The Benedictines in the Middle Ages, by James G. Clark

Abstract

Monastic historians disposing of a few old copies of Knowles might fill the space on their shelves with the volumes now appearing in the ‘Monastic Orders’ series, published by The Boydell Press, under the auspices of the General Editor, Janet Burton. New accounts of The Franciscans and The Other Friars have already emerged from this historical enterprise; now they are joined by a book on The Cistercians and James Clark’s on The Benedictines. These studies should not be confused with any number of Victorian tomes, similarly compartmentalised, such as Mrs Jameson’s Legends of the Monastic Orders (1850), etc.—although they do confirm the longevity of a taxonomical approach: of labelling, boxing, and annotating each ‘Order’. It is an approach better suited to the friars, less well suited to monastic movements that were slow in attaining coherence; and, as we increasingly realise that these ‘Orders’ had to be invented, we should take care not to indulge the myths of continuity linking the often disorderly origins of the movements to their later institutional manifestations. Another problem with taxonomy is its obsession with damming up the riverine system that is monastic history. To illustrate the artificial dilemma it provokes: which of these two volumes, on the Benedictines and Cistercians, should properly contain a background account of early monasticism, when both movements flowed and fed from that common source? Which should investigate the coalescence of ascetic and eremitic impulses in the eleventh century? Ursmer Berlière, Knowles, C.H. Lawrence, and others departed from taxonomy to navigate the interplay of complex spiritual currents. In doing so they freed monastic history from stagnant Victorian reservoirs of knowledge.