The Rationale for Doomsday Chests

After the fall of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, much of what we consider "civilization" ceased to be. Literacy, medicine, science, agriculture, engineering, astronomy, governance, all went into decline or regression for the hundreds of years which we now call "The Dark Ages". During this period monasteries were practically the only repositories of scholarship and learning. One historian notes that monks were not only the best educated members of society, by far, but were often the only...