reality.

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Regular stone cloisters spread across the country.

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Giles took me to see the example here at Durham,

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still on the template the Normans laid down nine centuries ago.

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So what we're seeing with the Normans, and with the evolution

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of these sorts of building complexes,

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is a much more rigorous treatment of the monks,

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the monks are being much more controlled.

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It's an expression of order in stone.

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Absolutely. There's a wonderful phrase which has been used

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to describe this period - "a struggle for right order in the world" -

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which encapsulates that struggle for religious and political power.

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It's something the Normans, I think, with their access to wealth

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that they have with the conquest,

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so we see the buildings from the 1060s through the 1070s,

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1080s, 1090s, just absolutely massive.

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They're building on a huge scale.

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If you could work out the GDP ratio, this would be absolutely enormous.

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You're seeing these buildings as an ideological statement.

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They are the landscape of power, they're the landscape of order.

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The immense new Norman monasteries

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soon changed the face of towns across Britain.

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So many of the great cathedrals and abbeys that still define our skyline

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were first built in their current epic form under the invaders.

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Canterbury, Durham, Norwich, Ely -

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all went up in during this spectacular wave of construction.

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What's more, every one was built as a community of monks.

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For the Normans, stone meant power,

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and the most lasting expression of this belief wasn't their castles -

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it was their monasteries.

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New Norman monasteries soon rose across the land,

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from Wales up into the north of England.

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Areas that hadn't been reached by the Anglo-Saxon revival

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now received monks of their own,

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creating an immense and far-reaching monastic network.

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But what was life actually like for the monks?

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Monastic communities could range from 5 to 100 members,

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from adolescence upwards.

0:24:130:24:16

Recruits had to make a financial contribution to their monasteries,

0:24:170:24:21

so were usually drawn from wealthy families.

0:24:210:24:25

Their new life under the Benedictine Rule was strict.

0:24:250:24:29

One of the most severe regulations banned talking in church,

0:24:300:24:34

at night or at meal times.

0:24:340:24:36

Yet, as well as being obedient,

0:24:380:24:40

medieval monks were resourceful and inventive.

0:24:400:24:44

ROOSTER CROWS

0:24:440:24:46

They soon found an ingenious way around the strictness of their rule.

0:24:460:24:51

Dr Deborah Banham explained how they became masters of sign language.

0:24:520:24:58

What sort of signs can you show me, Debby?

0:24:590:25:02

Well, there's this one.

0:25:020:25:04

-Looks like a fish.

-Yes, absolutely.

0:25:040:25:08

And the later signs have far more different kinds of fish,

0:25:080:25:12

-so you always start off with this...

-OK.

0:25:120:25:15

..and then one of them adds this.

0:25:150:25:18

Any idea what that is?

0:25:190:25:21

Well, it's actually the sign for a woman.

0:25:210:25:24

-Oh, that's the sign for a woman.

-Yes.

0:25:240:25:26

And that's a specific kind of fish.

0:25:260:25:28

I just want to say lady fish but I don't know!

0:25:300:25:32

In fact, it's a trout.

0:25:320:25:35

Oh, a trout! No!

0:25:350:25:37

-"Lady fish."

-Which is supposed to be female, for some reason.

0:25:370:25:41

Then we get the phrase "old trout."

0:25:410:25:44

Yes, it comes from that, presumably.

0:25:440:25:47

And what about the different people within a monastic community,

0:25:470:25:50

do they have signs for those?

0:25:500:25:51

Yes. One that I really like, it's a kind of double sign.

0:25:510:25:55

It starts off where you point to your two eyes with your two fingers,

0:25:550:25:59

and then you hold up your little finger.

0:25:590:26:02

Ooh.

0:26:020:26:03

-See if you can figure out what that is.

-A teacher?

0:26:030:26:06

Putting your hand up?

0:26:060:26:08

Actually, yeah, but not for that reason.

0:26:080:26:10

-This the sign for "look" - pointing at your eyes.

-Yes.

0:26:100:26:14

And this means "small."

0:26:140:26:15

-Oh, "looking after the little ones."

-Exactly.

0:26:150:26:19

-Little finger is always for small and thumb for big.

-Oh, right!

0:26:190:26:23

Sign language began as a means of following the strict

0:26:250:26:29

Rule of Benedict.

