User:HeartofaDog/Monasteries guidelines

Hi - I am very glad that someone is interested in adding to the Danish articles. Thanks for the questions! I must make it clear that what follows is not an official guideline, although we need one: it's my own opinion/experience, based on a long time working on this sort of article. I'll aim to use this as the basis for a proper guideline later, but will concentrate for now on your specific points:


 * Can I use abbey, monastery, house interchangeably?


 * Are nunnery and convent interchangeable?


 * How are an abbot and a prior different?


 * Are the terms mother house and daughter house the best available to describe a relationship between monasteries?


 * Are there another terms for a monk's habit (clothing)?

Important general point: the following notes apply more to religious houses no longer in existence, ie, in the case of Denmark (as in England), pre-Reformation. There are more complicating factors to take into account when dealing with existing houses, especially when it comes to their names.

House / monastery / convent / nunnery

The main difficulty is that the several English words available mean almost the same thing, but not entirely; and that the popular meanings they have acquired are not always exactly the same as their technical meanings (and one of the problems on Wikipedia is that different editors try to insist on particular meanings for words which actually have several...)


 * The most general and neutral term is "religious house" (or simply "house", if the context makes it clear that it is referring to a religious house). "Community" is also a really useful and non-specific word, although obviously it refers to the people rather than the buildings.


 * "Monastery" means a community of monks (also canons regular), but not friars etc. In "popular" English it is used to refer only to men's houses, although in fact it can also be used perfectly correctly for a community of nuns (and several nuns' websites use it in that way); but it is probably easier on Wikipedia, for the sake of avoiding pointless arguments, to use it only for men's communities. The word "nunnery" is the female equivalent of a monastery, but there are complications with its use - see below.


 * "Convent" can mean any religious community with a rule, and applies to communities of either sex, although its "popular" English meaning is for religious houses of women. It is technically correct to use "convent" when describing a monastery, and the adjective "conventual" is the usual one when talking about the community itself (eg, the parts of a monastery's buildings that are for the use of the community themselves, as opposed to, for example, the church or the farms, are often called the "conventual buildings"). But again, for the sake of clarity and avoiding pointless discussions, it is in practice easier to limit the word "convent" to men's communities that are not monasteries, ie, houses of friars etc, and for houses of women whatever their order, including nuns, for which "convent" is now the usual word in English.


 * "Nunnery" is the female equivalent of "monastery", and in UK English is still commonly used as such without any irony, for historical buildings, pre-Reformation communities of nuns, or for later communities that have ceased to exist. Modern nuns however find the word old-fashioned or comical or both and don't describe themselves as "nunneries" - they generally use "monastery", "convent" or simply "house". In addition, a few Americans also object to "nunnery" as disrespectful, apparently because the word may have had a slang meaning of "brothel" in Shakespearean English, which is noted in some dictionaries.


 * In the UK it is still used in its original sense, as can be demonstrated from many respectable UK websites, in an historical context, for older buildings and communities; it's used regularly on Wikipedia for houses of nuns that don't exist any longer, and to describe their buildings, and there should be no problem using the word in that way. But in order to avoid causing offence to modern nuns, or getting stuck in time-wasting arguments with others, it seems to be easier not to use the word if discussing a current community of nuns.

'Summary':
 * religious house / house / community - can be used for anything (to state the obvious, "house" refers to the buildings, "community" to the people)
 * monastery - best used only for communities / houses of monks or canons regular
 * convent - best used only for (a) communities / houses of women and (b) men's communities / houses that are not monasteries (friars, etc)
 * nunnery - best not used for existing communities; fine to use for nuns' communities thta no longer exist, or their buildings

Abbot/abbey; Prior/priory

This is a parallel way of classifying/naming religious houses. Most if not all Roman Catholic religious communities (and in fact Protestant ones too) were/are headed by either an abbot or a prior (for women's communities, abbess or prioress). (I've put together here a partial table showing which orders have which ones - not all have abbots). A point to bear in mind, however, is that an abbot would have a prior as a subordinate (or more than one, in a very large abbey), so abbeys have both abbots and priors. (In connection with European religious houses, "provost" is generally the same as "prior", which is the usual word).

(For more detailed information on abbots and priors (and the different types of priors) and the differences between them, see the Catholic Encyclopedia articles - the Wikipedia articles are basically the CathEnc articles plus a lot of messing about, so the CathEnc versions are more reliable).

A religious house, depending on who is its superior, is thus either an abbey or a priory, as well as being also a monastery or nunnery or convent. This is important because in English this is what determines their names: the English language convention for naming religious houses is to use the location + Abbey or Priory, as appropriate: eg, Westminster Abbey, Nostell Priory. (There are some exceptions to this, but this is the conventional format in the absence of any indication that something else is in use. Where there is more than one monastery in a single place, more is needed - the dedication is often used in such cases: eg, St. Matthias' Abbey, Trier / St. Maximin's Abbey, Trier).

Most European languages have a single word - "kloster", for example - which not only means "monastery" (religious house, convent etc) but is also used to form names: eg, "Børglum kloster" is the "kloster" at Børglum. This is not so in English. But sometimes on Wikipedia literal translation has produced articles on "X monastery". This is incorrect in English for Roman Catholic houses, for which the names should generally be formed using Abbey, Priory etc (but NB, it is different with modern ones, especially in the US, which can call themselves whatever they want; and with Orthodox and Buddhist monasteries).

There are still several issues to be resolved about the best way to translate non-English names of religious houses for Wikipedia, especially with current communities. I'll add some more notes here shortly if you are interested - again, these will be my opinion only, not official guidelines.

Friary / Charterhouse / Carmel etc

Everything not an abbey is a priory - cf for example the List of abbeys and priories in Wales, which for this reason is correctly named. There were/are many more priories than abbeys, however, and some types have alternatives. Franciscan houses (for men, not for women) can be referred to as "friaries", Carthusian monasteries as "charterhouses", and modern Carmelite houses (but not the old ones) as "Carmels" (see table). These are valid alternatives if you get tired of everything being a priory. However, their main advantage is that they are more informative: it's clear immediately that, eg, "Buxheim Charterhouse" is Carthusian, whereas "Buxheim Priory" could be anything.

Are the terms mother house and daughter house the best available to describe a relationship between monasteries?

They're the correct terms for Cistercians, Trappists and Premonstratensians, where there was/is a clear hierarchy and reporting structure based on who founded whom when. Cluny was the mother house for all Cluniac monasteries. I'm not sure if there is any particular need, as such, to apply "mother-daughter" to the Benedictines - they didn't have (until relatively recently) the same sort of centralised organisational structure, but there was obviously a relationship between a founding abbey and its foundations. As a metaphor it's difficult to see anyway why anyone would object to it. Not really applicable for other orders, however.

Are there other terms for a monk's habit (clothing)? "Habit" is the best - and only - one I know! For the individual items - cowl, scapular, etc - the Catholic Encyclopedia is still OK, as long as you're not dealing with current practice.

I hope that is of some use - I'm happy to discuss at length if required - don't hesiatte to ask! Regards, HeartofaDog (talk) 22:56, 1 June 2008 (UTC)