The
monastery was the common dwelling-place: the convent was the society
of persons inhabiting it; and the ordinary formula used when a body
of monks or nuns execute any corporate act--such as buying or selling
land--by any legal instrument is, "The Prior and Convent of the
Monastery of the Holy Trinity at Norwich;" "the Abbot and Convent of
the Monastery of St. Peter's, Westminster;" "the Abbess and Convent
of the Monastery of St. Mary and St. Bernard at Lacock," and so on.
Bearing in mind, then, that the term convent has to do with a
corporation of men or women united into an organized society, and
that the term monastery can strictly be applied only to the
buildings--the _domus_, in which that society has its home--it
will be well at starting that we should endeavour to gain some notion
of the general plan of these buildings first, and when we have done
that that we should proceed to deal next with the constitution of the
society itself and the daily routine of conventual life.
A monastery in theory then was, as it was called, a Religious House.
It was supposed to be the home of people whose lives were passed in
the worship of God, and in taking care of their own souls, and making
themselves fit for a better world than this hereafter. As for this
world, it was lying in wickedness; if men remained in this wicked
world they would most certainly become contaminated by all its
pollutions; the only chance of ever attaining to holiness lay in a
man or woman's turning his back upon the world and running away from
it.
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