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The Gateway to the Middle Ages Monasticism
In an era when the sounds of monasticism's interior life speak to a new generation, Eleanor Shipley Duckett offers an illuminated description of its development under such figures as Columban, "the saint afire with Irish enthusiam"; St Benedict, greatest of the monks, who established a pattern of the religious life still vibrant to this day; & St Gregory, Benedict's pupil & greatest of the popes, who more than any other prepared the See of Rome for its triumphant emergence in the Middle Ages."Professor Duckett writes a history of this period that is as full of intellectual excitement as those centuries were of military excitement."--Christian Century"New light on the troubled origins of the medieval spirit."--New RepublicEleanor Shipley Duckett was Professor Emerita of Latin Languages & Literature at Smith College.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1938
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About the author
Eleanor Shipley Duckett
46 books3 followersEleanor Shipley Duckett was an English-born philologist and medieval historian who taught at Smith College.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 26, 2015
Difficult to follow, incongruous, and esoteric. Some good paragraphs here and there, but there just has to be a better treatment of this subject somewhere out there.
March 20, 2023
A STUDY OF MONASTICISM ENTERING THE ‘DARK AGES’
Author Eleanor Shipley Duckett wrote in the Preface to this 1961 book, “The gateway to the Middle Ages is made up of three parts. This one deals with monasticism in the sixth century. Monasticism at that time followed one of two disciplines, according to the race, country, and temperament of its followers: Celtic or Roman. Celtic monks belonged to the British, in Wales and the southwest of Britain… The rule followed by these Celtic monks was common only in its fundamentals, and these were hard: fasting and vigil, prayer and penance, filled the hours of the day and many of the night… It was the monks of Roman discipline, however, who prepared the way for the coming of the great monastic orders of the Middle Ages.”
She states in the first chapter, “The course of Christian monasticism before the sixth century has been told again and again… From the fourth century it took its rise. It was then that St. Anthony pointed out the way of solitary living in contemplation of God which countless hermits … were to follow during the next two hundred years. During this same century southern Egypt saw the beginning of the life in community, induced by the example of St Pachomius and his famous Rule. This discipline gained ground swiftly … and was formulated … by St. Basil the Great… His teachings definitely ranked the practice shared in common as preferable to the practice in solitude, and laid down works of charity and a Rule suited to their performance as a true and holy part of the monastic aim. Here, then, we find already a form of religious discipline far different from the lonely pursuit of contemplation an mortifying of the flesh for this end which had been the burning desire of Egyptian monks of the desert after the example of St Anthony. Thus by the end of the fourth century this monasticism was firmly established in the East.” (Pg. 1)
She notes, “The practice of culling material from the Fathers Caesarius followed zealously in the preparation of his sermons. Preaching was to him one of the chief cuties of a pastor of souls, and not only did he diligently visit the multitudinous parishes of this diocese at the cost of, at least, one sermon a day, and often more, but he drove home the extreme importance of this duty, in season and out, and sometimes, probably to the discomfort of his brother bishops and priests.” (Pg. 42)
Under this Rule, “The Abbess ruled her Community under the Bishop of the diocese… Her first care was the souls of her nuns… Obedience was, of course, due to the Mother. the nuns lived and slept in large common dormitories… no one was to have even a cupboard to herself… All were obliged to eat in the appointed place; no one could eat or drink secretly… Silence was especially bidden. No one was to raise her voice at any time… We hear nothing of community recreation. Every nun had to learn how to read, or begin to learn directly she entered the Convent. Two hours of the early morning were set aside for reading.” (Pg. 55-57)
She recounts, “The growth of Christianity in Ireland was aided by the traditional division of her people into clans; a converted chieftain meant, naturally, the Christianizing of those over whom he ruled… The greatest enemy of the Church in the first centuries of Ireland was found in the Druids, who determinedly held over its peasants the terror of magic and superstition, centered, as in Gaul, in spirits of waters and trees, in the sun and the stars… whose wrath was certain to fall on any who dared desert their rites for a foreign cult.” (Pg. 63)
