Does your D&D game need monasteries?

One major, but often-forgotten part of medieval history is the monastery; religious complexes inhabited by monks, who dedicated their lives to the worship of god, and the preservation and recording of spiritual knowledge.

Monasteries served several important roles in medieval Europe, roles which could be adapted to serve the needs of a D&D game.

Firstly, monasteries were incredibly wealthy. At their height, the greatest of monasteries owned more land, and had more income than, the strongest of secular lords; in no small part the result of centuries of religiously-motivated donations. More wealth was held in the form of holy relics - including the likes of thorns from the Crown of Thorns, fragments of the True Cross, vials of the blood of Christ, the bones of saints, and so on.

The potential for D&D is clear to see. Monasteries could recruit player characters to track down religious relics for them, which would, of course, found in dungeons and wild places. Less scrupulous players may wish instead to steal a monastery's relics (which may well be potent magical items), or buy them from a monastery that's fallen on hard times. 

A monastery's wealth could make it a target for attack. This happened most famously at Lindisfarne in 793, when England's finest monastery was raided by vikings, who killed many of the monks and carried off most anything of value. This continued through much of the early medieval period. On some ocassions, raiders even specifically targeted religious texts, which they would ransom off - for example, the Stockholm Codex Aureus, taken from Cantebury in and ransomed back in the late ninth century. 

Again, there's plenty of D&D potential here. The player characters could be hired to defend a monastery against raiders. Alternatively, they could be hired after the attack, to track down the raiders and take back what was looted. Or, of course, the player characters may play the role of the raiders themselves.

Moving away from material treasures, monasteries also held knowledge. Many of the historians of the medieval period were monks - Gildas, Bede, William of Malmesbury, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and so on. If your D&D game has sages - why not have them be monks?

In most D&D settings, religious figures also hold significant magical power. Your monasteries may well be full of high-level divine spellcasters, who the players may seek out if they need a curse removed, or a friend resurrected. 

There's also potential for some interesting characters to end up in monasteries, including former kings. King Sigeberht of East Anglia retired to a monastery in c. 634, for example, while another example (albeit outside of the medieval period) comes from Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. On top of this, it was fairly common for younger sons and daughters of monarchs to go into monastic life.

So there you have it - monasteries were historically centres of wealth, repositories of relics, centres of learning, and often hosts to former royals. This presents huge potential for inclusion in your D&D games, while adding something to your worlds that isn't often seen, but is deeply grounded in medieval history.