A History of the Middle Ages, 284-1500 (Macmillan Student Editions) (Papermacs)

The Late Roman Empire 2. The Germanic Invasions CHAPTER 1: Roman and German though the followers of Pachomius lived in separate cells, they met together to perform their religious ceremonies. About A.D. 360 St. Basil carried the ideas of Pachomius still farther. He believed that both work and fellowship were essentials of the perfect Christian life. His monks lived together, ate together, worked together, and worshipped together. By establishing this ideal of a simple, chaste, frugal life devoted to hard work and lived in common with others St. Basil became the true founder of Christian monasticism. The contrast between the ideas of St. Anthony and those of Pachomius and St. Basil is an important one. St. Anthony believed that the best road to the perfect Christian life and to salvation lay in extreme asceticism. St. Basil, on the other hand, believed that useful work was more important. He wanted his monks to live as frugal a life as they could, but they were not expected to mortify their bodies so much as to hinder their work. Both these conceptions of the perfect Christian life played an important part in the Middle Ages. As we have seen, monasticism began in a primitive form in Egypt under Pachomius, and was spread to the Greek world by St. Basil. It was carried to Italy and perhaps to Gaul as well by St. Athanasius, the great opponent of the Arians. He seems to have known nothing of Pachomius, and his ideas were basically those of St. Anthony. Thus it was the ideal of extreme asceticism that first spread to the western part of the empire. By the end of the fourth century there were monasteries in Italy, Africa, and Gaul. Three of the greatest of the church Fathers, Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine, were deeply interested in the monastic life Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Roman and German....Pages 3-32 Eastern Orthodox Civilization....Pages 33-61 The Germanic Kingdoms....Pages 62-93 Knights and Peasants....Pages 94-122 The Unification of Western Christendom....Pages 123-150 The Development of Feudal Monarchy....Pages 151-186 The Expansion of Europe....Pages 187-219 The Revival of Urban Life....Pages 220-247 The Feudal Monarchies....Pages 248-288 Mediaeval Theocracy at its Height....Pages 289-322 The Hundred Years’ War....Pages 323-363 From Feudal to National Monarchy....Pages 364-399 The Decline of the Mediaeval Church....Pages 400-428 Mediaeval Civilization....Pages 429-476 Epilogue....Pages 477-480 Back Matter....Pages 491-520