Happy Valley 2016 | Page 8

Their monastery was divided in two parts. The choir monks, hermits, lived in the upper house. They were also called silent monks, because they spent most of their time praying and working in solitude and silence. They wrote and transcribed manuscripts, and cultivated a little garden in front of their cell. The lay brothers, unordained monks, lived in the lower house. They managed the supplies and animals, practised different crafts and grew food. They did all the hard graft so the monks weren't hungry.