Lay Brother - History

History

Although religious life began with communities of desert hermits and monks in which none of the members were ordained, over time the Church began to blend monastic life with the ordained ministry. Within this context, a rigid hierarchy eventually emerged in which the lay brothers were restricted to ancillary roles, manual labor, and other secular affairs of a monastery or friary. In contrast, the choir monks (priests and seminarians) of the same monastery attended to the Liturgy of the Hours, or Opus Dei ("The Work of God"), sacramental ministry, celebration of the liturgy, and formal studies. The term is also used of those who are Brothers in those religious congregations which have been established since the Reformation. While taking vows particular to their religious community they have not been ordained by a bishop as deacon or priest. In this regard they are considered "lay religious," where "lay" simply means "non-clerical."

No such distinction existed in early Western monasticism. The majority of St. Benedict's monks were not clerics, and all performed manual labour, the word conversi being used only to designate those who had received the habit late in life, to distinguish them from the oblati and nutriti. But, by the beginning of the 11th century, the time devoted to study had greatly increased, thus a larger proportion of the monks were in Holy Orders, even though great numbers of illiterate persons had embraced the religious life. At the same time, it was found necessary to regulate the position of the famuli, the hired servants of the monastery, and to include some of these in the monastic family. So in Italy the lay Brothers were instituted; and we find similar attempts at organization at the Abbey of St. Benignus at Dijon, under William of Dijon (d. 1031) and Richard of Verdun (d. 1046), while at Hirschau, Abbot William (d. 1091) gave a special rule to the fratres barbati and exteriores.

At Cluny the manual work was relegated mostly to paid servants, but the Carthusians, the Cistercians, the Order of Grandmont, and most subsequent religious orders possessed lay Brothers, to whom they committed their secular cares. At Grandmont, indeed, the complete control of the order's property by the lay brothers led to serious disturbances, and finally to the ruin of the order; but the wiser regulations of the Cistercians provided against this danger and have formed the model for the later orders. In England, the "Black Monks" (Benedictines) were reported by some writers to have made but slight use of lay brothers, finding the service of paid attendants more convenient. Thus Father Taunton asserted that, "in those days in English Benedictine monasteries there were no lay brothers." On the contrary, however, they are mentioned in the customaries of the Abbey of St. Augustine at Canterbury and the Abbey of St. Peter at Westminster.