Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (447 page)

A monastery (from the Greek ‘to live alone’) is a more or less self-contained settlement constructed to house a community of monks or canons. The idea of a monastic lifestyle based around a religious community may have originated in prehistoric times, but finds its first expression in the Christian context in the eastern roman empire during the 4th century
ad
. Two types emerged, the
cenobitic monastery
where a groups of monks lived a communal life, presided over by an abbot, with a shared routine of worship, work, and meals, and the
eremitic monastery
where monks lived in isolation in separate cells but assembled each Saturday and Sunday for common worship and to obtain supplies for the following week. The eastern monastic tradition, centred on
BYZANTIUM
, was diverse, with no formal orders. As the influence of the church and the practice of monasticism moved westwards and northwards, however, specific orders began to develop alongside the early autonomous communities.
One of the earliest orders was that of the Benedictines, established by St Benedict towards the end of the 5th century
ad
, followed later by the Cluniacs in the 10th century, and the Carthusians and the Cistercians in the 11th century. In the early days monastic monks were generally lay people, with only sufficient priests amongst them to maintain the services to a proper level. Most priests were seculars, living in the world and working amongst ordinary people. Later, the proportion of priests in monasteries increased and a number of orders of canons appeared, including the Augustinians in the mid 11th century, the Premonstratensians in the early 12th century, and the Gilbertines in the mid 12th century. Another group of monasteries grew up around friars who although taking the triple vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience were mendicants who moved about the country using any house of their own order as a base. These included the Franciscans founded in ad 1210, the Dominicans founded in ad 1216, the Carmelites in the 1220s, and the Austin friars in the 1230s.
The physical arrangement of monasteries varied greatly through time and according to the needs of the communities who built and occupied them. Early examples tend to be small, with a church, domestic buildings usually arranged around a cloister, and a cemetery. Some later examples are extremely large and complicated structures involving not only the main monastic centre but various outlying farms and agricultural facilities (e.g. granges, coureries) that provided the wealth to maintain the community. By the high Middle Ages in Europe monasteries were some of the wealthiest and most landed institutions in existence.
Monasteries are known by a range of terms depending on the character of what they did and the religious order or rule under which they lived. Thus early monasteries may be associated with cathedrals, colleges, and minsters. Double houses include both men and women, often in different cloisters. Friaries were occupied by friars, abbeys were headed by abbots, priories by priors. Charterhouses were monasteries of the
CARTHUSIAN
order; preceptories were monasteries maintained by the military orders, the Knights Templars and the Knights Hospitallers; and hermitages and cells were small-scale monastic sites in the eremitic tradition.

 
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A consolidated block of monastic demense land, anything from 30ha to more than 2000ha in extent, and usually some distance away from the monastery that owns it. Granges were worked as estate farms more or less independently of the manorial system with its communal agriculture and servile labour. At the heart of the grange were farm buildings, paddocks, gardens, granaries, industrial areas and workshops, and a chapel. Granges were especially characteristic of the holdings of Cistercian abbeys, but the system was imitated by other orders including the Premonstratensians, Gilbertines, and some of the older-established orders such as the Benedictines and the Cluniacs. Some monastic granges had particular functions, for example as agrarian farms, sheep farms (bercaries), cattle ranches (vaccaries), horse studs, or industrial workings.

 
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Early Copper Age communities of upper Austria, the first people in the area to smelt local copper ores. Characterized by
PILE DWELLINGS
and for pottery decorated with white inlaid circles and stellar designs.

 
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A confederacy of nomadic tribes who gave their name to the steppe region of northern China—Mongolia. In the early 13th century
ad
, under their leader Chingis Khan , the Mongols conquered the north China Chin Dynasty. Later, under Chingis and his successors they also conquered the southern dynasty, the Sung, and united China under their own regime known to the Chinese as the Yüan Dynasty (ad 1278–1385). The Mongols also conqered central Asia, Persia, parts of Russia, and most of modern Turkey. They invaded Hungary and eastern Germany, but their advance was halted by news of the death of Chingis Khan . They were expelled from China by the founder of the
MING DYNASTY
, Chu Yüan-chang .

 
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See
CAHOKIA
.

 
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