Monastic Reform

Lecture 29

T

he split between East and West in the 11th century occasioned by the
filioque controversy shows how independent the Catholic tradition,
headed by the pope, had become from the imperial Orthodox
tradition. In the West, the world shaped by popes, kings, and monks was
called simply “Christendom,” and it was a world that was pervasively and
profoundly Christian in coloration if not always in character. From the 10th
through the 12th centuries, moreover, monasticism was the dominant formal
expression of Christianity in the Catholic West, with hundreds of separate
communities and many thousands of adherents. In this lecture, we’ll look
at three famous monastic houses of the medieval period and the forms of
reform and renewal each represented.

The Appeal of the Monastic Life
• For people today, even many Christians, the appeal of the monastic
life is difficult to understand. A life apart from the pleasures of
society and in pursuit of God does not meet contemporary standards
of happiness or fulfillment.

•    Here is where some historical imagination helps. In fact, the

medieval understanding of the world and the meaning of life

illustrates the attraction of monastic life and makes intelligible its

great success across centuries.

o The Venerable Bede, recounting a story on the brevity of

human life (History II, 13), commented, “The life of man

appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is

to follow, we are utterly ignorant.” Christianity revealed what

went before and what came after—above all, what awaited

humans after death.

o Thus, the short and mostly painful time given to humans was

considered to be a period of preparation for an eternal destiny;