Fouracre P. The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 1: c. 500-c. 700

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Church structure and organisation 703

the penitents were received into the community again. Repentance began with

the laying on of hands and the presentation of the Cilicium. The penitent

had to put on special clothes and have his hair cropped. Penitents had to live

withdrawn from public life and they were supposed to secure their penance

through vehement praying and fasting, through many acts of compassion and

also through essential helpful services such as cleaning the church. A lasting

consequence of penance was the need for chastity in marriage and exclusion

from the clergy. Rigour in these matters made penance problematic, especially

as repentance made on the death-bed had the same consequences for those who

recovered. Eminent bishops such as Avitus of Vienne or Fulgentius of Ruspe

could also only offer emergency solutions, such as easing the effects of death

without repentance by getting the spouse to agree to take on the penance.

In seventh-century Spain, numerous sinners were reported to have commit-

ted suicide to free themselves from the burden of penance. The dilemma

was inescapable. Therefore the concept of penance was not only reduced to

absurdity but it was clear that the collapse of public penance was inevitable.

The time was ripe for private penance. This was particularly propagated by

Irish monks, although it began on the continent. At the end of the sixth

century the rehabilitation of a penitent cleric was possible. He had to spend

his period of penance in a monastery and abstain from the ceremony of the

eucharist. This was public to an extent, but did not hinder his return to ofﬁce.

Caesarius of Arles also encouraged a form of private penance in self-punishment

and examination of one’s conscience. In the year 570 Bishop Philip of Vienne

appointed the priest Theudarius as penitentiary for the diocese. Many people

came to him and confessed their transgressions in private. With this the door

to conﬁdential confessions was opened. Gregory the Great recognised that the

prayers of known sinners were a means of repenting and so in the seventh

century penance was no longer linked to the public status of penitent.

The anointing of the sick is also already attested in the seventh century.

In Spain the oil was consecrated during the festival of Cosmas and Damian

(27 September) in which a prayer for health in soul and body was linked to

the sufferings of Christ. In Gaul lay people also used oil for secular healing of

the sick or for driving out demons, which even Caesarius of Arles encouraged.

Butitwas better still for the sick to come to the church to receive communion

and to be anointed.

monasticism

Whilst during the ﬁfth century in the East the number of monasteries was

already increasing at a tremendous rate, the West was just seeing the beginning

of its own monasticism. Its exemplary value as a highly respected ideal was

strengthened during the period of mass migration. But if monasticism in the

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704 georg scheibelreiter

East was more of a movement than an institution, in the West it had already

become stronger from an organisational point of view. This was because of

the characteristically pragmatic way of life of the Latin monks, who did not

blindly copy the Orientals, but adapted themselves to reality. This was already

obvious in the early rules (those of John Cassian, Macarius and the Regula

Quattuor Patrum). In southern Gaul, which became the centre of early western

monasticism, there were already gatherings of abbots who made agreements

about the inner structure of monasticism.

Monasticism became a very signiﬁcant factor of religious life in the West,

but only in the sixth century, during which the great western rules were cre-

ated. Now the interest of the bishops began to stir. They wanted to have

the monasteries under their jurisdiction and thereby have the power to add

to the regulations of the Council of Chalcedon.

In the case of Italy, it can

be seen how varied in reality was the effectiveness of episcopal control over

the monasteries. In the Byzantine inﬂuenced south, the bishop had pastoral

care over the monks, whereas in the Gothic–Lombard areas, the monasteries

were much more independent. First Gregory the Great placed the monasteries

under general episcopal supervision, which was already the case in Spain and

Gaul. The main focus of this right was the exertion of inﬂuence in the election

or approval of the abbot, as well as control over the management of wealth.

Butinthe seventh century this system began to relax: under Irish inﬂuence

the ties to the bishop were lifted through privileges and exemptions.

In Italy the eastern model dominated.

The Egyptian style of anchorism

was maintained in the sixth century through the translation to Italy of the

Apophthegmata Patrum (or Verba Seniorum). In coenobitic monasticism too the

situation was the same, as seen in the Regula Orientalis of c.500. Laurentius,

the founder of the monastery of Farfa (in around 500), came from Syria.

