Il lavoro manuale nelle esperienze monastiche (eremitiche e cenobitiche) del Mezzogiorno rurale (secc. VI-XI)

The essay analyzes the function of the manual work in the monastic life between the late antiquity and the Middle Ages in South of Italy. The manual activities, before of the advent of St. Benedict, are little known because of the scarcity of sources, but with the great age of Benedictine monasticism the question of work becomes of great importance. The first communities strictly follow the rules of the founder, but in the big southern abbeys (as Montecassino and San Vincenzo al Volturno) the main care concerns the management of large land estates. A new impetus to manual labor comes only with the arrival of the Cistercians. Instead, from the tenth century, the work done by the Italian-Greek monks is completely different: they are known for the large land reclamations, for the foundations of monasteries and villages, for the abilities of amanuenses and for the pictorial exercises.