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‘The surest road to heaven’: ascetic spiritualities in English post-conquest religious life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Derek Baker
Derek Baker*
Affiliation:
university of Edinburgh
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Extract

That the changes which occurred in the conduct of the regular and ascetic life in the eleventh century were deep seated has long been accepted, and their dependence on a fundamental reappraisal of the principles and practice of that life is clearly demonstrated by contemporaries. This ‘crisis’, as it has become normal to term it, was characterised by a rejection of the world and worldly values. In a general social context it can be seen in ‘gregorian’ ideas and attitudes on the relations between church and state, on the status and attributes of the clergy, and on the position and authority of the popes as individuals and the papacy as an institution. In the context of the regular life it is evident in a rejection of the formal round and ritual over-elaboration of monastic observance, and in an abhorrence of die complex inter-relationship and inter-dependence of monastic communities and the secular society in which diey were set. When the papal legate Hugh, archbishop of Lyons, wrote to Robert of Molesme accepting and authorising the abbot’s proposed initiative he indicated where the issues and problems lay

you and your sons, brethren of the community of Molesme, appeared before us at Lyons and pledged yourselves to follow from now on more strictly and more perfectly the rule of the most holy Benedict, which so far in that monastery you have observed poorly and neglectfully. Since it has been proven that because of many hindering circumstances you could not accomplish your aim in the aforementioned place, we ... consider that it would be expedient for you to retire to another place which the divine munificence will point out to you and there serve the Lord undisturbedly in a more wholesome manner.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 10: Sanctity and Secularity: The Church and the World , 1973 , pp. 45 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1973

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References

1 Trans Lekai, [L. J.], [The White Monks] (Okauchee 1953) pp 252-3Google Scholar.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid p 253.

4 Ibid p 261.

5 Ibid p 264.

6 Ibid p 263.

7 Ibid p 264.

8 Ibid p 265.

9 Southern, [R. W.], Western Society [and the Church in the Middle Ages] (London 1970) pp 1–2 Google Scholar.

10 See, for example, Dickinson, J. C., The Origins of the Austin Canons (London 1950)Google Scholar.

11 See Jocelin of Furness, Vita Sancti Waldeni, and Baker], [Derek, ‘Viri religiosi [and the York election dispute’], SCH 7 (1971) pp 90-4Google Scholar.

12 See Viri religiosi.

13 Southern, Western Society p 261.

14 Trans EHD II p 695.

15 Ibid p 697.

16 Lekai p 255.

17 Ibid pp 254-5.

18 Ibid pp 253-4.

19 Trans Southern, R. W., Tlie Making of the Middle Ages (London 1953) pp 167-8Google Scholar.

20 See above pp 21-37.

21 Ibid.

22 The Rule of St Benedict, ed and trans McCann, J. (London 1952) 1, p 15 Google Scholar.

23 For Reinfrid, and discussion of the ascetic impulses of the northern revival see Baker, [Derek,] ‘The desert in the north’, NH 5 (1970) pp 1–11 Google Scholar.

24 Fundach Abballile de Kyrkeslall, ed Clark, E. K., Thoresby Society 4 (Leeds 1895)Google Scholar.

25 See ‘The desert in the north’.

26 Knowles, [David, The]M[onastic] O[rder in England] (2 ed Cambridge 1963) p 193 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Ibid p 167.

28 See Baker, Derek, ‘The Foundation of Fountains Abbey’ NH 4 (1969) pp 29–43 Google Scholar; ‘The desert in the north’ pp 6-11; Vita Bardonis, cap 6, MGH, SS 11, p 325, trans in Tellenbach, [G.], [Church, State and Christian Society at the Time of the Investiture Contest], trans Bennett, R. F. (Oxford 1940) p 51 Google Scholar.

29 Sec Tellenbach p 46.

30 See Daniel, Walter, Life of Ailred, ed and trans Powicke, F. M. (Edinburgh 1950)Google Scholar; Ritchie, R. L. G., The Normans in Scotland (Edinburgh 1954) pp 246-55Google Scholar; Ailred, Anima, De, ed Talbot, C. H., Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Suppl 1 (London 1952)Google Scholar.

31 Trans MO pp 220-1.

32 Trans H. Waddell, The Wandering Scholars p 90.

33 See Tellenbach p 44.

34 See Wilmart, [A.], [Auteurs spirituels et textes devóts du moyen âge latin] (Paris 1971) pp 317-60Google Scholar, ‘Les méditations d’Étienne de Salley sur les Joies de la Vierge Marie’.

35 Ibid p 323.

36 See [A.] Wilmart p 330.

37 Wilmart pp 287-98, ‘L’oraison pastorale de l’abbé Aėlred’.

38 See above p 41.