At the same time African inﬂuences from refugees from the Vandal kingdom

came to southern Italy where a community of monks also existed at the grave

of St Severinus in Castellum Lucullanum.

It is against this monastic background that we see the emergence of the

two deﬁnitive rules, the so-called Regula Magistri and the Regula Benedicti.

A strong and formal relationship exists between these two works. Today it

is believed that the anonymous, essentially more extensive Regula Magistri is

the older work (created between 500 and 530). It is based on a less-developed

coenobitic monasticism and uses more apocryphal literature. It was probably

written in Rome: Eugippius (d. 530) knew of it, as perhaps did Benedict. But

for his Rule, the latter drew upon a wider range of monastic writings such as

Baus, in Jedin (1975), p. 267.

Jenal (1995), pp. 131–41.

Penco (1959), pp. 22–3.

Jaspert (1971) offers a bibliography of research.

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Church structure and organisation 705

the Vitae Patrum, the rules of Basil and Pachomius, and Augustine’s Historia

Monachorum, which he mixed with his own experiences to create a form of rule

based on practical realities. The fundamental thought behind his rules was a

concentration on Christ, which monks should express in everything that they

did. The work is a strongly composed synthesis which would have a widespread

distribution in the future.

In the second half of the sixth century Cassiodorus made an attempt to

form an intellectual elite of monks, which was unique at the time. In his

Calabrian monastery, Vivarium, he organised a programme of study, which

went a lot further than the usual lectio divina.Alibrary of the Holy Scrip-

tures and secular works, and a scriptorium, were required for the intellec-

tual activity of the monks to whom he gave guidance in his institution. After

Cassiodorus’ death in 583 this activity declined, but his emphasis on the impor-

tance of study would become an enduring feature of monasticism in the Middle

Ages.

Under Augustine’s patronage the monasteries in Africa ﬂourished in the early

ﬁfth century. However the Vandal invasion soon caused a decline. Many monks

and nuns converted to Arianism. The tradition of the rules remained, but it

is questionable whether Augustine’s basic principles were contained in them.

After 534 Africa became the goal for religious refugees who did not agree with

Justinian I’s religious policy. In the seventh century Byzantine monasteries also

existed in Africa. An important representative of this type of monasticism was

Maximos the Confessor (d. 662), the courageous opponent of Monotheletism

in the disputes at Carthage in 645. All this came to an end with the Arab

conquest of North Africa.

In Spain in the sixth century the tradition of hermits still dominated in

Galicia, Asturia and the Balearics.

From the middle of the century more

monasteries began to be founded. Martin of Braga began with the monastery

of Dumio, the rule of which showed Egyptian inﬂuence. In 570 the African

refugee Donatus founded the monastery of Servitanum with the help of numer-

ous immigrant monks. Beside this stood the practical and theoretical effective-

ness of the brothers Leander and Isidore of Seville, authors of the De Insti-

tutione Virginum et Contemptu Mundi, and the Regula Monachorum. Each of

the great religious leaders of the seventh century (John of Biclaro, Braulio

This has recently been called into question. Cassiodorus may have consulted classical texts only

to aid a deeper understanding of the Bible. An ‘intellectualisation’ of monasticism was far from

his mind. Vivarium was thus only ‘a variant of the many forms that early monasticism took’: Jenal

(1995), pp. 660–1.But this does not alter the fact that Cassiodorus pushed his monks in the direction

of intellectual activity and that he was uncomfortable with contemplation and rough manual labour.

See further Fontaine, chapter 27 below.

ıazyD

ıaz (1970), pp. 49–62; Linage Conde (1973), pp. 244–50.

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706 georg scheibelreiter

of Saragossa and Fructuosus of Braga) had a strong and supportive relation-

ship with coenobitic monasticism. Different sets of regulationswhich have been

partly lost, but whose contents are open to deduction, reﬂect the spiritual open-

mindedness of Visigothic monasticism. Comprehensive knowledge of writing,

including secular literature, was encouraged and the production of manuscripts

was an important activity.

