columns hold up the imposing structure; from the top you can see boats
gliding by on the surface of the river in summertime.... Water is
channeled off along ducts following the contours of the mountain....
On these slopes, formerly sterile, Nicetius has planted juicy vines, and
green vineshoots clothe the high rock that used to bear nothing but
scrub. Orchards with fruit-trees growing here and there fill the air with
the perfume of their flowers.^13
The owner of this haven was Nicetius (d.c.566), bishop of Trier in the mid-sixth
century. He retreated to it when his pastoral cares gave him the chance. Bishops like
Nicetius were among the rich; most rose to their episcopal status in their twilight
years, after they had married and had sired children to inherit their estates. (Their
wives continued to live with them but—or so it was expected—not to sleep with
them.) Great lay landlords, kings, queens, warriors, and courtiers controlled and
monopolized most of the rest of the wealth of the West, now based largely on land.
Monasteries, too, were beginning to become important corporate landowners. In
the sixth century many monks lived in communities just far enough away from the
centers of power to be holy, yet near enough to be important. Monks were not quite
laity (since they devoted their entire life to religion), yet not quite clergy (since they
were only rarely ordained), but something in between and increasingly admired. It is
often said that Saint Antony was the “first monk,” and though this may not be strictly
true, it is not far off the mark. Like Antony, monks lived a life of daily martyrdom,
giving up their wealth, family ties, and worldly offices. Like Antony, who toward the
end of his life came out of the tombs he had once retreated to in order to be with
others, monks lived in communities. Some communities were of men only, some of
women, some of both (in separate quarters). Whatever the sort, monks lived in
obedience to a “rule” that gave them a stable and orderly way of life.
The rule might be unwritten, as it was at Saint-Maurice d’Agaune, a monastic
community set up in 515 by Sigismund on the eve of his accession to the Burgundian
throne. The monks at Agaune, divided into groups that went to the church in relay,
carried out a grueling regime of non-stop prayer every day. Built outside the
Burgundian capital of Geneva, high on a cliff that was held to be the site of the heroic
martyrdom of a Christian Roman legion, this monastery tapped into a holy landscape
and linked it to Sigismund and his episcopal advisors.
Other rules were written. Caesarius, bishop of Arles (r.502–542) wrote one for
