Merovingian Monasticism: Voices of Dissent

Speculum 96, 3, 2021

Once upon a time, as Felice Lifshitz notes in her contribution to this terrific new handbook, monastic history "seemed to be simplicity itself": the sixth-century Rule of Saint Benedict quickly became the norm, then observance waned until the reforms of Cluny in the tenth century saved Benedictine life for another three centuries, and the rest of the story was really marginal (1:365). The new, far more complex vision she and others outline here fully acknowledges the diversity of monastic life, from the first stirrings of the ascetic movement in the late third century to the early decades of the sixteenth. Gone are the usual accounts of orders rising and declining, of monks and farming, monks and missions, monks and learning, monks and architecture-with an occasional appendix on "nuns." Instead we discover a world where consecrated female ascetics lead the way, hermits and recluses as well as lay brothers and sisters form an integral part of monastic life for centuries, while monastic liturgies are diverse and ever evolving. The resulting "polyphony of monasticisms," as editors Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin put it, aims to serve as "an inflection point" that will encourage future generations of scholars "not to be constrained by definitions, categories, and narratives" embedded in the conventional historiography of monastic orders (1:15). This massive project gathers the work of more than eighty authors divided into sixty-four chapters, for a total of more than 1,200 densely printed pages. Although limited to Western, Latin Christendom, it lends generous space to developments in the Near East and sources in Greek, Coptic, and Syriac, for instance in the remarkable chapter on "Re-Reading Monastic Traditions: Monks and Nuns, East and West, from the Origins to c. 750," by a team led by Anne-Marie Helvétius. It also devotes due attention to east-central Europe and southern Italy as areas of exchange with Eastern monasticism (Michel Kaplan's chapter on "The Economy of Byzantine Monasteries," though most valuable in its own right, seems somewhat out of place). Intended to cover the broadest possible range of monastic initiatives, the handbook includes the mendicants and such "lay religious" as beguines and tertiaries but not military orders-the latter's exclusion is left unexplained (see 1:7). The authors are drawn from eleven countries; for some, their work appears here for the first time in English. The editors summarize their mission thus: "Our approach has been to question any aspect of [the] traditional approach [to monastic history] that is not sound, to keep what is good, and to present the new questions and new answers that emerge" (1:4). Having dispatched "orders-based history" and abandoning all pretense to narrative comprehensiveness, the editors opted for a problem-based strategy: for each of the four periods considered (Origins to the Eighth Century; Carolingians to the Eleventh Century; The Long Twelfth Century; The Late Middle Ages), the handbook offers surveys of historiography and primary sources, followed by thematic chapters tracing particular research avenues. The contributors are an appealing mix of seasoned experts and up-and-coming scholars fresh from new projects. Curiously, it is often the former who seem to have relished the opportunity to clean the slate and start anew. I particularly enjoyed the clarity and acuity of David Brakke on heterodoxy and early monasticism, Albrecht Diem and Philip Rousseau on monastic rules, John Van Engen

Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, 2020

Monasticism, in all of its variations, was a feature of almost every landscape in the medieval West. So ubiquitous were religious women and men throughout the Middle Ages that all medievalists encounter monasticism in their intellectual worlds. While there is enormous interest in medieval monasticism among Anglophone scholars, language is often a barrier to accessing some of the most important and groundbreaking research emerging from Europe. The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West offers a comprehensive treatment of medieval monasticism, from Late Antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages. The essays, specially commissioned for this volume and written by an international team of scholars, with contributors from Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States, cover a range of topics and themes and represent the most up-to-date discoveries on this topic.

Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 2012

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 416 is a mid-fifteenth century manuscript containing a compilation of texts. It opens with part two of Peter Idley's Instructions to His Son, which draws upon John Lydgate's Fall of Princes. This is followed by Lydgate's Siege of Thebes, a text that has been called Lydgate's most political poem. 1 After the Siege comes Lydgate and Benet Burgh's Secrets of Old Philosophers, a text that purports to be a letter from Aristotle to Alexander the Great covering topics "from ethical and political advice, to prescriptions for diet and hygiene, to astrological lore." 2 Laud Misc. 416 additionally includes the universal history Cursor mundi and John Clifton's translation of Vegetius's treatise, De re militari. The final text in the manuscript is an imperfect version of Geoffrey Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls. 3 The works in Laud Misc. 416 thus comprise a fairly tidy thematic package; as David Lorenzo Boyd notes, the texts attend to "socio-political discourse" emphasizing common profit. 4 Who, though, was the audience for this compilation? The manuscript bears a scribal notation dated October 25, 1459, indicating that it was "Scriptus. .. per Iohannis Neuton." M. C. Seymour identifies the scribe as "the Benedictine Johannes Nuton, recorded at Battle from 1463 and later prior of the cell at Exeter" and indicates that the manuscript may have been "a household book of the Tiptoft family." 5 This suggestion is plausible, since a collection of texts concerned with sociopolitical discourse and the common profit would have been a logical addition to the library of this prosperous, politically well-connected family. John Tiptoft, first Baron Tiptoft (ca. 1378-1443), was speaker of the House of Commons in 1406 and participated in diplomatic activities at the Council of Constance. 6 His son John Tiptoft, first Earl of Worcester (1427-1470), during whose lifetime Laud Misc. 416 was produced, also held important political positions. He was treasurer of England from

Óenach Reviews, issue 6.1 (2014), 2014

Early Medieval Europe, 2008

I n the famous Life of Odo of Cluny, written by John of Salerno around 943, a long passage explains how, and especially why, Odo chose the monastery where he became monk : it was not simply a matter of finding a monastery that followed assiduously the Rule of Benedict of Nursia, but first and foremost one that had the right monastic customs (consuetudines). At the time, Odo was still a secular canon in Tours ; he had a companion with similar spiritual aspirations, a layman called Adhegrinus. I have marked by expanded spacing the words of particular significance for this article. For wherever they could hear of a monastery anywhere in France they either visited it themselves or sent investigators, but nowhere could they find a religious house in which they felt inclined to remain. At last Adhegrinus decided to go to Rome, and having started on his journey, he came into Burgundy, and to a certain village called Baume. In this place there was a monastery which had recently been restored by the abbot Berno. Adhegrinus turned aside there and was received by the abbot into the guesthouse most hospitably, as St Benedict laid down. And there for some time he chose to stay as a guest ; not that he wanted anything from the monks, but that he might get to know their way of life and the customs of the place (mores habitantium locique consuetudines). For those who dwelt in this place were the followers of a cer tain Eut icus (imitatores cujusdam patris Eutici), the excellence of whose life there is no need for me to relate in this book, though later on I have thought it well to recall the death he merited to die. This Euticus lived at the time of the great Emperor Louis, and was well-loved by him, as he was by all, for he was an attractive character. As a layman (laicus) he was learned in unusual studies (peregrinis studiis), but giving up all those things in which human weakness is accustomed to take pride, he devoted himself entirely to the rules and institutions of the holy Fathers (beatorum Patrum regulis et institutionibus) ; and from these author it ies he took var ious customs (consuetudines) and collected them in one volume. After a little time he became himself a monk, and he was so esteemed by the king that a monastery was built for him in the palace. When his life had run its course he gave up his spirit in the presence of the brethren […Here follows a miracle related to his death…]. This Euticus was the founder of the customs (institutor […] harum consuetudinum) which to this day are kept in our monaster ies. When the venerable Adhegrinus understood this, he sent word immediately to Odo, who, taking a hundred volumes from his library, went at once to the same monastery. " 1