The monastic ideas were those of Augustine,

Jerome and John Cassian. The religious terms in which monasticism saw itself

were fairly conservative. Particularly appropriate here was the late antique

Pactum of the Regula Monachorum (ch.22), in which every new monk had to

proclaim the voluntary nature of his decision and his duty to fulﬁl the monastic

statutes.

Monasticism in Ireland was one of the most inﬂuential religious phenomena

of the early Middle Ages although details of its development are unknown.

no other western church did such a transformation of monasticism take place.

Here we can recognise the work of the great abbots of the sixth century such as

Finian, Comgall, Brendan and Columcille (Columba). The foundations made

by these men became the central point of Irish Christianity. Their monasteries

at Clonard, Bangor, Clonmacnoise, Clonfert, Lismore, Moville and Kildare

were supported by princes and kings. A monastery consisted of a group of

separate buildings, which were surrounded by a wall. Links with the outside

world were made by the abbot as the representative of the founding family.

Each of these abbeys soon developed into a paruchia,acentre of pastoral care,

which disrupted the structure of the diocese. The bishoprics thus had to adapt

to monastic organisation and eventually became subordinate to it. The abbot

became the leader of the paruchia, and one of the monks held the ofﬁce of

bishop. This splitting of jurisdiction and ofﬁce was contrary to the traditional

Christian order and remained an Irish peculiarity that must have been regarded

as an anomaly on the continent.

Big monasteries with several daughter houses were at the centre of

widespread associations, which in the church hierarchy corresponded to the

metropolitan province. Kildare became the urbs metropolitana of Leinster,

Armagh that of Ulster. The abbot was the archiepiscopus.Forming convents was

difﬁcult because of strong family ties, which often forced women to marry. So

the model of double monasteries was developed in which the monks carried out

the hard physical work and performed the holy services.

Rules did not play a

major role in Irish monasticism. It was based mainly on the tradition of John

Cassian, with greater emphasis on moral-ascetic instruction. More importance

Rich

e(1962), pp. 342–50.Orlandis (1991).

Hughes (1966), passim;Mayr-Harting (1977), pp. 78–85.See also Stancliffe, chapter 15 above.

Ewig in Jedin (1975), pp. 100–2; Angenendt (1990), pp. 205–8.

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Church structure and organisation 707

was placed on the effect of a living example. Boys lived with older monks in

the same cell; they awoke, kept vigils and sang together. ‘In such a way boys

were initiated into the spiritual life.’

The lectio divina actually avoided pagan

classics but the monks learnt the important elements of exegesis, grammar and

computus (chronological calculation).

Early church history in England was also extensively inﬂuenced by monas-

ticism.

The Irish inﬂuence predominated as it came to fruition through the

political dominance of Christian Northumbria. Columcille (Columba), who

had been a missionary among the Picts, became the father of monasticism in

northern England with the foundation of his second monastery, Iona. From

Iona a monastery was established on the North Sea island of Lindisfarne, which

became a very important Irish-type monastery bishopric.

In the middle of the seventh century, under inﬂuence from Francia and

Rome, an independent Anglo-Saxon monasticism began to develop which was

particularly associated with Wilfrid of York and Benedict Biscop. At the Synod

of Whitby in 664 Wilfrid overcame Irish monastic supremacy. The monaster-

ies in Ripon and Hexham along with the new metropolitan see of York now

replaced the old monastery on Lindisfarne as the centre of Roman observance.

