Abbey
An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian or Buddhist monks and nuns.
The concept of the abbey has developed over many centuries from the early monastic ways of religious men and women where they would live isolated from the lay community about them. Religious life in an abbey may be monastic. An abbey may be the home of an enclosed religious order or may be open to visitors. The layout of the church and associated buildings of an abbey often follows a set plan determined by the founding religious order.
Abbeys are often self-sufficient while using any abundance of produce or skill to provide care to the poor and needy, refuge to the persecuted, or education to the young. Some abbeys offer accommodation to people who are seeking spiritual retreat. There are many famous abbeys across the Mediterranean Basin and Europe.
File:Saint Catherine Sinai.jpg|thumb|Abbey of St Catherine, Mount Sinai
Monastic origins of the abbey
The origins of abbeys are closely tied to the development of Christian monasticism, which began with individuals seeking spiritual fulfillment through asceticism and withdrawal from society. Similar monastic and ascetic traditions also exist in other religious traditions, including Hinduism, which has long supported organized forms of renunciation and monastic life.Ascetics and anchorites
Early Christian monastic life often centered around hermits or ascetics who lived in solitude to dedicate themselves to prayer, fasting, and contemplation. These individuals typically resided in simple huts or caves, sometimes near a village or in remote areas. Over time, followers gathered around these ascetics, drawn by their perceived holiness and spiritual insight, eventually forming small religious communities.Comparable developments occurred in ancient India, where Hinduism has long supported traditions of renunciation. Hindu ascetics, known as sannyasis, often withdrew from worldly life to live in forest hermitages or remote monasteries known as Mathas. These institutions served not only as places of solitude and meditation but also as centers of religious learning and community life.
In the Christian tradition, one of the earliest and most influential monastic figures was Anthony the Great, who around 312 AD retreated to the Thebaid desert in Egypt to escape persecution under Emperor Maximian. Anthony became renowned for his austere lifestyle and spiritual authority. His growing number of disciples eventually settled near him, building their own dwellings and forming one of the first organized monastic communities.
According to the church historian August Neander, Anthony inadvertently laid the foundation for coenobitic monasticism—a communal way of life in which monks live together under a shared rule. This model became the basis for the development of Christian abbeys and monastic institutions throughout Europe and the broader Christian world.
The emergence of communal religious life in both Christianity and Hinduism reflects a shared human inclination toward spiritual retreat and structured religious community, even though such institutions differ in form, theology, and purpose.
Laurae and Coenobia
At Tabennae on the Nile, in Upper Egypt, Saint Pachomius laid the foundations for the coenobitical life by arranging everything in an organized manner. He built several monasteries, each with about 1,600 separate cells laid out in lines. These cells formed an encampment where the monks slept and performed some of their manual tasks. There were nearby large halls such as the church, refectory, kitchen, infirmary, and guest house for the monk's common needs. An enclosure protecting all these buildings gave the settlement the appearance of a walled village. This layout, known as the laurae, became popular throughout Israel.As well as the "laurae", communities known as "caenobia" developed. These were monasteries where monks lived a common life together. The monks were not permitted to retire to the cells of a laurae before they had undergone a lengthy period of training. In time, this form of common life superseded that of the older laurae.
In the late 300s AD, Palladius visited the Egyptian monasteries. He described three hundred members of the coenobium of Panopolis. There were fifteen tailors, seven smiths, four carpenters, twelve camel-drivers and fifteen tanners. These people were divided into subgroups, each with its own "oeconomus". A chief steward was at the head of the monastery.
The produce of the monastery was brought to Alexandria for sale. The moneys raised were used to purchase stores for the monastery or were given away as charity. Twice in the year, the superiors of several coenobia met at the chief monastery, under the presidency of an "archimandrite" in order to make their reports. Chrysostom recorded the workings of a coenobia in the vicinity of Antioch in Syria. The monks lived in separate huts which formed a religious hamlet on the mountainside. They were subject to an abbot, and observed a common rule.
Great Lavra, Mount Athos
The layout of the monastic coenobium was influenced by a number of factors. These included a need for defence, economy of space, and convenience of access. The layout of buildings became compact and orderly. Larger buildings were erected and defence was provided by strong outside walls. Within the walls, the buildings were arranged around one or more open courts surrounded by cloisters. The usual arrangement for monasteries of the Eastern world is exemplified in the plan of the convent of the Great Lavra at Mount Athos.With reference to the diagram, right, the convent of the Great Lavra is enclosed within a strong and lofty blank stone wall. The area within the wall is between three and four acres. The longer side is about in length. There is only one entrance, which is located on the north side, defended by three iron doors. Near the entrance is a large tower, a constant feature in the monasteries of the Levant. There is a small postern gate at L.
The enceinte comprises two large open courts, surrounded with buildings connected with cloister galleries of wood or stone. The outer court, which is the larger by far, contains the granaries and storehouses, the kitchen and other offices connected with the refectory. Immediately adjacent to the gateway is a two-storied guest-house, entered from a cloister. The inner court is surrounded by a cloister from which one enters the monks' cells.
In the centre of this court stands the katholikon or conventual church, a square building with an apse of the cruciform domical Byzantine type, approached by a domed narthex. In front of the church stands a marble fountain, covered by a dome supported on columns.