0:26:290:26:30

Yet for some monks it soon became a means of flouting it.

0:26:300:26:34

When the historian Gerald of Wales ate at Canterbury Cathedral Priory

0:26:370:26:42

in 1180, he complained,

0:26:420:26:45

"There were the monks, all of them gesticulating with fingers,

0:26:450:26:49

"hands and arms and whistling to one another instead of speaking so that

0:26:490:26:54

"I seemed to be seated at a stage play or among actors and jesters."

0:26:540:27:01

I think we get a glimpse of real life

0:27:010:27:04

amongst all this gesticulating and whistling.

0:27:040:27:07

These monks weren't the fanatics of the early days of monasticism,

0:27:070:27:12

they were real people with a need to communicate.

0:27:120:27:16

The Benedictine Rule couldn't be broken,

0:27:160:27:18

but it could be creatively stretched.

0:27:180:27:22

In the new Norman monasteries,

0:27:250:27:28

sign language wasn't the only creative outburst.

0:27:280:27:31

With a country to carve up,

0:27:310:27:34

the invaders had made the monks landlords on a massive scale,

0:27:340:27:38

meaning immense wealth from rents and tithes

0:27:380:27:41

began flooding into their coffers.

0:27:410:27:44

This cash was soon converted into opulent art.

0:27:440:27:48

Among the handful of survivals

0:27:520:27:54

is the exceptional Gloucester Candlestick.

0:27:540:27:57

Made for Gloucester Abbey at the start of the 12th century,

0:28:000:28:04

its writhing forms depict the struggle of sinful man

0:28:040:28:08

to reach the light at the summit, representing Jesus.

0:28:080:28:12

In the monasteries, such glittering works were joined by rich tapestries

0:28:150:28:20

and gloriously painted church interiors

0:28:200:28:23

in a great rainbow of religious finery.

0:28:230:28:27

The point was clear -

0:28:280:28:29

monasteries could bring you the riches of heaven.

0:28:290:28:33

And to prove it, they were rich.

0:28:330:28:36

And yet, how could the monasteries justify such wealth?

0:28:380:28:43

The desert fathers who had inspired the first monks

0:28:460:28:50

had preached a life of simple poverty.

0:28:500:28:53

And early monasteries had offered a retreat from the world.

0:28:530:28:58

Now, some breakaway monks wanted to return to these simple origins.

0:28:580:29:04

In the year 1132,

0:29:080:29:10

some Benedictine monks here in York

0:29:100:29:13

saw an extraordinary sight.

0:29:130:29:16

A group of French monks passed through the town,

0:29:200:29:23

and they were like nothing that had been seen before.

0:29:230:29:27

The French monks didn't wear black habits, like the Benedictines,

0:29:290:29:33

they wore white ones.

0:29:330:29:35

And this whiteness seemed to infiltrate their whole being.

0:29:350:29:40

They were spiritually pure,

0:29:400:29:42

they rejected personal possessions,

0:29:420:29:45

fine art and ostentation.

0:29:450:29:47

The York Benedictines were so overwhelmed by the purity

0:29:470:29:52

of the newcomers that they deserted their own order and followed them.

0:29:520:29:58

The Cistercians had arrived.

0:29:580:30:01

The Cistercian Order had been founded in 1098,

0:30:050:30:09

near Dijon in western France.

0:30:090:30:12

A group of French Benedictines,

0:30:120:30:14

sickened by the flaunting of wealth by their own brothers,

0:30:140:30:18

had set up a splinter monastery in a marshy wood,

0:30:180:30:22

deliberately echoing the very first monks

0:30:220:30:24

who retreated into the desert.

0:30:240:30:27

The white monks passing through York were headed here -

0:30:300:30:34

the valley of the river Rye in Yorkshire, known as Rievaulx.

0:30:340:30:38

The area was described as "a horrid and vast solitude."

0:30:400:30:45

In other words, it was perfect.

0:30:450:30:49

Rievaulx Abbey was founded in 1132

0:30:550:30:59

as the Cistercians' headquarters in the north of England.

0:30:590:31:03

The intricate honeycomb of the monastery still survives...

0:31:110:31:16

from the Chapter House, where the monks gathered daily,

0:31:160:31:19

to hear a reading from the Rule of Benedict...

0:31:190:31:23

to their immense church.

