For five hundred years after Patrick's arrival Ireland's experience of the church was almost entirely monastic. These monasteries had a profound effect on Irish society usually the largest urban settlements of the time grew up around them. The monks themselves lived in beehive shaped huts and often tookover the duties of the Druids who they subtley, and sometimes not so subtley, replaced.
Most medieval monasteries followed the rules of an Italian monk named St. Benedict(450-543 AD), though monasticism truly began with St. Anthony. He founded a monastery in Egypt in 305 AD. However he left little in the way of formal structure for monks to follow and so it is not until Benedict that monasteries begin to accept standard rules.
Benedict laid great stress on the monks' duty to be obedient to the abbot or head of the monastery. His rules were strict but he made sure his monks ate healthy food and got enough sleep.
Monks and monasteries played an important part in society in the middle ages. The monks provided education, hospital care and shelter for travellers. They also introduced great improvements in farming.
St. Benedict's rules were followed in most medieval monasteries but some monks believed that a stricter form of monastic rule was needed. Two very strick forms of orders were founded in the middle ages - the Carthusians and the Cistercians.
Carthusian monks lived in single cells. they ate alone and only met the rest of the monks at mass or on special religious occasions.
The Cistercian order was founded in 1098, by St. Robert of Molesums. The order was named after its first monastery in a place called Citeaux in eastern France.
After St. Bernard joined them in 1112, the order spread rapidly throughout Europe. These monks laid great stress on prayer, fasting, silence and manual labour. It is worth noting that the majority of monasteries set up in Ireland followed a more austere approach to monasticism. The majority of monastery ruins seen around Ireland belong to the 12th and 13th Centuries and were generally Cistercian.