Monasteries in the 500's
In the 500's the Church was larger than it had ever been before, gaining popularity in the Roman empire after Constantine made it legal and the highest religion. The enormous growth of the Chruch led to people questioning the methods the church used to grow to such great sizes.
People who wished to recieve higher honours in the Roman Empire and Constantine's leadership would often use Chirstianity as a means to an ends, rather than actually worshiping it. This lead to a 'Christian' government. The nobles in the Roman empire in that time were almost all Christian and so they were seen as having the will of God behind their actions. They could them claim, if they did something that the general population didn't want to happen, that God wanted it to happen. This lead to many people thinking that the Church was biased, when infact, it was the politicians that were biased. The Church then got an image of being biased and completely selfish.
People did not want to be seen as the same as the officials who were corrupting Christianity, so they chose to seperate themselves from the church by creating monasteries. Chosing to follow monastic life meant you had to leave the big cities and set up little colonies in small cities where they could worship your own way and control the way that your beliefs were portrayed. This was happening before Constantine's time, but was never as widely spread before Christianity was legalised and it became corrupt. If you were in a monastery you did not marry, and you were called a sacred virgin (female), a nun (female), a celibate priest (male), a eunuch (male) or a monk (male).
Many of the first monasteries were filled with women, but they were soon outnumbered by the men who chose this life. The Egyptian desert was a very popular place to set up a monastary, but they were spread all throughout the Roman Empire during Constantine's reign, as there were so many people flocking to the monasteries. In the monasteries the monks and nuns patiently copied books and ancient scrolls and scripts with knowledge about every topic, from history to medicine, by hand and, probably single-handedly, saved that knowledge from being lost during the middle ages.
People who wished to recieve higher honours in the Roman Empire and Constantine's leadership would often use Chirstianity as a means to an ends, rather than actually worshiping it. This lead to a 'Christian' government. The nobles in the Roman empire in that time were almost all Christian and so they were seen as having the will of God behind their actions. They could them claim, if they did something that the general population didn't want to happen, that God wanted it to happen. This lead to many people thinking that the Church was biased, when infact, it was the politicians that were biased. The Church then got an image of being biased and completely selfish.
People did not want to be seen as the same as the officials who were corrupting Christianity, so they chose to seperate themselves from the church by creating monasteries. Chosing to follow monastic life meant you had to leave the big cities and set up little colonies in small cities where they could worship your own way and control the way that your beliefs were portrayed. This was happening before Constantine's time, but was never as widely spread before Christianity was legalised and it became corrupt. If you were in a monastery you did not marry, and you were called a sacred virgin (female), a nun (female), a celibate priest (male), a eunuch (male) or a monk (male).
Many of the first monasteries were filled with women, but they were soon outnumbered by the men who chose this life. The Egyptian desert was a very popular place to set up a monastary, but they were spread all throughout the Roman Empire during Constantine's reign, as there were so many people flocking to the monasteries. In the monasteries the monks and nuns patiently copied books and ancient scrolls and scripts with knowledge about every topic, from history to medicine, by hand and, probably single-handedly, saved that knowledge from being lost during the middle ages.