0:31:230:31:26

Just being here gives you a feeling

0:31:320:31:35

for the exceptional singularity of mind of the Cistercian Order.

0:31:350:31:41

The core of this magnificent church

0:31:410:31:43

went up just 30 years after the foundation of Rievaulx

0:31:430:31:48

in this deserted place.

0:31:480:31:51

Benedictine churches were orgies of red, green and gold -

0:31:510:31:57

covered in lavish decoration.

0:31:570:32:00

But this place was plain, stark,

0:32:000:32:05

and as spiritually cleansed as the Cistercians themselves.

0:32:050:32:09

These radical ideals of austere isolation

0:32:140:32:19

live on today at the Cistercian monastery of Mount St Bernard.

0:32:190:32:23

The Abbot is Farther Erik Varden.

0:32:250:32:28

There is a radical element to dedicating your life

0:32:300:32:34

to becoming a monk.

0:32:340:32:36

It says in the constitutions of our order

0:32:360:32:39

that our life is obscure,

0:32:390:32:42

laborious and ordinary,

0:32:420:32:44

and it's a true statement.

0:32:440:32:47

The crucial experience of monks,

0:32:470:32:50

and the experience that you discover

0:32:500:32:52

fairly early on in your novitiate,

0:32:520:32:55

is not an experience of power,

0:32:550:32:57

but an experience of radical poverty.

0:32:570:33:00

Has some of the asceticism maybe passed away?

0:33:000:33:04

The fundamental ascetic practice

0:33:040:33:07

is the same, and that is the...

0:33:070:33:10

abandonment of self will.

0:33:100:33:12

The total surrender of oneself,

0:33:120:33:14

of one's future,

0:33:140:33:16

and of one's aspirations.

0:33:160:33:19

Our fundamental ministry

0:33:190:33:21

is our life of prayer,

0:33:210:33:24

which is a life that we pursue

0:33:240:33:27

not only for ourselves,

0:33:270:33:29

but for the entire church, indeed for the entire world.

0:33:290:33:32

Tell me, father, what do you think a monastery is for?

0:33:320:33:36

In some ways I'd say a monastery isn't for anything.

0:33:360:33:40

A monastery is fundamentally useless.

0:33:400:33:43

It doesn't exist to perform a particular function,

0:33:430:33:46

whether it's some kind of agriculture, or some kind of craft,

0:33:460:33:51

or even providing charity

0:33:510:33:54

and hospitality for the poor.

0:33:540:33:56

A monastery exists purely, really, for the worship of God.

0:33:560:34:01

But a monastery will also aspire to be a conduit for the grace of God,

0:34:010:34:05

of calling down God's mercy

0:34:050:34:09

and love on his people.

0:34:090:34:13

Are the roles of monks, then, to look after the eternal life,

0:34:130:34:17

the afterlife, of yourselves and your community?

0:34:170:34:21

The monastic contemplative life is the life in which the monk...

0:34:210:34:26

..seeks every day

0:34:270:34:30

to see the face of God.

0:34:300:34:32

The monastic life is a preparation

0:34:320:34:36

for the life of eternity

0:34:360:34:39

and, for the monk,

0:34:390:34:41

the life of eternity has already begun here.

0:34:410:34:45

So you are constantly contemplating and working your mind but you work

0:34:450:34:50

your bodies, too, you do physical labour as part of your order?

0:34:500:34:54

Certainly. We endeavour to be as self-sufficient as we can,

0:34:540:34:57

and, like any other human beings, we need to earn a living,

0:34:570:35:00

so we try to do honest work

0:35:000:35:03

in order to provide for our needs.

0:35:030:35:07

This emphasis on manual labour and self-sufficiency

0:35:120:35:15

is a defining characteristic of the Cistercians.

0:35:150:35:19

And 800 years ago,

0:35:220:35:25

it enabled this austere order

0:35:250:35:27

to afford their towering medieval monasteries.

0:35:270:35:31

Because the early Cistercians turned out to be brilliant farmers,

0:35:330:35:38

above all of sheep.

0:35:380:35:40

Their choice of remote areas meant that vast tracts of territory

0:35:420:35:46

were opened up for their flocks.

0:35:460:35:49

They recruited lay brothers, men from poor backgrounds

0:35:490:35:52

who lived a simplified monastic life

0:35:520:35:55

and worked the land for free.

