University of Virginia Library

OPUS MANUUM

Chapters 41[106] and 48[107] of the Rule speak clearly of monks
working in the fields. But the fact that the first synod of
Aachen found it necessary to admonish the brothers not to
murmur, "if the necessity arises to help in gathering the
harvest or in other chores of this kind,"[108] implies that to
many, labor in the fields had become a task quite out of the
ordinary. The brothers' opus manuum, in fact was not
primarily work of this nature. Most of the regular and
heavy agricultural work was performed by serfs or coloni,
and the monks' manual labor was generally restricted to
tasks that could be performed within the cloisters or the
buildings directly connected with them: cooking, baking,
serving meals, sweeping the claustral buildings, and washing
and mending clothes. Those skilled in the arts and crafts
could spend the time allotted for manual labor in the nobler
pursuits of carving ivories, painting frescoes, illuminating
books, or making sacred vessels and ornaments.

It is likely that in addition to his regular chores, every
healthy monk, for part of his lifetime at least, participated
in the work of building and repairing the buildings in which
he worshiped and lived. At Fulda the number of hours
allocated to construction was so exorbitant that, as just
mentioned, the monks turned to the Emperor for redress.
They complained that the time given to building interfered
with their ancient rights to work "in the bakehouse,
the garden, the brewhouse, the kitchen, and the fields."[109]
The synod of 816 reaffirmed these rights, and prescribed
in addition that the monks wash their own clothes.[110]