Lindisfarne itself became a Roman monastery. That this change did not affect

the substance of Christianity, or rather of monasticism, is proven by the life

of the celebrated monk Cuthbert (d. 687), who lived as an ascetic in the Irish

fashion in the monasteries of Melrose and Ripon, and who then converted

to the Roman movement without changing his attitudes or behaviour. At the

same time the school in Canterbury was revived by the African abbot Hadrian

and Theodore of Tarsus, who had been sent to England as archbishop by

the pope. However the most important ﬁgure in English monasticism at this

time was Benedict Biscop. This man, who had been educated at L

erins and

who had travelled to Rome six times, in 674 founded the model monaster-

ies of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, which formed a joint community. The

founder had drawn up a monastic order after visiting numerous continental

monasteries. The library in his establishment was one of the most remarkable

of the time, into which numerous literary treasures from Italy found their

way. The possibilities such a place offered for monastic culture are shown

by Bede’s magniﬁcent work. Another piece of evidence for the upturn of the

English monastery schools in the late seventh century is the work of the monk

and bishop Aldhelm (d. 709), who worked in the south. English monasteries

became places of education much more than Irish ones did because, in contrast

to the latter, they were not under the strain of the responsibility of pastoral

care. Current research, however, makes it clear that they were not completely

Mayr-Harting (1977), pp. 159–60.

See Thacker, chapter 17 above.

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free from this. Smaller communities were able to take on pastoral duties more

easily because they were hardly ever involved in cultural activity.

A special development occurred in the Anglo-Saxon double monasteries

which were mostly governed by abbesses.

Pure convents do not appear to

have existed. The abbesses decided on the rules, the discipline in the monastery,

prayer and work and eventually consecration and penance. In these organisa-

tions men and women could live together in a single monastic community or

there could be two separate monasteries for men and women. Abbess Tetta

of Wimbourne gave ‘her commands to the monks through a window’

and

did not let any men, neither cleric nor layman (on one occasion, not even

a bishop), over the threshold. The most famous monastery of this type was

Whitby (Streaneshalch), founded and governed by Hild (d. 680), a descendant

of King Edwin of Northumbria and also related to the royal house of Kent.

The main areas of early monasticism in Gaul were the Rh

one valley and

Aquitaine.

The island monastery of L

erins remained prestigious in the sixth

century because it had Caesarius of Arles as a pupil and promoter who, through

his rules for nuns and monks, had an effect far to the north. The Frankish

queens Radegund and Brunehild used these rules for their establishments in

Poitiers and Autun. In his regulations Caesarius had linked traditions from

erins with the principles of Augustinewhom he respected highly. Besides those

of Caesarius, other rules were introduced in the sixth and seventh centuries,

such as the Regula Tarnatensis and the Regula Fereoli which were partly mixed

with the rules of both Benedict and Columbanus (for instance in the Rule of

Donatus of Besanc¸on). In the centre and west of Gaul the Martinian tradition

remained strong. This was eremitical in character and rejected rules of stabilitas

loci. There were many random establishments that soon collapsed. A lack

of discipline and organisational ability existed throughout the sixth century,

and even the councils here looked for help. Under Frankish inﬂuence the

monasteries were regarded more as ‘professional communities of prayer’, which

were in many cases treated as places of family remembrance by their founders.

A deciding factor in further development was the appearance in Francia of

the Irishman Columbanus (d. 615) with his twelve companions in 590.

linked a strict coenobitic monasticism with work for spiritual welfare. This

combination compelled him to become part of the church in Francia, but

on the other hand he remained within the Irish monastic tradition. For his

Blair (1995), pp. 193–212; Cambridge and Rollason (1995), pp. 87–104.

Hilpisch (1928), passim;Prinz (1988), pp. 658–83.

Mayr-Harting (1977), pp. 151–2.

Prinz (1988), pp. 19–117.Onthe situation before the baptism of Clovis, cf. Biarne (1997), pp. 115–26.

Wallace-Hadrill (1983), pp. 60–1.

Rich

e and Prinz in Clarke and Brennan (1981), pp. 59–87;Wallace-Hadrill (1983), pp. 63–74;Prinz

(1988), pp. 121–51.

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Church structure and organisation 709

establishments in Burgundy (Annegray, Luxeuil and Fontaine), Columbanus

wrote two sets of rules: the Regula Monachorum (a laying down of the basic

principles of asceticism) and the Regula Coenobialis (an order for penance for

transgressions in monastic life, in notebook form). Both works reﬂect the

theory and practices of his home monastery in Bangor. Through the rather

accidental link between asceticism and social impact, Columbanus introduced

anew religious aspect into what was a rather materialistic Gallic Christianity.