0:35:550:35:58

The revenues were soon huge.

0:35:580:36:00

By 1300, Rievaulx's neighbouring Cistercian abbey, Fountains,

0:36:050:36:09

was the largest producer of wool in England, and even had its own ship.

0:36:090:36:14

Today, the largest sheep farms in the country

0:36:160:36:19

rarely go above 8,000 animals.

0:36:190:36:21

Fountains Abbey had 18,000.

0:36:210:36:25

This was truly industrial farming.

0:36:250:36:28

But like all corporations,

0:36:290:36:31

the Cistercians were to discover that success has a price.

0:36:310:36:35

Before the 12th century was out,

0:36:360:36:39

they'd already attracted a reputation for greed.

0:36:390:36:43

And there's some truth in it. More Cistercians than any other order

0:36:430:36:47

were found guilty by the courts of moving boundaries

0:36:470:36:51

and forging charters to gain more land.

0:36:510:36:55

The Cistercians were already rich from the wool trade,

0:36:550:36:59

but they were just as happy to fleece their neighbours.

0:36:590:37:03

The Cistercians had further professionalised

0:37:070:37:10

the medieval monastery,

0:37:100:37:12

showing how monks could lead the way in agriculture and business.

0:37:120:37:16

Yet, as this austere order had interacted with the world,

0:37:160:37:20

its ideals had become corrupted.

0:37:200:37:24

It was a pattern that was to be seen again.

0:37:240:37:27

By the 13th century the Cistercians weren't the only new monks around.

0:37:310:37:37

And if THEY had headed for the wilderness,

0:37:370:37:39

their new rivals did the exact opposite.

0:37:390:37:43

The occasion was the rapid spread of cities and towns across Europe.

0:37:430:37:47

The new towns meant more wealth,

0:37:530:37:56

but also bigger crowds of urban poor,

0:37:560:37:59

all clamouring for spiritual attention.

0:37:590:38:03

In response, many monks chose to pursue their mission

0:38:030:38:06

outside the cloister.

0:38:060:38:08

These urban newcomers were known as friars.

0:38:110:38:15

The most famous, the Dominicans,

0:38:170:38:20

arrived from France in 1221,

0:38:200:38:24

and the Italian Franciscans three years later.

0:38:240:38:27

Monks had been rural landlords,

0:38:280:38:31

but the friars chose not to own property

0:38:310:38:34

and lived instead on charity.

0:38:340:38:37

If monks lived off the land,

0:38:370:38:39

friars lived off the people.

0:38:390:38:42

And their spiritual message was aimed at the people, too.

0:38:420:38:46

Up till now, monks had prayed in their monasteries

0:38:480:38:52

on behalf of other people.

0:38:520:38:53

But the friars reversed that -

0:38:530:38:55

the preached in open spaces

0:38:550:38:58

and encouraged members of the public

0:38:580:39:00

to look to their own spiritual salvation.

0:39:000:39:03

Their motivation was the example of Jesus,

0:39:030:39:07

who had lived a life of itinerant poverty

0:39:070:39:10

and urged his listeners to individual conversion.

0:39:100:39:14

It was a message many wanted to hear.

0:39:140:39:17

For centuries, monasteries had been elite institutions,

0:39:200:39:24

staffed by and prioritising the needs of the wealthy.

0:39:240:39:29

But the friars also served the poor

0:39:290:39:32

and the urban middle classes.

0:39:320:39:34

They might hear your confession,

0:39:340:39:37

teach at your child's school,

0:39:370:39:39

draw you up a legal document,

0:39:390:39:41

or conduct your marriage service.

0:39:410:39:44

The friars were soon everywhere,

0:39:450:39:47

meaning that a single town could have a bewildering range

0:39:470:39:50

of different monasteries and friaries

0:39:500:39:53

all serving the same population.

0:39:530:39:56

In the early 13th century, if you wanted the services of a monk

0:39:560:40:01

or a friar in Oxford, you could come here to the Augustinian Friary.

0:40:010:40:06

Or the Black Friars, who were just down there.

0:40:090:40:12

The Grey Friars were here.

0:40:130:40:16

The Friars of the Sack were in there.

0:40:180:40:21

The Crutched Friars, they were in there.

0:40:210:40:25

Your Benedictines were in there

0:40:270:40:29

and your Carmelites were down there.

