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Thursday, 21 May 2009

New home for nuns


Year 10 Historians, currently writing their Fountains Abbey coursework, might be interested to note this week's top monastery-related story. A group of nuns have moved to Yorkshire into a brand new purpose built eco-friendly monastery! It has solar panels, eco-friendly toilets and even broadband internet. But why Yorkshire? For the "beauty, peace and quiet", apparantly. What do you think the 13 monks who started Fountains would have thought about this 21st century version? How much have power, size, wealth and values of monasteries changed since medieval times?! Let me know your thoughts....

6 comments:

Jonathan P said...

I think that with environmentally good products, it means that they are living a more simple life, as they do not need to worry about gas bills and what not. This also means that they do not have to pay for them bills, so they can be more devoted to god. However, with having an internet connection, they are not being isolated, so they have changed in values. With the new abbey being built as the old abbey is too expensive, it shows that the abbey is poor, like the 13 monks who started the original FAB, so it is returning to original ways.

Andrew 10Y said...

I like the fact that the they are been environmentally friendly and are evolving into modern society unlike fountains abbey, but i dont agree with them having internet because I don't think that's isolation at all and fountains abbey who they probably look at for example wouldn't have had it, so why should they?

Anonymous said...

I think that the original 13 monks of Fountains Abbey might have thought that it was a good Abbey that will show its devotion to God by saving the Planet by using eco-friendly things but they might think that it is slightly modern against thier rules because if they have broadband interenet then they would not be as isolated as they would be is they didnt have it. They would be quite wealthy because of the eco-firnedly items which will save money and energy. Thier size would also increase as technology develops and more people would be attracted to the Abbey.
Seher x

Anonymous said...

I think the monks would not have been happy as the values were changing and the monastries were becoming more modern. The internet would not keep the monastry isolated which would be a change in values. The wealth of the monastry has increased as they can afford solar panels.

Ifrah

Anonymous said...

I think that monks back in fountains abbey time would have been quite schocked about this. they would have only wanted the best materials and objects in there monastries but these 21st century nuns have been eco friendly and would have recycled a lot of the things.
I think the power has centainly changed since then because now we no a whole lot more about god and other people have there own beiefs and everyone would repect that idea but back then they may get pressured into believing what everyone else thought.
I think the size would be a lot smaller because they would need a lot of room. They wouldn't have lay brother's dormitories ect.
I think there wealth would have gone down maybe because they have turned to a eco friendly method however, this could be because they are helping the environment. the would get as amny donations be as people has different views of religon.
Alice Ahir :)

Rickie 10X said...

its different from Fountain Abbey because they are livin in more luxury and had more of the essentials than the monks did.