A Moment's Respite, an Epoch of Rest:
The Monastery at Cesky Krumlov
Near the end of a long, wide-ranging trip to Eastern Europe, I found myself wandering the streets of Cesky Krumlov, in the Czech Republic.
I’d been traveling long enough that all the uniquenesses one observes in a new place had begun to blur together somewhat. And my legs were tired from climbing up and down steep medieval alleyways.
A perpetual fan of old European ecclesiastical architecture, I perked up when I saw signs that translated to the “Minorite Monastery at Cesky Krumlov.” Summer traveler: I had fond memories of finding cool respite in the silent, echoing depths of some ancient stone church.
So through a covered alley I went, and entered the Monastery Garden.
So through a covered alley I went, and entered the Monastery Garden.
I love monasteries – the idea of monasticism, really—with all the passion and gratitude of a secular humanist.
Preservers of culture, transcribers of language, islands of order amidst chaos and turbulence. As armies sweep across Europe, plague tides rise and recede, there are those monks, drawing animals in margins:
Preservers of culture, transcribers of language, islands of order amidst chaos and turbulence. As armies sweep across Europe, plague tides rise and recede, there are those monks, drawing animals in margins:
Tending their slow-growing herbs in well-ordered gardens:
Brewing their beer, fermenting their cheese, making their cognac, baking their bread.
As the Classical world slipped beneath the waves of such rough transfiguring seas, there was Benedict of Nursia, drafting up his rules for monastic life:
- Chapter 35 arranges for the service in the kitchen by all monks in turn.
- Chapters 36 and 37 address care of the sick, the old, and the young. They are to have certain dispensations from the strict Rule, chiefly in the matter of food.
- Chapter 38 prescribes reading aloud during meals, which duty is to be performed by those who can do so with edification to the rest. Hand signs are to be used for whatever may be wanted at meals, so that no voice interrupts the reading. The reader eats with the servers after the rest have finished, but he is allowed a little food beforehand in order to lessen the fatigue of reading.
- Chapters 39 and 40 regulate the quantity and quality of the food. Two meals a day are allowed, with two cooked dishes at each. Each monk is allowed a pound of bread and a half a pint of wine. The flesh of four-footed animals is prohibited except for the sick and the weak.
- Chapter 41 prescribes the hours of the meals, which vary with the time of year.
- Chapter 42 enjoins the reading an edifying book in the evening, and orders strict silence after Compline.
And of course I am grateful for the work they did in preserving the knowledge of the lost world, those classical texts – even ones that weren’t Christian and they may not have fully understood. That very act of preservation is a gesture of hope.
And God knows I’m grateful for the beers they brewed, the brandies they distilled, the cheeses they made.
But the greatest achievement of the monasteries?
Their embodiment of the idea that small patches of paradise could be created on this trouble swept earth: that God’s kingdom wasn’t just a starry and distant dream, but that it could be attained here.
And God knows I’m grateful for the beers they brewed, the brandies they distilled, the cheeses they made.
But the greatest achievement of the monasteries?
Their embodiment of the idea that small patches of paradise could be created on this trouble swept earth: that God’s kingdom wasn’t just a starry and distant dream, but that it could be attained here.
A plan, and artist's recreation of the monastic community at St. Gall, Switzerland. Never fully realized, it was an ideal for recreating God's plan on Earth.
In their rules, the layout of their self-sustaining compounds, in the ringing of bells calling the community to prayer at eight precise times a day:
Vigil
Matins
Lauds
Prime
Terce
Sext
Nones
Vespers
Compline
Matins
Lauds
Prime
Terce
Sext
Nones
Vespers
Compline
They preserved the very possibility of order.
A dream of security, quiet and generous industry.
Peace.
A dream of security, quiet and generous industry.
Peace.
With humor in the margins.
The day I visited the Minorite Monastery at Cesky Krumlov, I saw well-tended gardens:
Beehives:
Artisans, working in leather and iron (the little alley along one side of the monastery has been zoned by the city to support this artisanal work, with and workshops and store fronts for people working in traditional methods.
I bought a beautiful leather flask holder from a leather crafter:
And a set of iron cutlery from a broad-shouldered smith, who also designed fantastic guitars for heavy metal bands):
And a community of cats,
With one, observing Benedict’s precept that Monasteries be havens of hospitality, to feed them.
In a small amphitheater at the base of the garden, a group of people were being instructed in some kind of print making. Young mothers and their kids, an older couple, long-haired young people: heads bowed in concentration, carrying on the work of the Monastery.
A moment's respite, an epoch of rest.