She states, “Columban ruled supreme as Father Abbott after the manner of his Rish tradition … which soon included a numerous company… It was afterward to recall the Irish monasteries in its fame of learning. Here under Columban in the sixth century we are to imagine the young men of Gaul, gathered from all ranks, hastening to learn of the life of the cloister; the peasants, men and women, seeking comfort and direction in that tumultuous and disorderly age; the penitents striving in some way to atone for the past under the constant rule of a disciplined community.” (Pg. 95-96)
She records, “Of the monastic foundations which we have noticed none remained permanent. None was sufficiently clear and comprehensive to form a Rule by which men of differing natures, nationalities and characters should fashion the mold of their lives all down the ages. All were unsuited for training the endless varieties of soul, mind and body called to fulfill their differing perfection in one school of the cloister… Columban had held out a life too austere in its Celtic asceticism, too formidable in its myriad penalties of the lash, and black fasting and of banishment, to attract a multitude of men of other races than his own, living under other climates and conditions. Moreover, by the time of this sixth century the vocation to poverty, chastity, and obedience had been known in monastic practice for two hundred years. It had borne a marvelous harvest of holy living and dying. As in the case of other less excellent things, enthusiasm had, nevertheless, outrun its bounds and familiarity had lost its former zeal.” (Pg. 122)
She states of Gregory the Great, “we come last of all to the greatest of the Popes, a Pope himself a monk, called from the contemplation of the cloister to struggle day and night in active labors… In temporal matters his own genius for practical affairs, his energy and his experience gained in civil government stood ready for Italy’s need… In matters of spirit he spread far and wide the influence of Rome as the Metropolitan Church of all the world… Yet his keen sense of justice protected the rights of each individual Church as zealously as his loyalty to the See of Peter demanded allegiance from all…. In matters of intellect … he fiercely subjected thought to faith in a subordination which admitted of little fellowship… The world, he firmly believed, was drawing to its end… Let none, therefore waste precious time in vain studies of secular things.” (Pg. 174-175)
She observes, “It is clear that Gregory, in this age of bitter contention against enemies temporal and spiritual, had no patience with secular learning for its own sake… It is a difficult matter to wait on intellectual thoughts when one is dealing with dioceses filled with problems crying for action. Nevertheless, it might well have been easier for the cultured people of Vienne to listen on Sunday to a Pastor whose secular science they respected in lectures at less holy times.” (Pg. 225-226)
She concludes, “With Gregory… the Middle Ages ended their long travail in the womb of Europe and came to birth. His faith in prayer and its heroes and miracles was theirs. His mighty conception of the spiritual fatherhood of the Bishop of Rome over all the Churches, of temporal administration extending over many lands and peoples, harked back to the early centuries of Rome’s government and laid its mark forever on the Papacy of days to come… to the Roman prerogative of supreme power exercised in justice he added the Christian grace of mercy to Romans and to Gentiles alike. His legacy to the centuries that followed was not, indeed, unmixed with evil. But he ruled his world faithfully with a pure vision of holy charity, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side. To the English he stands… [as] one who led them from pagan darkness into light which the shadows of the Dark Ages already lengthening around his path could never subdue.” (Pg. 254-255)
This book will interest some studying this period of time.
Author Eleanor Shipley Duckett wrote in the Preface to this 1961 book, “The gateway to the Middle Ages is made up of three parts. This one deals with monasticism in the sixth century. Monasticism at that time followed one of two disciplines, according to the race, country, and temperament of its followers: Celtic or Roman. Celtic monks belonged to the British, in Wales and the southwest of Britain… The rule followed by these Celtic monks was common only in its fundamentals, and these were hard: fasting and vigil, prayer and penance, filled the hours of the day and many of the night… It was the monks of Roman discipline, however, who prepared the way for the coming of the great monastic orders of the Middle Ages.”
