It was only much later, in the 17th century, that reform movements within the Cistercian and Trappist communities came to see absolute silence as a valuable penance along with other austere, yet voluntary, deprivations. The most common time for silence was known as the 'Great Silence' which took place at night. Benedict merely prohibits conversation in certain areas of the monastery during certain hours of the day. Rather than the popularly imagined total ' Vows of Silence,' the Rule of St. Travelling Franciscan friars used finger alphabets, possibly as memory aids for preaching, and in Benedictine monasteries, signs representing words were used for limited communication when silence was required. The purposes for which these sign lexicons were used were varied.

Unlike deaf sign languages, they are better understood as forms of symbolic gestural communication rather than languages, and some writers have preferred to describe them as sign lexicons. Monastic sign languages have been used in Europe from at least the 10th century by Christian monks, and some, such as Cistercian and Trappist sign, are still in use today-not only in Europe, but also in Japan, China and the USA.

Cheyenne betson