0:40:290:40:32

More Benedictines.

0:40:340:40:35

The Austin Friars were here.

0:40:370:40:40

More Augustinians were here,

0:40:430:40:45

and then further outside the city were the Hospitaliers, the Templars,

0:40:450:40:50

two nunneries and, just so they didn't miss out on the fun,

0:40:500:40:54

some Cistercians, too.

0:40:540:40:56

That's 15 monastic communities

0:40:560:40:58

for a population of less than 7,000.

0:40:580:41:02

In towns across the country,

0:41:080:41:10

friars wove their way into the already established

0:41:100:41:13

monastic network, joining the Cistercians and other new arrivals

0:41:130:41:18

in a massive web of monasteries.

0:41:180:41:20

By 1300, there were more than 500 monasteries

0:41:220:41:26

and over 10,000 people in monastic orders across the British Isles.

0:41:260:41:32

It had become a land of monasteries.

0:41:320:41:35

In the process, the monastery was changing

0:41:380:41:41

from an inward-looking refuge

0:41:410:41:43

to an outward-facing centre of bustling urban life.

0:41:430:41:48

And there was one area where their work was truly life-changing.

0:41:480:41:53

In the spring of 2015,

0:42:100:42:11

Bart's Hospital in East London will open its new heart centre.

0:42:110:42:16

Costing £250 million, it's the latest addition to a hospital

0:42:180:42:24

that serves a population of 2.5 million.

0:42:240:42:28

Yet it all began with fewer than ten monks.

0:42:310:42:35

Hidden behind the modern-day Bart's is the Priory Church

0:42:410:42:45

of St Bartholomew the Great.

0:42:450:42:47

The Priory and the hospital were founded in 1123 and staffed by monks

0:42:490:42:55

from anther recently formed order, known as the Augustinians.

0:42:550:43:00

This makes the complex of St Bart's one the oldest hospitals in Europe

0:43:010:43:06

still on its original site.

0:43:060:43:08

Professor Carole Rawcliffe explained how, with hospitals like St Bart's,

0:43:100:43:14

monasteries transformed medical care in the Middle Ages.

0:43:140:43:19

So, Carole, who's running these hospitals, then?

0:43:210:43:24

Well, the largest ones, the ones we know about, like Bart's,

0:43:240:43:27

St Thomas', for example, St Leonard's in York,

0:43:270:43:30

are run by monastic orders

0:43:300:43:32

and often by the Augustinian Canons because they have

0:43:320:43:35

a rather less elaborate liturgy.

0:43:350:43:38

They're more geared to practical work, to pastoral work,

0:43:380:43:41

in the wider community.

0:43:410:43:43

And, Carole, what sort of help are the Augustinian Canons providing

0:43:430:43:47

in these sorts of hospitals?

0:43:470:43:50

What you get is a clean environment,

0:43:500:43:53

clean sheets, you're warm, you get a good diet

0:43:530:43:57

and you get that spiritual care and the feeling of being safe.

0:43:570:44:00

You know, if you've been tramping on the road,

0:44:000:44:03

just to be in a safe environment is something.

0:44:030:44:06

But Bart's is quite unusual because it also looks after pregnant women,

0:44:060:44:11

and many hospitals refused to admit women at all,

0:44:110:44:14

and certainly not pregnant ones

0:44:140:44:16

because they're likely to be women of ill-repute.

0:44:160:44:18

And perhaps even to tempt the Canons, who knows,

0:44:180:44:21

but here there's a maternity ward.

0:44:210:44:24

For me as well, all these ideas are challenging those established

0:44:240:44:29

notions of what a monastery does because this is quite modern,

0:44:290:44:33

quite forward thinking, the idea that they are places of health

0:44:330:44:36

and medicine and maternity care.

0:44:360:44:39

Yes. And by the time you get to the late 14th, early 15th century,

0:44:390:44:43

there's a priest who lives in this precinct here,

0:44:430:44:46

at Bart's, called John Mirfield, and he produces two encyclopaedias

0:44:460:44:51

about health and he talks about fresh air, a healthy diet,

0:44:510:44:56

and exercise in a way the viewers to this programme will find curiously

0:44:560:45:01

modern because he says, well, you know,

0:45:010:45:03

"You're Canon, so you can't go jogging around the streets of London

0:45:030:45:07

"or having your personal trainer in the park," as people do now,

0:45:070:45:11

-so you fit your cell out in an appropriate way.

