Norman monasticism and learning

Why did the Normans build so many monasteries?

Before 1066, England already had an active monastic tradition — houses like Glastonbury, Canterbury, and Winchester had been centres of English Christianity for centuries. But the Normans brought a new intensity to monastery-building. By 1150, the number of monastic houses in England had roughly doubled. Why did the Norman aristocracy invest so heavily in what we might call, uncharitably, the infrastructure of prayer?

The answer had several dimensions — all intertwined:

Piety. The Norman aristocracy were genuinely religious by the standards of their age. They believed that monastic communities, by praying continuously, could intercede with God on behalf of their founders and benefactors — including the dead. Founding a monastery was, in theological terms, making a permanent investment in your soul's future. You and your descendants would be prayed for in perpetuity.

Prestige. A monastery founded by your family announced your wealth, power, and Christian virtue. It was visible, permanent, and impressive. The Cluniac priory at Castle Acre in Norfolk, the Benedictine abbey at Battle (founded by William himself to give thanks for Hastings), and dozens of other houses announced their founders' importance as clearly as any castle.

Legitimacy. William had a political incentive to demonstrate his piety. His conquest had required papal blessing, partly on the promise that he would reform English Christianity. A massive building programme of abbeys and monasteries demonstrated that he was keeping his word.

What monastic life looked like

Monasteries in Norman England followed the Rule of Saint Benedict — the sixth-century code that governed how Benedictine monks organised their lives. The day was structured around eight services (the Divine Office or Opus Dei — "the work of God"), beginning before dawn with Matins and ending with Compline at night. Between services, monks engaged in:

Manual labour: farming, maintaining buildings, brewing, and managing the monastery's estates. Large monasteries were effectively agricultural businesses.

Lectio divina: prayerful reading — monks spent several hours daily reading scripture, commentaries, and theological texts.

Study and copying: monasteries contained scriptoria — rooms where monks copied manuscripts by hand. Before printing, this was how knowledge was preserved and transmitted. Every book in circulation had been copied by hand, usually by monks.

Charity: monasteries ran hospitals for the sick (the infirmary), provided food for the poor at the gate (almonry), and offered accommodation to travellers (guest house or hospitium).

The Norman reforms of monastic life

The Normans brought a reform agenda to English monasticism, just as Lanfranc had reformed the secular Church. The English monastic tradition, centred on the Benedictine rule, was respected — but the Normans pushed for closer adherence to the rule and stricter discipline.

Monastic leadership changed. Most Anglo-Saxon abbots were replaced by Norman or Continental appointees. Lanfranc himself was formerly Prior of Bec, and he used his influence to introduce the customs of Bec — a particularly strict interpretation of the Benedictine rule — to Canterbury.

New orders arrived. The Normans introduced monastic orders that had not previously been present in England, most notably the Cluniacs — a reformed branch of Benedictines centred on the great monastery of Cluny in Burgundy. Cluniac houses placed even greater emphasis on the liturgy, spending more hours in formal worship than standard Benedictine houses. The first Cluniac house in England, Lewes Priory in Sussex, was founded in 1077 by William de Warenne.

Learning and education in Norman England

The monasteries were the primary educational institutions of the eleventh century. There were two types of monastic school:

The oblate school trained children who had been given to the monastery (often from a young age) to become monks themselves. They learned Latin, music (for singing the liturgy), scripture, and religious texts.

The external school (not all monasteries had one) taught the sons of the nobility and gentry — laypeople who needed literacy for administration, legal records, or the Church.

Latin was the language of learning — of scripture, theology, law, medicine, and classical literature. An educated person in Norman England read and wrote Latin. The great works of ancient Rome and Greece, filtered through Christian scholarship, were available in the monastery libraries.

Old English survived as a literary language into the Norman period — the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for example, continued to be written in Old English at Peterborough until 1154. But gradually, Latin displaced it in official contexts, while Norman French dominated the secular elite. Most ordinary people were entirely illiterate — reading and writing were specialist skills, not common ones.

Anselm of Bec and theological learning

Anselm of Canterbury (c1033–1109) represents the intellectual heights of Norman monastic scholarship. Originally from Aosta (in what is now Italy), he became Prior, then Abbot, of the monastery at Bec in Normandy — where he produced some of the most significant theological works of the medieval period. His Proslogion (c1077) contains the ontological argument for the existence of God — a philosophical proof that has been debated by philosophers ever since.

William II appointed him Archbishop of Canterbury in 1093 (reluctantly — Anselm was not the tractable churchman William had hoped for). As Archbishop, Anselm clashed with both William II and Henry I over the Investiture Controversy and was twice forced into exile.

Anselm's career shows how the Norman world was genuinely international: a man born in northern Italy, trained in Normandy, became the leader of the English Church. The Conquest had plugged England into a wider European intellectual network.

Revision checklist

Before moving on, make sure you can answer:

1. Why did the Norman aristocracy found so many monasteries after 1066? Give at least three reasons.
2. What was the Rule of Saint Benedict? How did it structure monastic life?
3. What was a scriptorium? Why were scriptoria important for the survival of knowledge?
4. What charitable and social functions did monasteries perform?
5. What changes did the Normans make to English monasticism? Name one new monastic order they introduced.
6. What was the difference between Latin, Old English, and Norman French in terms of who used them?
7. Why were monasteries the primary educational institutions of Norman England?
8. Who was Anselm of Canterbury, and why is his career significant for understanding Norman England's intellectual life?

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Article slug: gcse-history-norman-england-monasticism-and-learning

Title: Why the Normans built monasteries — and what they put inside them

Norman monasteries were not just places of prayer: they were acts of political legitimacy, centres of learning, and some of the most ambitious building projects of the age. Battle Abbey, built on the site of Hastings, was William's act of penance — and a permanent statement in stone about who won in 1066. This page covers the Benedictine Rule, monastic life, and the scholarship that flourished under Norman patronage.