Meteora Monastery in Greece
"Cosmo" lived a life in this Monastery and gives us a glimpse of his life in those times..
As head of the group he was responsible for organising the meals, gardening, domestic duties and prayers
They grew their vegetables on the flat land below the mountain and was the job of the younger ones to bring them up at harvest time. The herbs were grown on the top and although the air was very thin they got used to it and was a natural way of living for them.
They kept domestic animals and donkeys inside a stone wall enclosure at the bottom of the mountains to protect them from the wild animals. All the waste water was sent down to the animals below.
They had techniques of preserving food and made clothing from the pelts of the animals. Everyone had a job to do and depended on each other or the whole system would have shut down.
There were 100 monks living there permanently but they could quite easily sleep 300. Men only of course but they did get women visitors from time to time.
When they travelled abroad they did so by donkey which was slow and very tiring. They spread out into many countries teaching and building abbeys in England, Belgium, Germany, Holland, France Ireland and Scotland in conjunction with the Knights Templars.
Amazing what a lot of hands can do
They taught Art, reading of books, furniture making, building skills and engineering for roads.
Modern man thinks the Romans built the roads whereas it was the Monks that taught them how to build roads. They also taught them how to build tunnels to get water supplies and used bullocks to pull the carts. They also oversaw the building of the big viaducts they called chutes to carry water which was well before the time of Frances of Assisi which was around 1181 – 1226.
The Monks had the time and mathematical, engineering and building skills to create these things. Cosmo managed a lot of these projects and others were in charge of the creative organising to bring all the ideas together to create plans of what was going to be done.
Even in their time they had warm water by building shallow troughs and lining them with stones. They controlled the flow of the water and the Sun heated the rocks and in turn warmed the water. Similarly a lot of pools were made with provision for troughs around them in which they had fires to heat them which could cater for 20 - 30 people at a time.
This is a knowledge not known to modern man.
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