Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 THE ENGLISH ZION: AN INTRODUCTION TO SAINT CUTHBERT AND HIS CITY
- 2 THE MONKS OF DURHAM
- 3 JOHN WESSINGTON AS PRIOR OF DURHAM (1416–46)
- 4 THE PRIOR'S HOUSEHOLD AND COUNSELLORS
- 5 MONASTIC PATRONAGE
- 6 THE PRIOR AND THE LAY LORDS
- 7 THE LORDS SPIRITUAL
- 8 THE MONASTIC ECONOMY
- 9 THE DURHAM CELLS
- 10 THE INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES OF THE DURHAM MONKS
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - THE MONKS OF DURHAM
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 THE ENGLISH ZION: AN INTRODUCTION TO SAINT CUTHBERT AND HIS CITY
- 2 THE MONKS OF DURHAM
- 3 JOHN WESSINGTON AS PRIOR OF DURHAM (1416–46)
- 4 THE PRIOR'S HOUSEHOLD AND COUNSELLORS
- 5 MONASTIC PATRONAGE
- 6 THE PRIOR AND THE LAY LORDS
- 7 THE LORDS SPIRITUAL
- 8 THE MONASTIC ECONOMY
- 9 THE DURHAM CELLS
- 10 THE INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES OF THE DURHAM MONKS
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
What sholde he studie and make hymselven wood,
Upon a book in cloystre alwey to poure,
Or swynken with his handes, and laboure,
As Austyn bit? How shal the world be served?
Between 1390, when John Wessington took the religious habit, and 1446, when he resigned the priorate of Durham, 123 monks were received into the community of Saint Cuthbert. Little can ever be known for certain about the individual characters of these men or their attitudes to each other, their superior, their order and their religion. The few monks like William Partrike, prior of Lytham, and Henry Helay, terrar and then prior of Holy Island, who have left some impression of their personalities to posterity were usually those who were particularly troublesome and unruly inmates of the convent. Although the private desires and aspirations of the individual monk are largely a matter for speculation, it is, however, possible to establish the main outlines of his career. Little as we know about the monks of Durham, we are better informed as to their recruitment, their education, their employment, their ambitions and their interests than those of any comparable group of men in early fifteenth-century England. Such an opportunity should not be left unnoticed by the historian, even if he is compelled to recognise that many of the most important questions will remain forever unanswered.
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- Durham Priory 1400–1450 , pp. 51 - 80Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1973
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