Turnhout: Brepols (Disciplina Monastica, vol. 13), 2021

This book is published with open access: https://www.brepolsonline.net/action/showBook?doi=10.1484/M.DM-EB.5.120300 A history of the monastic pursuit of eternal salvation in the early medieval West, revolving around a seventh-century monastic rule for nuns, the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines ("Someone’s Rule for Virgins") The seventh-century Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines (Someone’s Rule for Virgins), which was most likely written by Jonas of Bobbio, the hagiographer of the Irish monk Columbanus, forms an ideal point of departure for writing a new history of the emergence of Western monasticism understood as a history of the individual and collective attempt to pursue eternal salvation. The book provides a critical edition and translation of the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines and a roadmap for such a new history revolving around various aspects of monastic discipline, such as the agency of the community, the role of enclosure, authority and obedience, space and boundaries, confession and penance, sleep and silence, excommunication and expulsion. Table of Contents Summary The book consists of two sections. The first is a critical edition and translation of the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines, a seventh-century Frankish monastic rule for nuns, along with the short treatise De accedendo ad Deum, which most likely formed a part of the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines. The second section is a study on the transformations and diversification of monastic theology, concepts of communal life and monastic discipline in the early medieval period. It revolves around the Regula cuisudam ad uirgines in its historical and intertextual context. The study is divided four parts that are related to the four key words of the title of the book (Community, Space, Discipline, and Salvation). Each part consists of a chapter that makes an argument about the place of the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines in intertextual contexts and a chapter that applies these arguments in a historical inquiry. Introduction Section I: Edition and Translation of the Regua cuiusdam ad uirgines Section II: Study Part I: Community revolves around the question to what extent the monastic community can serve as an agent of the collective and individual pursuit of salvation Chapter 1: Quidam pater – quaedam mater? The Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines and its author provides a survey of the monastic milieu in which the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines was written, discusses potential authors and stakeholders in the monastic foundation that may have been addressed by the Rule and shows on the basis of semantic and stylistic similarities and shared content and ideas that Jonas of Bobbio, the author of the Vita Columbani, is to be considered the author of the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines as well. Chapter 2: The dying nuns of Faremoutiers: the regula in action argues that Jonas of Bobbio’s description of the deaths of the nuns of Faremoutiers, which is a part of Book 2 of his Vita Columbani, and the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines represent the same monastic program, once presented as a "narrated rule", once as a normative text. The Faremoutiers episodes are closely modelled after Book 4 of the Dialogi of Gregory the Great and can be read as a critical response to Gregory’s eschatology and his notion of pursuing salvation by living a virtuous life. After having fleshed out the parallels and differences between the Dialogi and the Faremoutiers miracles, the chapter analyzes each episode of the Faremoutiers miracles, showing that Jonas wrote his monastic program in a highly sophisticated manner into stories describing the deaths occurring in the founding generation of nuns in Faremoutiers – deaths that were most likely still remembered by the primary audience of the Vita Columbani. Part II: Space discusses the role of space and boundaries for the monastic pursuit of salvation and explores the origins of the medieval cloister Chapter 3 The Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines, a supplement to Caesarius’ Rule for Nuns? compares the provisions of Caesarius of Arles’ Rule for Nuns with the Regula cuisudam ad uirgines and argues that Jonas wrote his Rule as an expansion and revision of Caesarius work: an "early medieval" update of a "late antique" monastic program, as it were. Chapter 4: Enclosure re-opened: Caesarius, Jonas, and the invention of sacred space discusses the evolution of Caesarius of Arles’ notion of enclosure as salvific instrument and then shows how Jonas of Bobbio tried to face the aporias of Caeasarius’ theology of enclosure by expanding it towards a system of total control of all physical, social and corporeal boundaries and the implementation of various enclosures. Part III: Discipline provides a historical survey of the evolution of various aspects of monastic discipline in early medieval monastic rules leading to the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines. Chapter 5: The Regula Benedicti in seventh-century Francia explores the role of the Regula Benedicti in Frankish monasticism in the aftermath of Columbanus and shows how Jonas used and revised the Regula Benedicti and refuted some of his main theological premises. Chapter 6: The Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines and its context describes the history of the topics addressed in each chapter of the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines and provides a detailed commentary to the Rule itself, showing how Jonas rewrote the Regula Benedicti. I discuss every chapter of the Rule but put a special emphasis on the following topics: abbatial authority, hierarchy, boundaries, love, confession, silence, work, sleep, excommunication, and family ties. Part IV: Salvation focusses on the short treatise De accedendo ad Deum which provides a unique theological rationale why monastic discipline enables monks and nuns to pray effectively and to attain eternal salvation. Chapter 7: De accedendo ad Deum – a lost chapter of the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines? shows that De accedendo was most likely a lost chapter of the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines and thus written by Jonas of Bobbio as well. Chapter 8: Prompto corde orandum: the theological program of De accedendo analyzes the theological argument that monastic discipline enable a nun or monk to approach God through prayer, which forms one of the most sophisticated early medieval responses to the challenge of the doctrine of prevenient grace and the "semi-Pelagian" debate. De accedendo essentially explains how the monastic pursuit of salvation works.

