I was browsing wikipedia and came across the entry about the Munkholm monastery in Trondheim, and that they frequently were so loud the townspeople had to complain. I could not find the original source for this, or really any information about what sort of daily interactions the monks had with the townspeople.
Basically I'm wondering how often the average monk went about town, would he have any sort of relationships with any townspeople, would the monastery be a power centre of any sort (in Trondheim they would be under the bishop of Nidaros if I'm not mistaken). It said the monastery in Trondheim owned land and a mill - would the monks work or oversee any of that on a day-to-day basis?
It doesn't have to be information about Trondheim or Norwegian monks, but I would like to focus on the 15th century as that's a time I find really fascinating for some reason.
I'm really just curious - this isn't an essay question or anything. Thank you in advance for any information.
In Empires of Food, Evan Faser and Andrew Rimas describe a Benedictine monastery as "a nucleus of industry and food production within an otherwise shiftless continent", and describe Benedictine monks as "noted businessmen". The monks would indeed have dedicated much of their energy to working the land and the mill, selling their surplus for money that would go to maintaining the monastery and feeding the poor.
As part of the book's thesis linking the rise and fall of civilizations to their ability to produce and distribute food, the authors argue that the monasteries were the "means and the mechanism" for the agricultural revolution of AD 900. In addition to establishing trade routes linking monasteries to each other, they invented the moldboard plow, which was both faster and more effective than the scratch plow - though it required a large team of animals, making it more useful to the rather wealthy monastery than to poor peasant farmers.
Speaking of which, the monks were hardly egalitarian about their work; the authors compare their relationship with local farmers to that of a modern agribusiness firm. For instance, they tended to seek a monopoly on milling rights from the king - forcing peasants to haul their grain to the monastery's water mill and pay the monks to grind it, when milling could easily be done by anyone with a quern. "The abbots were legal bullies with an arsenal of contracts and lawyers... there are many examples of abbots using gangs of thugs to coerce peasants into laying down their querns."
In addition to the moldboard plow, monks were responsible for the innovation of adding hops to beer, which helped to preserve it long enough to make long-distance transportation feasible, encouraging the development of trade networks, reviving the European food trade.
Of course, these are generalizations and may not apply to your particular monastery. Still, I hope you find this informative.