The Abbot and the Rule: Religious Life at St Albans, 1290û1349

by Still,Michelle

• ISBN13: 9780754605218
• ISBN10: 0754605213
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2016-05-31
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

St Albans was one of the greatest Benedictine abbeys of medieval England, and the early 14th century was a period during which the concerns of the community and the role of the abbot emerge particularly clearly. Yet the history of the abbey during this period has received little attention since general surveys undertaken over eighty years ago, and the manorial history by Levett in 1938. Basing herself on the unique and relatively unexploited Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani, Michelle Still examines the position of St Albans in both the secular and monastic worlds, with a focus on the period 12901349. The study includes discussion of the role of the abbot as a feudal landlord, a provider of education (at the abbey's grammar school), and a dispenser of charity. In conclusion, she notes the pivotal importance of the personality and influence of the abbot of St Albans in ensuring the strict observance of the Rule of St Benedict in an age when traditional monasticism was increasingly challenged. Through the detailed study of this one abbey, this book makes an important contribution to the overall picture of monastic life in medieval England.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. vii
List of Tables	p. vii
Acknowledgements	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Alban and his Monastery	p. 11
The Abbot and the Monastic Community	p. 35
The Abbot and Secular Life	p. 77
The Abbot and the Cells of St Albans	p. 129
Education at St Albans in the Fourteenth Century	p. 169
The Provision of Charity	p. 193
Conclusions	p. 227
Appropriated Churches	p. 237
Priors	p. 265
Education at St Albans in the First Half of the Fourteenth Century	p. 271
The Provision of Charity	p. 279
Select Bibliography	p. 293
Index	p. 325
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