![]() "Franciscan Monks in the Cloister of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli," by Jodocus Sebastiaen van den Abeele. He imagined that each of its planks, beams and compartments represented specific theological concepts or facts, and each area permitted infinite intellectual storage capacity like hard drive folders. Victor, who wrote a book about how to build a mental ark. To help first-year students study, she has taught them “medieval cognitive practices.” Kreiner borrowed one technique from French monk Hugo of St. You could only improve your relationship to it.” They knew you would never solve the problem permanently. “They realized they needed to try to do lots of different things simultaneously to thwart distraction. “Because they saw the mind as embedded in all these other systems, there was no single fix,” says Kreiner, who serves as associate dean of humanities. Many ran charities, organized festivals and offered counseling.ĭistraction, monks realized, was part of being human. Staying on task was often made more difficult because monasteries were often far from airtight. One monk even nailed a cucumber to the wall to deny himself the pleasure of eating it. Their remedies ranged from fasting and isolation to silence and sleeping standing up. in areas as far-flung as Ireland and Mesopotamia. To learn how monks sought to be more mindful, Kreiner studied holy men and women who lived from about 300 to 900 A.D. ![]() the result of humanity’s initial separation from God.” ![]() Worse, they feared distraction was “primordial. Some believed “demons deploy intrusive thoughts … custom-fit to their targets.” Others blamed their lack of will power. Jamie Kreiner graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder and, now, teaches history at the University of Georgia specializing in the early Middle Ages. ![]()
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