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25 - Missions on the Northern and Eastern Frontiers, c. 700–1100

from Part II - The Carolingians to the Eleventh Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2020

By
Janneke Raaijmakers
Edited by
Alison I. Beach  and
Isabelle Cochelin
Alison I. Beach
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Isabelle Cochelin
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Summary

To Bede (d. 735), penning his account of the conversion of the peoples inhabiting the British Isles, the involvement of monks and monasteria in mission and in pastoral activity was nothing unusual. In his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Bede described how Irish monks arrived on Britain’s northern shores to proclaim the word of God, while monks from Rome preached in the south. Churches were built and kings granted land to religious men and women to establish monasteries. From the perspective of the established forms of monastic life of the later Middle Ages, the involvement of ascetics in the mission may seem paradoxical. Baptism, confirmation, and other sacraments pertaining to the cure of souls are after all officially the domain of secular priests; monks and nuns should serve God through prayer and the divine office, preferably in the tranquility of solitude, their movements limited by the obligation of stability.

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Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West , pp. 485 - 501
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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