-Like a personal gym.

0:45:110:45:15

Yes, a personal gym. So you can have weights,

0:45:150:45:18

and you have ropes, and you can exercise yourself to keep fit.

0:45:180:45:22

Weight training monks. This is brilliant!

0:45:220:45:25

But they're not supposed to do it to be vain

0:45:250:45:28

and to have gym-honed bodies, but maybe some of them were.

0:45:280:45:32

They're there to be effective instruments of God

0:45:320:45:36

in serving the poor, in staffing the hospital,

0:45:360:45:40

because monasteries at this time are becoming centres of medical knowledge

0:45:400:45:45

so they're a wonderful vehicle

0:45:450:45:47

for transmitting all these new medical ideas.

0:45:470:45:51

Their massive network of monasteries,

0:45:550:45:58

and their dedication to the latest medical thinking,

0:45:580:46:02

meant that the monks offered an extensive medieval health service.

0:46:020:46:06

Yet medicine was only one of many branches of monastic knowledge.

0:46:070:46:11

Centuries earlier, as barbarians overran the Roman Empire,

0:46:140:46:19

it was the monasteries who had kept the flame of ancient learning alive.

0:46:190:46:23

Now, the exceptional dedication and organisation of the monks

0:46:240:46:29

had created a Europe-wide network of learning.

0:46:290:46:33

And monks didn't just preserve ancient knowledge,

0:46:330:46:36

they were making new discoveries, too.

0:46:360:46:39

Many of the most intellectually ambitious

0:46:410:46:44

and passionately curious people of the age, were monks.

0:46:440:46:48

The great philosopher Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican.

0:46:480:46:52

The pioneer of the scientific method,

0:46:530:46:55

the Englishman Roger Bacon, was a Franciscan.

0:46:550:46:58

As was the philosopher William of Ockham.

0:46:590:47:03

Rather than being shut off from the world,

0:47:050:47:08

medieval monks had an omnivorous hunger for all knowledge.

0:47:080:47:13

One of the most remarkable pieces of evidence for this

0:47:130:47:16

can be found at London's Royal College of Arms.

0:47:160:47:20

This is the Polychronicon.

0:47:250:47:27

The Benedictine monk who wrote it was called Ranulf Higden,

0:47:270:47:32

and apart from the fact that he entered the monastery at Chester

0:47:320:47:35

in 1299, we know virtually nothing else about his life.

0:47:350:47:40

This is surprising, because contained in here

0:47:400:47:44

is so much other information that it's almost mind boggling.

0:47:440:47:49

The name Polychronicon means "many chronicles"

0:47:530:47:57

and it's a staggeringly ambitious attempt to pull together

0:47:570:48:00

the history and the geography of the known world.

0:48:000:48:04

It begins with a virtual global tour, as Higden whirls his readers

0:48:060:48:11

round exotic sites from Constantinople to Egypt.

0:48:110:48:15

The journey ends with Britain,

0:48:170:48:19

which occupies a third of the tour.

0:48:190:48:21

The headline status was deliberate.

0:48:230:48:25

In centuries gone by Britain had been a backwater,

0:48:260:48:31

but by putting it at the heart of his text,

0:48:310:48:34

foregrounded by the great places and events of the world,

0:48:340:48:37

Higden is asserting that it's now a major nation.

0:48:370:48:42

Higden patiently unfolds the story of his homeland,

0:48:440:48:48

and isn't afraid of controversy.

0:48:480:48:50

In one section he tackles that famous British leader, King Arthur.

0:48:520:48:57

Unlike some of his predecessors,

0:48:570:48:59

Higden questions whether Arthur had really lived at all.

0:48:590:49:03

Arthur had been a heroic leader to previous historians

0:49:080:49:12

like Geoffrey of Monmouth.

0:49:120:49:14

But here Ranulf is questioning

0:49:140:49:16

whether he really was this massive figure.

0:49:160:49:19

If he really did defeat the powers of France and Rome,

0:49:190:49:24

then why is there not a single reference to him

0:49:240:49:27

in any of their histories?

0:49:270:49:29

The scepticism feels surprisingly modern.