The Catholic Historical Review, 2001

Witchcraft and magic in Europe. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra, Brian P. Levack and Roy Porter. (The Athlone History of Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, .) Pp. xiij. London : Athlone Press, . £ (cloth), £. (paper).     ;     Witchcraft and magic in Europe. The twentieth century. By Willem de Ble! court, Ronald Hutton and Jean la Fontaine. (The Athlone History of Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, .) Pp. xiij. London : Athlone Press, . £ (cloth), £. (paper).     ;     Witchcraft, magic and superstition in England,-. By Frederick Valletta. Pp. xvij incl.  figs and  tables. Aldershot : Ashgate, . £..     JEH ()  ; DOI : .\S The first three books under review form part of the six-volume Athlone History of Witchcraft series, connecting the pagan societies of antiquity with the esoteric religions of modern Europe. Volume ii explores magical beliefs and practices in the Mediterranean, drawing on ancient literary, historical and philosophical texts, and more mundane social, legal and religious records. The discussion moves from cursing and the casting of spells, through to the sorcerers and necromancers of myth and Scripture, concluding with the place of magic in the mental world and its demonisation as Christianity came to dominate western thinking. As a whole, the book amply demonstrates the historical uses of witchcraft for entering past mentalities, but also the contemporary uses of witchcraft for marking boundaries of social and religious orthodoxy : to include and exclude, to unite and divide. In volume v, we are offered a summary of the interrelated reasons for the decline of witchcraft prosecutions in the eighteenth century : legal caution and scepticism ; changes in witch-beliefs ; broader religious shifts ; social and economic transformation. The becalming effects of the Enlightenment upon witch-hunting zeal are minimised here, and in the rest of the book the social and cultural trajectory of witchcraft appears far from linear. Although it disappeared as an indictable crime, witches were still feared and loathed in communities, and in more rarified circles conversation about their existence shaped many a political and philosophical discussion, as well as focusing ideals of polite conduct and manners. Finally, witchcraft proves its worth as a   extensive notes, substantial bibliography and detailed index will be of great use. In spite of a rushed style, in which long sentences struggle to enclose explanatory parentheses, and in spite of innumerable misprints, hinting at very careless editing, the book does provide, therefore, a useful summary of what has been said about some aspects of western ascetic practice down to the seventh century. The invitation to think again about where the central lines of history may have run is, however, sadly absent. C U  A P R Pseudo-Makarios. Reden und Briefe. Edited and translated by Klaus Fitschen. (Bibliothek der Griechischen Literatur, .) Pp. viij. Stuttgart : Hiersemann, . DM .     ;   JEH ()  ; DOI : .\SX This is a reliable German translation with introduction and brief notes, of what is usually known as Collection  of the Pseudo-Macarian homilies : sixty-four pieces, as edited by Bertholdt in the Berlin Corpus in . It is the most extensive collection and includes much in Collection  of fifty pieces, previously published in Migne PG xxxiv and by Doerries and others in Patristische Texte und Studien (). Though often called ' homilies ', the title ' Addresses and letters ' better describes their character and is rightly retained. The repetitions and rhythmic flow hint at the original setting in oral instruction. Warm, simple but not naı$ ve, devout and with negligible interest in doctrinal controversy, they make a welcome relief in theological literature and recall the student of church history to the continuing life of faith. They are the work of an anonymous fourth-century author ; their provenance is probably Syrian. They reflect the kind of devotion which in its rawer form is characteristic of the so-called Liber graduum and of the Messalian teaching condemned at the Council of Ephesus (). (The great Cyril of Alexandria, ever prudent, found nothing wrong with the Messalians except that they called themselves ' Messalians ' ; Gregory of Nyssa fifty years before had a soft spot for them and made use of the writings of ' Macarius '.) The teacher who addresses us from these pages is by intention a Catholic (like the author of the Liber graduum) whatever others might later say. He is worth listening to for his own sake. Perhaps the technical church historian will learn here something about the life of the period, but these pieces are not for such. It is good to have them here skilfully presented in full. Annotations and explanatory material are admirably lucid and concise.