Columbanan monasticism had a great signiﬁcance for the whole of Francia

and no doubt Europe in the seventh century. Numerous foundations of the

lay nobility modelled themselves on the example of Luxeuil in Burgundy. A

novel element was the freedom that these monasteries had from episcopal

control. Many bishops who came from the Columbanan school granted their

ownestablishments this ‘great freedom’. With this the bishop lost the right to

correct the monastery’s discipline, to appoint the abbots and of consecration.

But neither monastic anarchy nor a change in the hierarchical structure came

about as it had done in Ireland; rather the privileged abbey became subordinate

to the pope. This peculiarity in Columbanan monasticism was respected in the

Lombard kingdom, as can be seen from the privilege granted the monastery

of Bobbio, and extended to Byzantine Italy.

chapter 26

CHRISTIANISATION AND THE

DISSEMINATION OF CHRISTIAN

TEACHING

Ian Wood

The three centuries that followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire were

in many respects seminal for the emergence of western Europe. In no area was

this more true than in that of religion. By the early ﬁfth century the Empire

was theoretically Christian. That is not to deny the existence of pagans within

its boundaries: there were many, and they were to be found at all levels of

society. There were still pagan intellectuals among the upper classes, and there

were also plenty of more ordinary folk – especially among the lower classes of

the countryside, but also among those who lived in the cities, including Rome

itself – who continued to perform rituals which were condemned as idolatrous

by the church. Nevertheless, from the fourth century onwards Christianity

was the religion of the emperor and of the state, and the church was well

established. It had numerous places of worship, especially in the towns; it was

endowed with vast estates and a considerable amount of revenue, and it had a

hierarchy of ofﬁcials. Its leading clergy legislated on doctrine and on Christian

behaviour in numerous councils, and they were among the most inﬂuential

ﬁgures within the Empire.

The barbarian invasions upset, but did not destroy, this state of affairs. In

some peripheral areas the church suffered considerably. In Britain, after the

Saxon invasions, its survival was conﬁned largely to the west, although there

were Christian communities further east, whose existence is chieﬂy attested

by place-names, but can also be inferred from the survival of such cults as

those of Alban and Sixtus.

In the provinces of Germania and Belgica some

dioceses experienced considerable disruption: in one or two instances episco-

pal appointments appear not to have been kept up, and some ecclesiastical

organisation may consequently have collapsed, only to be restored one or two

centuries later in a period of growing pastoral enthusiasm. For the most part,

however, the church survived, despite some loss of buildings and estates. Indeed

Wood (2000).

710

Christianisation and the dissemination of Christian teaching 711

the church and churchmen played a major role in the construction of the post-

Roman world, helping to negotiate terms with the barbarians, and to preserve

and transmit much of the administration and culture of the Empire to the

so-called successor states.

Although the post-Roman period witnessed the expansion of Christianity

in those rural communities which had remained pagan in imperial times, or

which had drifted back into paganism following the barbarian settlements, it

was above all the newcomers to what had been imperial territory who were

subjected to the processes of Christianisation in the centuries which followed

the fall of Rome. This is not to say that there was no spread of Christianity

in this early period among barbarian peoples who did not cross into what

had once been the Empire. Indeed the history of Christianity among the

barbarians began long before there was any signiﬁcant migration across the

imperial frontiers. Most signiﬁcantly there is evidence for Christian commu-

nities among the Tervingi, or Visigoths as they are known to most historians,

who lived to the north of the Danube.