Opening from the western side of the cloister, but actually standing in the outer court, is the refectory, a large cruciform building, about square, decorated within with frescoes of saints. At the upper end is a semicircular recess, similar to the triclinium of the Lateran Palace in Rome, in which is placed the seat of the hegumenos or abbot. This apartment is chiefly used as a meeting place, with the monks usually taking their meals in their separate cells.
Adoption of the Roman villa plan
Monasticism in the West began with the activities of Benedict of Nursia. Near Nursia, a town in Perugia, Italy, a first abbey was established at Monte Cassino. Between 520 and 700 AD, monasteries were built which were spacious and splendid. All the city states of Italy hosted a Benedictine convent as did the cities of England, France and Spain. By 1415 AD, the time of the Council of Constance, 15,070 Benedictine monasteries had been established.The early Benedictine monasteries, including the first at Monte Cassino, were constructed on the plan of the Roman villa. The layout of the Roman villa was quite consistent throughout the Roman Empire and where possible, the monks reused available villas in sound repair. This was done at Monte Cassino.
However, over time, changes to the common villa lay out occurred. The monks required buildings which suited their religious and day-to-day activities. No overriding specification was demanded of the monks but the similarity of their needs resulted in uniformity of design of abbeys across Europe. Eventually, the buildings of a Benedictine abbey were built in a uniform lay out, modified where necessary, to accommodate local circumstances.
Abbey of St Gall
The plan of the Abbey of Saint Gall in what is now Switzerland indicates the general arrangement of a Benedictine monastery of its day. According to the architect and architectural historian Robert Willis, the Abbey's layout is that of a town of individual houses with streets running between them. The abbey was planned in compliance with the Benedictine rule that, if possible, a monastery should be self-contained. For instance, there was a mill, a bakehouse, stables, and cattle stalls. In all, there were thirty-three separate structures; mostly one level wooden buildings.The Abbey church occupied the centre of a quadrangular area, about square. On the eastern side of the north transept of the church was the "scriptorium" or writing-room, with a library above.
The church and nearby buildings ranged about the cloister, a court about which there was a covered arcade which allowed sheltered movement between the buildings. The nave of the church was on the north boundary of the cloister.
On the east side of the cloister, on the ground floor, was the "pisalis" or "calefactory". This was a common room, warmed by flues beneath the floor. Above the common room was the dormitory. The dormitory opened onto the cloister and also onto the south transept of the church. This enabled the monks to attend nocturnal services. A passage at the other end of the dormitory lead to the "necessarium".
On the south side of the cloister was the refectory. The kitchen, at the west end of the refectory was accessed via an anteroom and a long passage. Nearby were the bake house, brew house and the sleeping-rooms of the servants. The upper story of the refectory was called the "vestiarium".
On the western side of the cloister was another two-story building with a cellar on the ground floor and the larder and store-room on the upper floor. Between this building and the church was a parlour for receiving visitors. One door of the parlour led to the cloisters and the other led to the outer part of the Abbey.
Against the outer wall of the church was a school and headmaster's house. The school consisted of a large schoolroom divided in the middle by a screen or partition, and surrounded by fourteen little rooms, the "dwellings of the scholars". The abbot's home was near the school.
To the north of the church and to the right of the main entrance to the Abbey, was a residence for distinguished guests. To the left of the main entrance was a building to house poor travellers and pilgrims. There was also a building to receive visiting monks. These "hospitia" had a large common room or refectory surrounded by bed rooms. Each hospitium had its own brewhouse and bakehouse, and the building for more prestigious travellers had a kitchen and storeroom, with bedrooms for the guests' servants and stables for their horses. The monks of the Abbey lived in a house built against the north wall of the church.
The whole of the southern and western areas of the Abbey were devoted to workshops, stables and farm-buildings including stables, ox-sheds, goatstables, piggeries, and sheep-folds, as well as the servants' and labourers' quarters.
In the eastern part of the Abbey there was a group of buildings representing in layout, two complete miniature monasteries. That is, each had a covered cloister surrounded by the usual buildings such as the church, the refectory, the dormitory and so on. A detached building belonging to each contained a bathroom and a kitchen.
One of the miniature complexes was called the "oblati". These were the buildings for the novices. The other complex was a hospital or infirmary for the care of sick monks. This infirmary complex included a physician's residence, a physic garden, a drug store, and a chamber for the critically ill. There was also a room for bloodletting and purging. The physic garden occupied the north east corner of the Abbey.
In the southernmost area of the abbey was the workshop containing utilities for shoemakers, saddlers, cutlers and grinders, trencher-makers, tanners, curriers, fullers, smiths and goldsmiths. The tradesmen's living quarters were at the rear of the workshop. Here, there were also farm buildings, a large granary and threshing-floor, mills, and malthouse. At the south-east corner of the Abbey were hen and duck houses, a poultry-yard, and the dwelling of the keeper. Nearby was the kitchen garden which complemented the physic garden and a cemetery orchard.
Every large monastery had priories. A priory was a smaller structure or entities which depended on the monastery. Some were small monasteries accommodating five or ten monks. Others were no more than a single building serving as residence or a farm offices. The outlying farming establishments belonging to the monastic foundations were known as "villae" or "granges". They were usually staffed by lay-brothers, sometimes under the supervision of a monk.