Book Review Wednesday

I know, I know its really Friday but I was so busy I wasn't able to get this written until today. So here it is. I'll try to do better next week. 

Life in a Medieval Cloister by Julie Kerr

I was really excited to read this book. I find this subject fascinating. To think the hold the church had at one time on the minds of man to the point where they could take your life if they chose is hard to fathom in this day and age.  When I read The Pillars of the Earth (a great book which I have reread several times and love, the sequel though, not so much), it had many parts that described what life may have been like in those cloistered grounds. But I wanted an accurate account of that life. What kind of people became monks or nuns? Was it mostly choice or was they driven by necessity or family? I wanted an account of the scandals that rocked the church and drove Martin Luther to break away and sparked the reformation. I was not expecting a book that didn’t delve too deeply into its subject and basically presented the monasteries and the monks and nuns who populated them the way they wanted to be viewed and not the way they were in reality.

There were many anecdotal stories taken from contemporary sources and they were told as if everything was factual, right down to demon possession to the hand of God reaching down to assist the brothers and sisters in their time of need. She discusses their foibles and follies as if every one of them were divinely inspired to join a monastery and when they slipped up it was only due to innocent human error. They were human but not quite. It was almost a fairy tale version of what this life was like in truth. These people were human. Just as prone to greed, vice, avarice, anger and lust as any of us. Putting on the robe or the habit does not erase that. And if all of the reports of what really went on in these places at the time are true, and I’m sure not all were and not all were corrupt, but it must have indeed been rampant as it became a cliché. The fat dissolute monk became an easy target for ridicule and mockery. Those for whom this life was not a calling but a stepping stone to wealth or influence or they were placed there under duress by their family must have been especially prone to slips or were just going through the motions.  For them, the monastery must have become a life sentence to be borne. I would of really liked to hear from those voices a little more.

The book was fairly interesting and I finished it, but almost only because it was so short at 194 pages. I’d of felt guilty for not getting to the end of this one.