Missions on the Northern and Eastern Frontiers, c. 700–1100

The notion of the monastic economy evokes two main questions: how did communities of men and women who chose to fulfill the ideal of cenobitic life cope with their economic necessities, and how did these communities interact with their environment (in the microeconomic sense) and with the structure and general economic trends of their time (in the macroeconomic sense)? Many scholars believe that monasteries had vibrant economic exchanges with their surroundings and played a significant role in the resurgence of trade in northwest Europe during the seventh to ninth centuries. According to Henning, who argued against this commonly held opinion, however, the goal of total autarky (which relates back to the original ideal of Benedict of Nursia (d. c. 540) of self-sufficiency) during the Carolingian period had a consistently negative effect on the mercantile economy.