0:49:330:49:37

And before long, Ranulf Higden's desire to map the limits of

0:49:370:49:41

the known world was brought to life by other monks in his monastery.

0:49:410:49:45

The Evesham Map was created 20 to 50 years

0:49:480:49:52

after Higden wrote his chronicle.

0:49:520:49:55

It's thought to derive from a map

0:49:550:49:57

originally included in the Polychronicon itself.

0:49:570:50:01

To us it appears upside down,

0:50:020:50:05

with the Middle East at the top

0:50:050:50:07

and Britain at the bottom.

0:50:070:50:09

This map really is just an incredible work of art.

0:50:120:50:17

In some respects it's a traditional medieval Mappa Mundi,

0:50:170:50:21

a map of the world,

0:50:210:50:23

and you can see all the important sites of Christendom

0:50:230:50:28

complete with Paradise, the Garden of Eden up there.

0:50:280:50:32

You can see Adam and Eve with the serpent wrapped around

0:50:320:50:36

the Tree of Knowledge, biting onto the apple.

0:50:360:50:39

You've got the Tower of Babel,

0:50:390:50:41

you've got Jerusalem shown here

0:50:410:50:44

as this lavish Gothic tower,

0:50:440:50:47

then there's the Red Sea here,

0:50:470:50:51

and cutting straight through the Red Sea you can see the passage

0:50:510:50:56

of the Jews out of captivity.

0:50:560:50:59

It is possible to navigate your way around this map

0:50:590:51:02

and recognise the specific countries,

0:51:020:51:05

but it's not in proportion, it's not an exact reflection of the world.

0:51:050:51:10

If you look at the scale of other countries, you can see that Spain

0:51:100:51:15

is just this small section here,

0:51:150:51:18

and in comparison England's huge -

0:51:180:51:20

it spreads right the way across the bottom of the map.

0:51:200:51:25

You can see major towns and cities all picked out.

0:51:250:51:29

So you've got Dover here with this tower,

0:51:290:51:32

and London similarly a fortified tower.

0:51:320:51:37

But then there are two churches that are depicted.

0:51:370:51:40

One is Canterbury, the archbishopric,

0:51:400:51:43

and the other is Evesham,

0:51:430:51:46

not perhaps such a major town but important because this is the site

0:51:460:51:51

at which this incredible work has been put together,

0:51:510:51:55

so the monks of Evesham are literally securing their place

0:51:550:51:59

on the map.

0:51:590:52:01

Works like the Evesham Map and the Polychronicon

0:52:030:52:06

show how monks were obsessed with gathering

0:52:060:52:09

and expanding our knowledge of the world.

0:52:090:52:12

Far from being blinkered scribes,

0:52:130:52:16

they were the intellectual pioneers of their age,

0:52:160:52:19

and it was monasteries that gave them their freedom.

0:52:190:52:23

Yet although the 12th and 13th centuries were a gilded age

0:52:300:52:34

for the monasteries,

0:52:340:52:36

fundamental flaws in this vast system were starting to emerge.

0:52:360:52:40

The more prestige they gained, the more they built,

0:52:400:52:44

locking them into a draining cycle of expense.

0:52:440:52:48

At the once mighty Rievaulx,

0:52:530:52:55

the Cistercians were in trouble.

0:52:550:52:58

The Cistercians had overbuilt.

0:53:000:53:02

Even their great wool income couldn't save them.

0:53:020:53:05

Twice in the 13th century they had to be granted royal protection

0:53:050:53:10

to prevent complete financial collapse.

0:53:100:53:13

Other disasters landed on their heads - heavy rains,

0:53:150:53:19

poor harvests, famine, and violent attacks by Scottish raiders.

0:53:190:53:25

In the mid-14th century the plague scythed into Rievaulx's inhabitants,

0:53:250:53:31

and their model system never recovered.

0:53:310:53:34

By 1400, this mighty abbey,

0:53:350:53:39

which once housed over 600 members,

0:53:390:53:42

now had just 14 monks,

0:53:420:53:45

three lay brothers and one abbot.

0:53:450:53:48

And finances weren't the only problem.

0:53:500:53:53

Britain's vast monastery network

0:53:550:53:58

was starting to show other signs of decay.

0:53:580:54:01

The most worrying decline of all

0:54:010:54:03

affected not their buildings, but their morals.

