Why men became monks in late medieval England

Summary

The monastic life held a powerful attraction for men in late medieval England. Such an assertion sits uneasily with the usual associations of later monastic history, the rising tide of public complaint and popular conflict which even inundated the precincts in 1327 and 1381, and the receding waterline of patronal support. Yet the customary focus on trouble at the frontier between convent and community tends to obscure the simple fact that throughout the period between the Black Death and the Break with Rome, successive generations of men continued to cross the battle-lines, pass into the precincts, enter the enclosure and make their solemn profession. In an age whose outlook is often characterised as increasingly secular and which certainly came to question the value of religious vows, in fact, the forms of clerical living in all their variety, the resilience of the monastic vocation is remarkable indeed.

A precise measure of recruitment to the principal monastic orders (Benedictines, Cluniacs, Cistercians and the Regular Canons), even to their largest, leading abbeys and priories, remains elusive. Where patterns of recruitment to the secular clergy can be focused with some clarity from episcopal records of ordination, which are well preserved (though far from complete) from the close of the thirteenth century, there is no corresponding class of document that can be counted upon to capture the passage of more-or-less every postulant into the monastic life.