She states in the first chapter, “The course of Christian monasticism before the sixth century has been told again and again… From the fourth century it took its rise. It was then that St. Anthony pointed out the way of solitary living in contemplation of God which countless hermits … were to follow during the next two hundred years. During this same century southern Egypt saw the beginning of the life in community, induced by the example of St Pachomius and his famous Rule. This discipline gained ground swiftly … and was formulated … by St. Basil the Great… His teachings definitely ranked the practice shared in common as preferable to the practice in solitude, and laid down works of charity and a Rule suited to their performance as a true and holy part of the monastic aim. Here, then, we find already a form of religious discipline far different from the lonely pursuit of contemplation an mortifying of the flesh for this end which had been the burning desire of Egyptian monks of the desert after the example of St Anthony. Thus by the end of the fourth century this monasticism was firmly established in the East.” (Pg. 1)
She notes, “The practice of culling material from the Fathers Caesarius followed zealously in the preparation of his sermons. Preaching was to him one of the chief cuties of a pastor of souls, and not only did he diligently visit the multitudinous parishes of this diocese at the cost of, at least, one sermon a day, and often more, but he drove home the extreme importance of this duty, in season and out, and sometimes, probably to the discomfort of his brother bishops and priests.” (Pg. 42)
Under this Rule, “The Abbess ruled her Community under the Bishop of the diocese… Her first care was the souls of her nuns… Obedience was, of course, due to the Mother. the nuns lived and slept in large common dormitories… no one was to have even a cupboard to herself… All were obliged to eat in the appointed place; no one could eat or drink secretly… Silence was especially bidden. No one was to raise her voice at any time… We hear nothing of community recreation. Every nun had to learn how to read, or begin to learn directly she entered the Convent. Two hours of the early morning were set aside for reading.” (Pg. 55-57)
She recounts, “The growth of Christianity in Ireland was aided by the traditional division of her people into clans; a converted chieftain meant, naturally, the Christianizing of those over whom he ruled… The greatest enemy of the Church in the first centuries of Ireland was found in the Druids, who determinedly held over its peasants the terror of magic and superstition, centered, as in Gaul, in spirits of waters and trees, in the sun and the stars… whose wrath was certain to fall on any who dared desert their rites for a foreign cult.” (Pg. 63)
She states, “Columban ruled supreme as Father Abbott after the manner of his Rish tradition … which soon included a numerous company… It was afterward to recall the Irish monasteries in its fame of learning. Here under Columban in the sixth century we are to imagine the young men of Gaul, gathered from all ranks, hastening to learn of the life of the cloister; the peasants, men and women, seeking comfort and direction in that tumultuous and disorderly age; the penitents striving in some way to atone for the past under the constant rule of a disciplined community.” (Pg. 95-96)
She records, “Of the monastic foundations which we have noticed none remained permanent. None was sufficiently clear and comprehensive to form a Rule by which men of differing natures, nationalities and characters should fashion the mold of their lives all down the ages. All were unsuited for training the endless varieties of soul, mind and body called to fulfill their differing perfection in one school of the cloister… Columban had held out a life too austere in its Celtic asceticism, too formidable in its myriad penalties of the lash, and black fasting and of banishment, to attract a multitude of men of other races than his own, living under other climates and conditions. Moreover, by the time of this sixth century the vocation to poverty, chastity, and obedience had been known in monastic practice for two hundred years. It had borne a marvelous harvest of holy living and dying. As in the case of other less excellent things, enthusiasm had, nevertheless, outrun its bounds and familiarity had lost its former zeal.” (Pg. 122)
She states of Gregory the Great, “we come last of all to the greatest of the Popes, a Pope himself a monk, called from the contemplation of the cloister to struggle day and night in active labors… In temporal matters his own genius for practical affairs, his energy and his experience gained in civil government stood ready for Italy’s need… In matters of spirit he spread far and wide the influence of Rome as the Metropolitan Church of all the world… Yet his keen sense of justice protected the rights of each individual Church as zealously as his loyalty to the See of Peter demanded allegiance from all…. In matters of intellect … he fiercely subjected thought to faith in a subordination which admitted of little fellowship… The world, he firmly believed, was drawing to its end… Let none, therefore waste precious time in vain studies of secular things.” (Pg. 174-175)
She observes, “It is clear that Gregory, in this age of bitter contention against enemies temporal and spiritual, had no patience with secular learning for its own sake… It is a difficult matter to wait on intellectual thoughts when one is dealing with dioceses filled with problems crying for action. Nevertheless, it might well have been easier for the cultured people of Vienne to listen on Sunday to a Pastor whose secular science they respected in lectures at less holy times.” (Pg. 225-226)
She concludes, “With Gregory… the Middle Ages ended their long travail in the womb of Europe and came to birth. His faith in prayer and its heroes and miracles was theirs. His mighty conception of the spiritual fatherhood of the Bishop of Rome over all the Churches, of temporal administration extending over many lands and peoples, harked back to the early centuries of Rome’s government and laid its mark forever on the Papacy of days to come… to the Roman prerogative of supreme power exercised in justice he added the Christian grace of mercy to Romans and to Gentiles alike. His legacy to the centuries that followed was not, indeed, unmixed with evil. But he ruled his world faithfully with a pure vision of holy charity, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side. To the English he stands… [as] one who led them from pagan darkness into light which the shadows of the Dark Ages already lengthening around his path could never subdue.” (Pg. 254-255)
This book will interest some studying this period of time.
February 26, 2014
Like reading Tolkien without the plot or morality. I learned a little bit, but there were far too many detours.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews