Description: A comprehensive survey of the origins, development, and influence of the most important monastic order in the middle ages.
The men and women that followed the sixth-century customs of Benedict of Nursia (c.480-c.547) formed the most enduring, influential, numerous and widespread religious order of the Latin middle ages. Their liturgical practice, and their acquired taste for learning, served as a model for the medieval church as a whole: while new orders arose, they took some of their customs, and their observant and spiritual outlook, from the Regula Benedicti. The Benedictines may also be counted among the founders of medieval Europe. In many regions of the continent they created, or consolidated, the first Christian communities; they also directed the development of their social organisation, economy, and environment, and exerted a powerful influence on their emerging cultural and intellectual trends. This book, the first comparative study of its kind, follows the Benedictine Order over eleven centuries, from their early diaspora to the challenge of continental reformation. JAMES G. CLARK is Professor of History, University of Exeter.Brief description: James G. Clark is Professor of History at the University of Exeter. He has published widely on the later Middle Ages and early modern period, most recently The Dissolution of the Monasteries (Yale, 2021)
Review Quotes: The author masters with a seldom met richness a wealth of evidence from the infinitude of particular aspects of Benedictine monasticism. This richness not only stems from the broad perspective of the well-read author's tackling the matter, his constant flow of fresh quotations and references to medieval authors of all genres, printed or still in manuscript, but also his discussions and possible explanations carry the note of careful respect for historical truth within reach of historical possibilities.-- "CATHOLIC HISTORICAL REVIEW"