Practice question · Multiple choice
The Rule of St Benedict requires a monk to remain in one house for life. Why did that requirement matter so much for the transmission of texts?
Hints
- Ask what a wandering holy man can and cannot own.
- Libraries are built by institutions that persist, not by individuals who move.
Show the answer
C. A community that cannot disperse accumulates land, books and archives across generations
Why
Stability converts a gathering into an institution with a memory. Endowments can be given to a house that will still exist in fifty years; a scriptorium takes decades to build and a library longer. By the ninth century most systematic copying in the Latin West happened in monasteries, and the classical texts we have came through them.
Practise Christianity, the Church and Spirituality, East and West
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More questions on Christianity, the Church and Spirituality, East and West
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