Medieval England Monastery Charity

The England monasteries provided numerous kinds of charitable services in the medieval ages. These philanthropic activities mainly consist of medical help, education which not only met the social demands of that time, but also has laid a solid foundation for the development of the similar philanthropy of the secular society.This study shows that the medieval England monasteries have actively supplied the secular society with charitable services so as to fulfill the charitable tradition of Christ and the rules of Monasticism. However, the charitable behaviors created more opportunities of getting the monasteries more involved to the secular affairs, thus the monasteries were increasingly embraced the secular life, which opposed the purposes of Monasticism. With the decline and fall of the monastery system of medieval England during the process of religious reform, the charitable services provided disappeared generally.The introduction of this paper outlines the origin and early development of the England monasteries in medieval times, which emphasizes the importance of monasteries and their charitable services to the contemporary England.The first chapter centers on the evolution and change of the monastic charitable services and the reasons. The fact that the monasteries actively provided charitable services to the secular society has offered them more chances of involving with social affairs, which is in violation with the aim of monasticism and suffered much criticism from the secular society. Then the resources that contributed to the monastic charity were decreased because of the absence of religious enthusiasm of secular society and the overall decline of monastic movement. Finally, there came a stagnation and decline for the monastic philanthropy with the rules stipulated by the religion for the monastic secularization and general social transformation.The second chapter specifically introduces different kinds of charitable activities of the medieval England monasteries, from which we can figure out the panorama of the monasteries. Besides, this chapter supposes that the rich storage and generous donation because of the lofty fame enabled the monasteries to work on a wide range of charitable activities which are of great importance when we take the low social productivity of time into consideration.The third chapter expounds the thoughts that contributes to the philanthropic services provided by the monasteries, and then reflects the views of England monasteries on medicine, succor and education respectively. Additionally, this chapter explains that the Christianity has obtained the tradition of reliving poor people since its emergence, which helped this religion enjoy a wide popularity. This tradition of the England monasteries, which got further development by St Paul, several Popes, godfathers, religious thinkers, combined with the rules of monasticism formulated by St Benedict have offered the spiritual foundation for the charitable activities of England monasteries in the medieval ages.The fourth chapter summarizes the contribution and impact of the monastic charity to the medieval England society. This chapter holds that the monastic charity has made outstanding achievement from both perspectives of statistic meanings and secular feedbacks, and these charitable services have promoted the social transformation to some extent. The philanthropy of monasteries has laid a solid foundation for the emergence and development of the charitable institutions of the England future.