What roles did monasteries serve in medieval society and how did they help in the spread of Christianity across western Europe?

Here are several roles of monasteries in spreading Christianity:

- Copying religious manuscripts

- Creating Religious Artworks

- Missionaries

Explanation:

- Copying religious manuscripts

Before the printing press were invented, people didn't have a good way to mass produce reading materials. Members of monasteries manually rewrite a lot of copy from the holy bible so a lot of people could have access to it.

- Creating Religious Artworks

They created many artworks that serve as either aesthetical purpose  (usually being placed on places like churches or museums) or story telling purpose (like some sort of pamphlets that contains some religious knowledge in it)

- Missionaries

They also often send the members of the monasteries to spread the word of gospel to other areas and directly teach the people there. Sometime, the missionaries could also be done by providing some sort of civil services for the poor.

the earth’s crust is broken into separate pieces called tectonic plates (fig. 7.14). recall that the crust is the solid, rocky, outer shell of the planet. it is composed of two distinctly different types of material: the less-dense continental crust and the more-dense oceanic crust. both types of crust rest atop solid, upper mantle material. the upper mantle, in turn, floats on a denser layer of lower mantle that is much like thick molten tar.

each tectonic plate is free-floating and can move independently. earthquakes and volcanoes are the direct result of the movement of tectonic plates at fault lines. the term fault is used to describe the boundary between tectonic plates. most of the earthquakes and volcanoes around the pacific ocean basin—a pattern known as the “ring of fire”—are due to the movement of tectonic plates in this region. other observable results of short-term plate movement include the gradual widening of the great rift lakes in eastern africa and the rising of the himalayan mountain range. the motion of plates can be described in four general patterns:

collision: when two continental plates are shoved together

subduction: when one plate plunges beneath another (fig. 7.15)

spreading: when two plates are pushed apart (fig. 7.15)

transform faulting: when two plates slide past each other (fig. 7.15)