0:54:030:54:07

BELL TOLLS

0:54:070:54:09

Throughout their history,

0:54:130:54:15

monasteries had been subject to inspections by senior churchmen.

0:54:150:54:19

In 1437, the officer assigned to visit the abbey here in Peterborough

0:54:190:54:24

was one Bishop Alnwick.

0:54:240:54:27

Peterborough was a thriving abbey,

0:54:280:54:30

whose west front was one of the glories of European architecture.

0:54:300:54:34

Unfortunately, its community of monks wasn't quite so exemplary,

0:54:370:54:43

as the report made by the visiting bishop shows.

0:54:430:54:47

Following his visit, Alnwick gave strict orders

0:54:490:54:52

on how the monastery was to be reformed.

0:54:520:54:55

These give a little window onto the sorts of things that were going on.

0:54:550:55:00

"None of the monks for any cause whatever

0:55:000:55:03

"shall drink or eat in the town of Peterborough,

0:55:030:55:06

"until the last day of March next to come,

0:55:060:55:09

"and that they dance not with any women in the same town

0:55:090:55:13

"or bring in any women within the monastery."

0:55:130:55:17

It seems that the monks were straying a little bit from the path.

0:55:170:55:22

Nine years later, Alnwick was back to make sure things had improved

0:55:280:55:32

at the Peterborough monastery.

0:55:320:55:35

But that isn't quite what had happened.

0:55:350:55:37

In the interim, the monks had been getting involved with

0:55:420:55:45

"so-called light women",

0:55:450:55:47

the sacristan had got mixed up with a local boy,

0:55:470:55:51

and the abbot, it was alleged, had three mistresses,

0:55:510:55:55

one of whom was strutting around town in a fur coat, quote,

0:55:550:56:00

"beyond her husband's estate."

0:56:000:56:03

When examined, it turned out that was the very fur coat

0:56:030:56:07

that the abbot's predecessor had left to the abbey in his will.

0:56:070:56:11

And, perhaps most interesting of all,

0:56:110:56:15

the abbot got off with nothing more than a warning.

0:56:150:56:18

Alnwick's toothless reports

0:56:230:56:25

had failed to correct the Peterborough monks.

0:56:250:56:28

And these sinners weren't alone.

0:56:300:56:31

Across the country, monastic morals were crumbling.

0:56:310:56:36

How had the monks, once hailed as the spiritual saviours

0:56:360:56:40

of the nation, come to this?

0:56:400:56:42

The truth was that, by the 15th century,

0:56:460:56:49

the medieval monastery had been transformed.

0:56:490:56:52

It had turned itself inside out,

0:56:530:56:57

becoming active in the world, while neglecting its own spiritual core.

0:56:570:57:02

As they became increasingly entangled with the world

0:57:020:57:06

outside the cloister,

0:57:060:57:08

many monks fell victim to its temptations.

0:57:080:57:11

Yet if this was the monasteries' fatal flaw,

0:57:110:57:14

the beneficiary had been medieval Britain itself.

0:57:140:57:18

Monasteries redrew the map,

0:57:200:57:22

as new towns clustered around their great abbeys.

0:57:220:57:26

They transformed the skyline

0:57:260:57:28

as their churches soared higher and higher.

0:57:280:57:31

They were a health service, an education system,

0:57:310:57:35

pioneers of technology, saviours of scholarship,

0:57:350:57:39

and the inspiration for the greatest art and music of their time.

0:57:390:57:44

Though in decline,

0:57:450:57:47

the monasteries still basked in the fading light of their golden age.

0:57:470:57:52

Their continuing domination of so many social spheres

0:57:520:57:56

made them feel invulnerable.

0:57:560:57:59

They couldn't see the cataclysm that lay just beyond the horizon.

0:57:590:58:04

The monasteries still believed they were too big to fail.

0:58:050:58:08

Monasteries had begun by rejecting the world,

0:58:110:58:14

but soon the world couldn't do without them.

0:58:140:58:17

It seemed like things would stay this way for ever.

0:58:170:58:21

Next time...

0:58:270:58:29

as many monasteries descend into extremes of decadence

0:58:290:58:33

and corruption, religious reforms and a rapacious monarch

0:58:330:58:38

conspire to bring about their brutal and systematic liquidation.

0:58:380:58:43

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