Identifying monks in early medieval Britain and Ireland: a reflection on legal and economic aspects

The mundane existence of those labouring for the monastic commu- nity or provisioning it from their own plots of land is usually glossed over in narrative sources whose interests lie rather in the more edifying stories of monks praying, learning, instructing the laity and preaching the word of God. At best, narrative texts would mention peasant dependants incidentally, although we may also catch occasional glimpses of them in charters or normative sources, such as royal legislation, synodal acta, or works of ecclesiastical jurisprudence. But whichever sources we use, it is not always possible to tell apart peasant dependants from monks in the strict sense because the terminology is often ambiguous.