In all probability, Christianity was

introduced to these people by captives taken during raids on Cappadocia in

the 250s. In c.340 a party of Christian Goths visited Constantinople, where

one of their number, Ulﬁla, was consecrated bishop by Eusebius of Nicomedia,

politically the most inﬂuential cleric of his day. One result of this consecra-

tion was Ulﬁla’s association with the doctrine traditionally labelled ‘Arian’,

but more correctly called ‘Homoean’, which was favoured by Eusebius and

by the then emperor, Constantius II. It was a doctrine which rejected the

notion that the three persons in the Christian Trinity were ‘of one substance’

and, as propounded by the followers of Ulﬁla, emphasised the distinctions

between Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Ulﬁla returned to the land of his

birth, where he worked for seven years until persecution drove him to take

refuge within the Empire, probably in 347/8.Inaddition to working as bishop

among the Goths he embarked on the translation of the Bible, with the excep-

tion of the excessively warlike Books of Kings, into Gothic. In all likelihood

this undertaking occupied him and others after his retreat to the Balkans.

Christianity, meanwhile, survived among the Tervingi despite the persecution

of the late 340s and another in 369/70, instigated by the Tervingian leader

Athanaric.

In 376, six years after this second persecution, outside circumstances radically

altered the position of Christianity in Gothic society. As a result of Hunnic

attacks a group of the Tervingi, led by Fritigern, petitioned the emperor Valens

to allow them to seek refugewithin the Empire.It is probable that one condition

put on them was the acceptance of Christianity, in its Homoean, or as its

Heather and Matthews (1991).

712 ian wood

detractors would have said ‘Arian’, form.

Ulﬁla himself may have been involved

in the negotiations, but in any case the emperor Valens, like Constantius II

before him, subscribed to Homoean doctrine. That Fritigern and his followers

accepted a version of Christianity which was at loggerheads with what came to

be established as Orthodoxy was a matter of great importance, for the Visigoths

seem to have inﬂuenced other barbarian peoples in their choice of Christian

doctrine.

The entry of the Visigoths into the Roman Empire in 376 and their defeat

of the emperor Valens in 378 marked the beginning of a century of barbarian

invasion and settlement. In 406 the Vandals, Alans and Sueves crossed the

Rhine. By 411 the Burgundians under the leadership of Guntiarius were active

in Gaul. During the following decade the Visigoths entered Spain. In the

second half of the century the Ostrogoths moved into the Balkans, and then in

489, led by Theoderic the Great, they entered Italy. Eighty years later they were

to be followed by the Lombards, the last of the great Germanic tribes to enter

what had been the Empire. In time all these peoples came to be labelled as

‘Arian’. Moreover, historians, ancient and modern, have ascribed their Arianism

to Visigothic inﬂuence. Jordanes claimed that the Ostrogoths and the Gepids

had been Christianised by their Visigothic neighbours.

Furthermore, Nicetius

of Trier seems to have associated Lombard Arianism with Gothic inﬂuence.

On the other hand, it is by no means clear who converted the Vandals to

Christianity;

indeed, inﬂuences other than Visigothic were noted even by

contemporaries. Hydatius identiﬁed the Galatian bishop Ajax as an Arian

missionary to the Sueves.

In fact the routes by which these peoples became

Arians were widely divergent, and there is a danger of assigning too much

importance directly to Visigothic inﬂuence.

There is even a danger of overemphasising the Arianism of these peoples.

Writing in 417,orthereabouts, Orosius thought that the Burgundians were

subject to Catholic, Roman, clergy. In viewing the Burgundians as Catholic,

at least in the ﬁrst half of the ﬁfth century, Orosius also has the support of

the Greek historian Socrates.

In the late sixth century, by contrast, Gregory

of Tours regarded the Christian Burgundians as having been Arian until 516.

Certainly King Gundobad and some of his followers were Arian in the last

decades of the ﬁfth and ﬁrst decade and a half of the sixth century. At the same

time it is important to recognise the presence of Catholics within the Gibichung

family and among its Burgundian supporters. In fact it is possible to accept

Heather (1986).

Jordanes, De Origine Actibusque Getarum, 133.

Epistulae Austrasicae 8, 11–14.

Courtois (1955), p. 36, offers two possibilities; Thompson (1982), p. 157, merely identiﬁes a period.

Hydatius, Chronicle, 228, s.a. 465–6.

Wood (1990), pp. 58–61.

Gregory, Hist. ii.9.