Blogtrotter

Who I Would Be in 1400 AD?

I found this quiz --- among over 35,000 timewasters-- at HelloQuizzy.com via Stephen McEvoy's blog "Book Reviews & More." I took similar ones last year on mythological figures and the like. No surprises here, I must admit.

THE MONK: You live a peaceful, quiet life. Very little danger comes your way and you live a long time. You are wise and modest, but also stagnant. You have little comfort, little food and have taken a vow of silence. But who needs chatter when just sitting in the cloister of your abbey with The Good Book makes you perfectly content.

Compared to other takers

* 18/100 You scored 18% on Cardinal, higher than 18% of your peers.
* 97/100 You scored 79% on Monk, higher than 97% of your peers.
* 20/100 You scored 38% on Lady, higher than 20% of your peers.
* 1/100 You scored 16% on Knight, higher than 1% of your peers.

As I was just reading a few minutes ago in preparation for a possible blog entry on Buddhism & Sexuality-- a much more complicated and conservative perspective than many tantra-peddling New Agers may assume from their pleasure palaces-- and thinking about how my wife regards my reclusive, "monkish" tendencies from some past life on an Irish island, I guess my fate's confirmed and my leanings supported.

Photo: Ellesmere MS of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: Monk & his Greyhound Smeared face of said cleric; surprisingly scarce-- only one readable image of this illustration on-line. Googling, images of the eponymous TV gumshoe, model Sophie Monk, Thelonious, and Buddhists immolated or intact all outnumber Christian manifestations, although the Halloween costumes annoy me since they mix friars' brown and rope cinctures into the Benedictine black, Carthusian white, or Trappist brown scapular with white robe proper habits.

Rant: And, for the umpteenth time (reading Lawrence Sutin's "All Is Change" I label him on my list as the most recent offender): Franciscans and Dominicans (and Augustinians, Carmelites, Servites, Minims, Mercedarians, and Trinitarians all deemed idealistically once upon a late medieval time as beggars or "mendicants") are not "monks." They are not confined to "just sitting in the cloister of your abbey"; they were founded to serve the urban communities in which they lived. This did lead, confusingly, to them living in "convents" often and later these tended to be called in rural areas-- as they regressed perhaps from reforms-- as "monasteries." Yes, a bit confusing, but scholars, journalists, and damned well everybody else discussing these "four greater" and "lesser orders" should know better.