21. 22. 23. In the dark ages the untamed wilderness was a source of endless fear and fascination. Wild stories and superstition were rampant. As Europe's masses struggled to scrape by was one commodity that was never in short supply. Half of your children would have died before they reached adolescence. Most children lost one or both parents before they reached adulthood. But there was light to be found in the darkness and it most often shined from the local . They became some of the most important institutions in Europe. They were wealthy, centers of commerce, and centers of . This is where the action was. Most of the texts we have that came down to us came from the classical era came down to us preserved in manuscripts copied by Christian monks in the middle ages. Monks were the guardians of Europe's literary culture. By the there was virtually no one outside the ranks of the clergy who was still literate. A key figure in the development of the monastic lifestyle was who lived two centuries before Bede. He established his own chain of twelve new monasteries in Italy. He created a rigorous code of ethics called the . During the dark ages