Medieval Monasteries and the Participation of Man

Medieval monasteries held a robust anthropology that emphasized the importance of humans having a relationship with the lower segments of the hierarchy, including the inanimate world and animals. This meant subduing and having dominion over them, not for destruction but to bring them into participation in the rational nature. By tillage and keeping, plants become part of our constructed world. Similarly, in the Eucharist, Catholics experience Christ's presence and take his nature. According to St. Thomas, in the original creation, animals would have obeyed Adam and Eve to participate in their prudence and reason, thus ordering the world.