The term conversi (lay brothers) occurs for the first time in Abbot Andrew of Strumi's Life of St. John, written at the beginning of the twelfth century. ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)
The Preachers were the first among religious orders to suppress manual labour, the necessary work of the interior of the house being relegated to lay brothers called conversi whose number was limited according to the needs of each convent. ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)
But, though the name conversi is first applied to religious of this kind in the life of St. John Gualbert, written by the Bl. Andrea ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)
The majority of St. Benedict's monks were not clerics, and all performed manual labour, the word conversi being used only to designate those who had received the habit late in life, to distinguish them from the oblati and nutriti. ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)
This annex served as domestic space, housed conversi (lay-brothers) and conversae (lay-sisters), and was the center of the monastery's economic network of rural land. 25 1840 drawing that reconstructs the layout of Unterlinden. ❋ Unknown (2008)
Amen dico vobis, nisi conversi fueritis, & efficiamini sicut parvuli, non intrabitis in regnum coelorum. ❋ Unknown (2005)
An unreasonable reserve, Cadfael had always felt, seeing that the child oblates were regarded as the perfect innocents, equivalent to the angels, while the conversi, those who came voluntarily and in maturity to the monastic life, were the fighting saints, those who had endured and mastered their imperfections. ❋ Peters, Ellis, 1913-1995 (1986)
But still the conversi were preferred for the responsible offices, perhaps as having experience of the deceits and complexities and temptations of the world around them. ❋ Peters, Ellis, 1913-1995 (1986)
These lay brothers, or conversi, though they were not monks, were to be treated during life and after death just like the monks themselves. ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)
A survey of the English houses was taken in 1256, when there were 77 choir nuns, 7 chaplains and 16 conversi at Amesbury, and 86 nuns at Nuneaton. ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)
They have been known, in various places and at various times, as fratres conversi, laici barbati, illiterati, or idiotæ, and, though members of their respective orders, are entirely distinct from the choir monks or brothers, who are devoted mainly to the opus Dei and to study. ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)
Benedictines, for instance at first carefully differentiated between conversi, commissi, and oblati; the nature of the vows and the forms of the habits were in each case specifically distinct. ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)
They were or two kinds: the fratres barbati or conversi, who took vows but were not claustral or enclosed monks, and the oblati, workmen or servants who voluntarily subjected themselves, whilst in the service of the monastery, to religious obedience and observance. ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)
In the eleventh century St. John Gualbert, founder of the Benedictine congregation known as the Vallisumbrosani, introduced for the first time a distinction between the fratres conversi, or lay brothers, and priests, or choir religious. ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)
But as time went on, and the conversi, or lay brothers, most of them quite illiterate, became distinct from the choir monks, it was felt that they also should be required to substitute some simple form of prayer in place of the psalms to which their more educated brethren were bound by rule. ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)
As a rule, the conversi wear a habit different from that of the choir religious; but the essential obligations of the vows and of the monastic life in general are alike for all. ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)
The renouncing of the world was known as the conversio a sæculo, which had as its object a reform or change of life, the conversio morum, hence conversi or the "converted". ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)
KAULEN in Kirchenlex., s.v. For the large share of these conversi, or lay brothers, in the development of medieval agriculture, monastic administration, etc. see HOFFMANN, Das Konverseninstitut des ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)
The conversi were thus distinguished from the oblati or those who, as children, were presented or offered (oblati) by their parents to the religious life and were placed in a monastery to receive proper religious instruction and to be educated in profane knowledge. ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)
Credimus, docemus et confitemur, concionem Legis non modo apud eos, qui fidem in Christum non habent, et poenitentiam nondum agunt, sed etiam apud eos, qui vere in Christum credunt, vere ad Deum conversi et renati, et per fidem justificati sunt, sedulo urgendam esse. ❋ Unknown (1889)
[Tiger Woods] was having too much [conversi] with women and thus got [caught]. ❋ Charlotte Arlow Barlow (2011)
