- Dr. Vess's Virtual Tours of Monasteries
My great love is monastic history and spirituality. Although I was "corrupted" by nuns at a fairly advanced age (I say this tongue-in-cheek, but often I wonder whether some of my Protestant relatives really think it true!), it took in a big way. Now they've got me. I think.
I've been very privileged in life to have visited some of the most well-known medieval monastic sites, and am pleased to be able to share these experiences with others through my virtual tours. I hope those who explore these sites can get a sense of the sacred nature of all of these places, and of the life of ora et labora the monks and nuns lived there.
In these tours, you will find not only living testaments to the beauty of monastic spirituality in the ruins of the monastic churches and grounds, but also evidence of some of the trials and tribulations of past ages. You will find traces of monastic involvement in the Hundred Years' War in the gatehouse at Battle Abbey, and of cultural conflict between the Irish and the Anglo-Normans at Mellifont Abbey in Ireland. These stories, as well as many others, remind us that monasteries were never completely separate from the world which surrounded them nor divorced from its pressing issues.
The Benedictine monastery is intended to model for the world the transformation of life through the vows of stability, obedience, and conversatio morum suorum. For St. Benedict of Nursia, the monastery was to be a "school for the Lord's service," a workshop where the "tools of the spiritual craft" can be developed (RB Prologue: 45; 4:75). The monastic life embodies the way of peace through the harmonization of prayer and work and of the soul with its maker and all of creation. The origin of the word "monastic" is from the Greek word monos, meaning "single" or "alone." Looked at from that point of view, we are all always in a monastery; we are all, in our deepest selves, alone with God. In that sense, all of our worlds, no matter where we are, can be for us and for others a monastery. It is only up to us to make them so.
I would like to dedicate all of these tours to the Benedictine Sisters of Mt. St. Scholastica, who taught me the ethos of the monastic life in a way books can never capture. I would especially like to thank Sister Therese Elias, O.S.B., with whom I traveled to many of these places and who made my trips there possible; Esther de Waal, UK, whose books have often inspired me and who also made my trips possible to many of these places; and Father Marcus Losack, of the Céile Dé organization in Ireland, whose spiritual guidance during my journeys to the Celtic lands will always hold a special place in my heart.
Come and share these special places with me through the pages below:
Virtual Tour of the Ruins of Fountains Abbey
Virtual Tour of Rievaulx Abbey
Celtic Monasticism: History and Spirituality
This is a very large discussion/tour, with several subchapters:
Virtual Tour of Lindisfarne Priory
Virtual Tour of Glendalough, Ireland.
Virtual Tour of the Hermitage of St. Finbarr, Ireland
Virtual Tour of Celtic Holy Wells
Virtual Tour of Irish High Crosses
Virtual Tour of St. David's and associated sites in Wales
Virtual Tour of Mellifont Abbey in Ireland
This Irish Cistercian abbey is interesting for the conflict between the Anglo-Normans and Irish that occurred there.
Virtual Tour of the Hermitage of Robert of Knaresborough
Virtual Tour of Kirkstall Abbey
Virtual Tour of St. Augustine's Peter and Paul church, later known as St. Augustine's Abbey
Discussion of Canterbury Cathedral Monastery and virtual tour of the Cathedral
Virtual Tour of Battle Abbey and the battlefield of the Battle of Hastings
Virtual Tour of the Monastery of Hosios Lukas in Greece
- with a brief discussion of Scholastica
Photo by Dr. Vess.
