To Govern Is to Serve: An Essay on Medieval Democracy
Jacques Dalarun et al.
Published:
2023
Online ISBN:
9781501767876
Print ISBN:
9781501767852
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Jacques Dalarun
Pages
65–69
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Published:
February 2023
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Dalarun, Jacques, and Sean L. Field, 'Benedictine Beginnings', in Sean L. Field (ed.), To Govern Is to Serve: An Essay on Medieval Democracy (
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Abstract
This chapter describes how the Rule of St. Benedict enjoyed unrivaled prestige in the West throughout the Middle Ages. Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious, with the help of Benedict of Aniane, insisted that all monasteries in the empire adopt it in 817. From this moment on, every form of regular religious life in the West expressed itself in relation to Benedict's Rule. Not having been able to implement her own rule during her lifetime, Clare of Assisi assumed the direction and government of the sisters of San Damiano as a Benedictine abbess. Cardinal Hugolino's Constitutions, followed by Clare's community in Assisi, were really just specific arrangements to clarify the application of the normative text par excellence that regulated the life of the sisters: the Rule of St. Benedict. In its infinite wisdom, the Benedictine Rule envisions the possibility of an unworthy superior who is elected by the community because he shares its evil ways. In that event, it would fall to the local bishop and the neighboring abbots and Christians to depose him and replace him with “a worthy steward.”
Keywords: Rule of St. Benedict, Benedict of Aniane, religious life, Clare of Assisi, Benedictine abbess, Cardinal Hugolino's Constitutions, Benedictine Rule
Subject
European History
Translator:
Sean L. Field
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