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Robert Grosseteste on the Monastic Life
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 August 2024
Extract
Robert Grosseteste, one of the greatest men of the thirteenth centurf England and bishop of Lincoln from 1235-1253, was in frequent contact with the numerous religious houses in his diocese. Often his high-handed but probably necessary actions as Visitor were not appreciated by the communities which experienced them. His correspondence moreover shows him complaining to the abbot of Fleury about the irregular lives of some of his monks belonging to cells in his diocese, and giving sarcastic advice to the canons of Missenden on the choice of their future superior. But the present letter to the monks of Bury St Edmunds is witness to do much more cordial feeling, and shows the bishop's deep esteem for the life led by these monks in accordance with ideals which he shared.
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- Copyright © 1956 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
I 'in century terribilitcr ct in religiosas terribilius consuevit fulgurare, zelum bonun habens, sed non secundum scientiam. Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora (R.S.) V, 4 ‘ During the first visitation of his diocese in 1236 he removed from office seven Augtinian abbots and four priors. Cf. Robert Grosseteste (ed. D. A. Callus, O.P.), 154.
* Grosseteste, Epistolae (R.S.) LIII, LIV, CVIII and LXXXV.
† Not Peterborough, as stated by Luard. Cf. Robert Grosseteste, loc. cit.
‡ Monumenta Franciscana (R.S.) I, 143: Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora (R.S.) IV, 497.
§ Bk. II, ch. 16-17. I) Pre Lagrange suggested that the Jewish Alexandrian Therapeutae described here by Philo never existed, but represent the author's ideal, based on the practice of the Essenes of Palestine (Le Judaisme avant Jesus Christ, 583-586). In fact Christian writers like Eusebius made use of these passages as if they described actually existing communities of Christian monks.
¶ Memorial of St Edmund's Abbey (R.S.) II, 293.
1 St John Chrysostom (Adv. Oppuguatorcs P.G. 47, 320 et seq), the author of Liber de Monastica Exercitatione attribited to St Nilus (P.G. 79, 719-723) and others called monks ‘philosohers. The immediate source is probably Ps. Denys, De Hierarcliia Eccles. VI, III 2 (P.G. 3, 534), or Philo, De Vita Conlemplativa 2, Loeb Classics, vol. IX, p.113.
2 Cf. Ps. Denys, loc. cit.
3 Cf. Ps. Denys, loc. cit. c. 532.
4 This derivation is attributed by Haeften (Disquisitiones Monasticae, p. 265 or Antwerp edition of 1644) to St John Climacus, St Maximus, and Isaac the Presbyter.
5 This point is emphasized by Ps. Denys, loc. cit.
6 Matt vi, 2.
7 Luke xv, 4.
8 Phil. Iii,20.
9 Cf. Ps Denys, loc. cit where a paragraph follows on monastic profession.
10 Implicitly if not explicitly in Ps. Denys.
11 Haefen (loc. cit.) attributes this derivatin to St John Climacus.
12 Lam. Iii, 28.
13 Cf. Philo, op. cit. p. 115: Ps Denys emphasizes the perfective unity of monastic life, which given a uniform knowledge like God's own. P.G. 3, 546.
14 Cf. Philo, op. cit. pp. 113-5, and Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Bk II, ch. 16-17.
15 In Philo (p. 125) and Eusebius, but reading ‘gardens for ‘mountains'.
16 In Philo (p. 127) and Eusebius.
17 In Philo (p. 133) and Eusebius.
18 These two sentences are in Philo (p. 161) and Eusebius.
19 Cf. Regula S. Benedicti, caps. 73.
20 Psalm XCII, 5.
21 Cant, VIII, 7.