Church History, 2003

For half-a-century Henry Chadwick has been contributing to our knowledge of early Christian history, covering an immensely wide range of subjects from Priscillian of Avila to Boethius, and Early Christianity and the classical tradition to Augustine of Hippo, to say nothing of his translations of Origen, Augustine and the Sentences of Sextus. It would be tempting to present the book under review as summing up a lifetime's scholarship, were it not that Chadwick's apparently inexhaustible energy may already have impelled him to the composition of yet another major work. Nevertheless, one may reasonably regard the present volume as a crowning, if not necessarily a final, achievement. The first thing which must strike any reader is the immense range and depth of the author's scholarship. He covers a period of six hundred years with no diminution of information, or easy generalisations. As the history proceeds and the evidence becomes more plentiful, so does the narrative. Particularly impressive are the descriptions of the theological complications in the issues of the Trinitarian and Christological controversies. Free from the prejudices which marked some scholars of an earlier generation, for whom Arians, Nestorians and Monophysites were heretics, and bad, Chadwick brings out the complex nature of the formulae to which the ordinary episcopal voter, with no particular theological expertise, was asked to agree at the various councils. It is no wonder that so many looked wistfully back to the first Nicene creed as one that needed no further elaboration, especially when, as Chadwick observers, ' in Christian history … the most passionate disputes have been, and were in the fourth century, between those who stood very close to one another. The issues were too often logomachies ' (p. 226). It is also salutary to be reminded that an orthodox hero like Athanasius 'had a blighted reputation for being a man of violence ' (p. 258) and that 'there have been few heretics who have not claimed the authority of scripture ' (p. 290). The style of the narrator is clear, enlivened by occasional colloquialisms and modern parallels. In the Diocletianic persecution, 'the see of Carthage turned out to be an exceedingly hot seat … Some bishops '' moonlighted '' with secular jobs ' (p. 149). It is startling to have St Cyprian's ecclesiology expressed in the form : ' The local church is a microcosm of the universal Church, the very spouse of Christ. She does not sleep around ' (p. 154), and to be told that Gregory the Great's ' most time-consuming duty was to be executive president of a large investment corporation ' (p. 661). There are copious references to original sources within the body of the text and (relatively rare) footnotes, indicating modern critical editions or discussions of debatable points. The long bibliography of modern secondary writings (pp. 698-713) makes clear the quantity and quality of work produced in the last fifty years. There has never been a better time to learn about early church history. Given the length of Chadwick's book and the thoroughness of his treatment, it is difficult to point to any particularly dominating themes. One already has been indicated : his fairness-he seeks to give every individual a hearing, and not to denounce those who, in the course of history, have been found to have chosen the wrong side. He does not push his own religious convictions: at the beginning of the book Jesus Christ is 'a charismatic prophet from Galilee ' (p.

The English Historical Review