# Medieval name for the room a priest works in.



## SeverinR (Sep 21, 2016)

I can't believe I couldn't find it, I think I have heard it called something special, not just the priest's office.

What is the room the Priest's office called, where he works on sermons. Not when speaking or hearing confession.

If you have a link to parts of a Medieval church, post it so it's not this one lame question, and maybe someone else could benefit from it too.

I am trying to plot out a small castle, that use to be a monestary, turned into a Lord's castle.


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## CupofJoe (Sep 21, 2016)

A Presbytery?


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## skip.knox (Sep 21, 2016)

There are some crossover issues here. First, are you talking modern or medieval? Because functions change.

Most notably, medieval priests did not for the most part write sermons. They performed ceremonies, administered sacraments, etc. Early monasteries had no priests; monasteries are, after all, for lay people not the clergy. 

A castle rarely had a church, unless it was quite large. It would typically have a chapel. And English churches differed a bit from Italian, which differed from Polish, and so on.

Monasteries had a different layout than did churches, which in turn differed a bit from cathedrals. But anyway, some references
Glossary of Church Architecture
and for a monastery
The Plan of St. Gall
is famous and invaluable because it is contemporaneous

and this Wikipedia article
Cistercian architecture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 
reminds us that there was more to a monastery than just the religious architecture.


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## Jerseydevil (Sep 22, 2016)

A solar was the living space of any important person, so it would stand to reason that a priest would do his writing there, though as it was pointed out, priests of the era did not give sermons too often. That's more of a post -Reformation thing as far as my understanding goes. Also, the room of a monk in a monastery was called a cell. 

There are some other issues that are apparent to me. Please don't take this the wrong way, I just want to share my knowledge as much as I can.

A monastery is a place where monks live. It is somewhat secluded from the outside world, and was not designed for outsiders. There, monks can work and pray without interference or temptation from the outside world. A church is for use by locals of a village or city to worship, and was administered by a priest. Usually, the priest would not live in the church, but in a separate house called a rectory (more modern term) or a chapel house, and clergy house. A bishop would oversee a cathedral, which often had a large house for his use, which I have heard referred to as a palace, though I can't confirm this. 

Monasteries and castles are totally different things. A castle is a defensive structure that is usually located in a difficult patch of terrain, such as a hilltop, while a monastery would be place wherever it was convenient. A monastery is useless as a fortress, and would in no way be converted into any kind of defensible structure so the only way that a lord would build a castle there is to level all the buildings and build from scratch. The problem is that a castle on a flat piece of ground would be vulnerable, and would only be place at strategic locations. Here's a video about the parts of a castle. Compare this to the links from skip.knox above about monasteries. 
Names and terms of a medieval CASTLE's parts - YouTube

This may lead to another a problem, since a king simply cannot just give away land as it is Church property, and not subject to temporal authority (in theory at least. Conflicts over this erupted all the time. Ask Henry II and Thomas Beckett how that worked out). Seizing Church land and giving it to a lord is a great way to be excommunicated and depending on the era, the target of a Crusade. The Church might sell it's land, but I cannot remember any time that actually happened. 

Hope this helps.


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## Russ (Sep 22, 2016)

I must disagree with Jerseydevil on a couple of points.

Firstly, monasteries, depending on where they were located could make great fortresses and could be very defensible even into the modern age.

Just ask the allies about how easy it was to get past say...Monte Cassino?

Monte Cassino - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also there were many times throughout the middle ages when church lands were sold or traded in various deals.  

I am not convinced that monasteries had no priests either.  Abbots, the guys who ran the monasteries were generally ordained priests.  Somebody had to give the mass to all those really devout monks!  Depending on which order, many monks were ordained priest as well.

edit- Also IIRC (have not double checked) many monasteries in England became fortified or placed in defensible positions because they got tired of Vikings taking all their stuff...


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## Jerseydevil (Sep 22, 2016)

True enough. That's what happens when I respond to a post after work at 1 am. Sleep deprivation sucks.


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## skip.knox (Sep 22, 2016)

>I am not convinced that monasteries had no priests either.

Yep. That's why I said early monasteries. By the high Middle Ages it was common to ordain monks into the priesthood so they could administer the sacraments to the brothers. That's why it really depends on what time period one uses as the model. And what place. And, for that matter, which monastic order.


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## Russ (Sep 22, 2016)

skip.knox said:


> >I am not convinced that monasteries had no priests either.
> 
> Yep. That's why I said early monasteries. By the high Middle Ages it was common to ordain monks into the priesthood so they could administer the sacraments to the brothers. That's why it really depends on what time period one uses as the model. And what place. And, for that matter, which monastic order.



Yeah there is a lot of variability geographically and with orders.  But the rule of St Benedict talks about priests living in the monastery and as monks...and this is pretty darned early!


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## TheCatholicCrow (Sep 23, 2016)

The Sacristy - perhaps? 

Otherwise I would have to agree that a specific time and place is necessary. Architecture changed drastically from early monasticism to the High Middle Ages ...


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## Richard P Titus (Sep 23, 2016)

Sacristy is a good possibility.  It also occurred to me.  Must be due to former altar boy duty.

*sacÂ·risÂ·ty*  ˈsakrəstē/


noun: sacristy; plural noun: sacristies

a room in a church where a priest prepares for a service, and where vestments and other things used in worship are kept.


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## Trick (Sep 23, 2016)

I'll third 'sacristy' as the right word choice. Allowing for variation depending on timeframe, that is the word that most Catholics will associate with a priest preparing for mass and for the sermon (though he is just as likely to sit in his room or at his kitchen table to prepare a sermon, since it is not part of mass per se and requires no formal preparation).

For non-Catholics, the word choice is unlikely to matter unless a reader is somehow aware of this terminology in a scholarly sense.

EDIT: to add, this is incorrect:



Jerseydevil said:


> priests of the era did not give sermons too often. That's more of a post -Reformation thing as far as my understanding goes.



In fact (the below is stolen from Wikipedia) this is true:

"In the Middle Ages, the Catholic mass ritual included a sermon, delivered by the priests in Latin. Since the common people generally did not understand the language, beginning in the thirteenth century a "popular sermon" in vernacular was added to the mass. The popular sermon was delivered by friars of the mendicant orders, the Franciscans and Dominicans, on Sundays, Feast Days, all of Lent, sometimes during the Advent season, at funerals, at church dedications, and at universities. The institution persisted for three hundred years."

And the "persisted for three hundred years" is a bit misleading since it actually transitioned to a full sermon at almost every public mass, in the vernacular of course. 

Sermons are a big part of Catholic history, largely because of the Sermon on the Mount.


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## SeverinR (Oct 3, 2016)

I apologize for my doubts.
I should have known that people would answer more then my question, and thus make a simple question more beneficial to all who read it.

I won't be getting to deep into the religious side of the history of the castle, just didn't know what to call the head clergy's office.
Since it was European mythos Gods or possibly fantasy race gods, I was looking for "generic terms", that readers would recognize.  (Fantasy Gods would be Elven most likely and of my own creation.)

For the monastery I pictured the oriental monks high up mountains with dangerous paths to reach.  The castle is high on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  The castle has a church in it.

Thanks for all the information and expanding on it to make it worth everyone's attention not just the isolated question.


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## spectre (Oct 3, 2016)

A simple word used as a container but that can refer to a room is reliquary.


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