Lay brother

"In early Western monasticism, there was no distinction between lay and choir religious. 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 Abbey, Abbot William (d. 1091) gave a special rule to the fratres barbati and exteriores." Leslie Toke in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) writes that Nonetheless, he adds that they are "mentioned in the customaries of the Abbey of St. Augustine at Canterbury and the Abbey of St. Peter at Westminster". Craig Lescher notes the Gilbertines, the Order of Grandmont and the Cistercians as providing historical examples of revolts carried out by lay brothers. In 1965, the Second Vatican Council issued the document Perfectae Caritatis, which called upon all religious institutes to re-examine and renew their charism. As part of the subsequent reforms and experimentation, many of the distinctions between lay and choir religious in terms of dress and spiritual regime were abolished or mitigated. In many religious institutes, lay and choir religious wear the same habit. ==Life as a lay brother==

Lay brothers were found in many religious orders. Drawn from the working classes, they were pious and hardworking people, who though unable to achieve the education needed to receive holy orders, were still drawn to religious life and were able to contribute to the order through their skills. Some were skilled in artistic handicrafts, others functioned as administrators of the orders' material assets. In particular, the lay brothers of the Cistercians were skilled in agriculture, and have been credited for the tilling of fertile farmland. ==Lay sisters==

Lay sisters were found in most of the orders of women, and their origin, like that of the lay brothers, is to be found in the necessity of providing the choir nuns with more time for the Office and study, as well as creating the opportunity for the illiterate to join the religious life. They, too, wore a habit different from those of the choir sisters, and their required daily prayers consisted of prayers such as the Little Office or a certain number of Paters. The system of lay sisters seem to have appeared earlier than that of lay brothers, being first recorded in a ninth century hagiography of Saint Denis. In the early medieval period, there was also mention of lay brothers attached to convents of women and of lay sisters attached to monasteries. In both configurations, the two sexes were strictly kept separate, housed in distinct buildings. This arrangement, however, has since been long abolished. ==See also==