Daily Life in the Great Monasteries of the Rhineland, 800-1200 | Calm Bedtime History

It is the year 850, in the Benedictine abbey of Lorsch on the Bergstrasse. A monk rises in the darkness before dawn, his breath visible in the unheated cell. The bell for Matins will sound soon, summoning him to the church of St. Nazarius, founded eighty-six years earlier in the time of Charlemagne. The day ahead will unfold according to the Rule of St. Benedict, measured in seven canonical hours, from this darkness until the Great Silence falls after Compline.