Okay, what I want to do today is to acquaint you with the Gregorian reform and then begin on English monasticism. I don't know how far we'll get into that, but we'll finish that next week. This is pre-Reformation now. We're talking about the English monasticism when the Normans conquer, or a little bit before that, when the Danes are invading it, and then during the Norman Congress. That's all we're looking at. So right around the end of the 11th century, basically, a little bit into the 12th century. What the Gregorian reform is, it is a rather long period in the Church during which Romuald and Peter Damian, Peter Damian is significantly part of the Gregorian reform. It's during our time, actually, our beginnings of the Romualdian movement and the Abba Manitti

[01:07]

congregation starting up. And it refers to that whole period in the mid-11th century to the end of the 11th century. And it's named after Gregory VII, who certainly did a lot regarding this reform. It's named after Gregory VII, Gregorian. He was actually Hildebrand, who was a Benedictine monk, significant, very significant person in Church history. I've underlined the five things, if you want to remember anything from today, those five underline in red, you should remember. And they're not all equally significant. The most significant thing here is Hildebrand. It's named after him, but it began, the series of reforms that has his name began before he was even around. So it's a whole period off and on, and one pope after another, trying to get various reforms accomplished.

[02:09]

But since under Gregory, much of it did get accomplished, and he was a real firebrand in this regard. The name took his name. And it lived on after him, too. Gregorian reform didn't finish until after Gregory. The three main lines along which the reformers are working at this time, just in general, regarding the Gregorian reform, is that, first of all, let's get the papacy back together again. Not only together again, but to have everybody agree that the pope is supreme. He's not just a bishop, he's supreme, papal supremacy. Because that's a problem right now. This is also a problem we have systems during this time. I'll get more to that in a minute.

[03:11]

Secondly, if you know Peter Damian's life, anything about him, and Romuald, you know that the reform of the clergy is absolutely necessary at this time. They're into everything. And the clergy are a mess. More on that, also. Excuse me. And thirdly, it's to free the church from lay ascendancy, what is called lay ascendancy. And we'll talk about that in a minute, too. All three of these problems are interconnected. And the church is a real mess at this time. And these problems need to be tackled and overcome before the church is going to be able to get together again. Papal, let's take the first one, papal primacy. Well, we know already the church history from church councils from the 400s, papal primacy

[04:22]

was asserted, and it was accepted. Not necessarily accepted by all in the East, and they had problems with that, and continue to have problems with that since that time. But, generally speaking, the church in the West, already from the 400s, from the 5th century onwards, accepted papal primacy or supremacy as a fact. But during the 10th and 11th centuries, when the church is real weak, and year after year after year, the lay powers are in there, and they help to weaken it even more, and it just goes from bad to worse, during that time, the pope is seen as ineffectual or hardly supreme. And it just takes its toll over the years then. Yeah, weren't there two popes? Yeah, that's what I mean by schism. One for Germany and one for...

[05:22]

Yeah, we'll get to that in just a second. And that's not going to help any. Well, that's actually a symptom of what the situation is, is that the papal power, what power there is, seems to be more of a political toy than anything, and so you have various parties aligned with various political organizations or peoples jockeying with the papal position for less than satisfactory reasons, ecclesiastically speaking. So, during this time, because you have a weak church in the 10th and 11th centuries, the papacy is going to be a prey for various emperors and lay rulers. And just in the city of Rome itself, you have factions, factions representing different

[06:29]

philosophies of papal politics, and you're going to have, you know, often, especially when it comes time for papal elections, the city at war, or cardinals being imprisoned or hidden, kidnapped, and parties fighting one another, the whole thing. Pope Alexander II, actually both these popes, Popes Nicholas II and Alexander II, begin, or don't begin, they're in the line of these popes who are trying to right the situation. Both of these men, both of these popes, owe their elections more to Peter Damian than anyone else, because both of these, and they follow one after another, within five years you have two different anti-popes.

[07:32]

You have other factions who just go and elect their pope, and even though it isn't legitimate, you have the whole section of the church in alignment with this pope. And so, Peter Damian, who's trying to, along with others, who's trying to clean up the situation, sees this as almost the last straw, because if we can't even get a pope on there who's legitimate, what on earth are we? It's just a step backwards instead of forwards. And so he pushes for and gets everything legal and set up and an election, and Nicholas II is elected. He only gets one year. No, two years, maybe. Three at the most. I don't have the dates, though. And, two years, two years. And what Nicholas does, the thing he's really known for vis-a-vis the Gregorian reform, is he comes out with this decree that says the emperor has absolutely no rights regarding

[08:40]

who's going to be elected pope. I mean, it had gotten to that point, where basically the emperor, only Roman emperor, was the one who was saying, oh yeah, this one's going to be the next pope. And that was confirmed in the year 1060. Nicholas died in 61, in late 60 or early 61. And within that time, while Peter Damian was off on another legation, I think he was gone to Cluny at that time, cleaning up a mess at Cluny, because Cluny was, the monks were in argument with their local bishop, and it was a longstanding going back over a century regarding, I would presume, one way or another, money. He goes and cleans that situation. On the way back, he's got to go. He finds out that the bishop of Parma, Archbishop of Parma, has been elected another antipope

[09:42]

after this one dies, and he's got to run off and work that whole thing, work up another election, get it all legal, and get Alexander on the throne, so we have a real pope. Because, I know, another problem is, it just isn't a matter of you got two tiaras instead of one. You've got these popes coming out with decrees and promulgations, and you have saints, canonized, who become canonized saints. On each side, it's always the case, even when it gets much worse later on, when you have three popes at a time, you have whole saints and nations and all their bishops and all aligned with various popes, and it's just a mess. Well, already back here, it's a mess, because you have decrees coming out and things like that that just mess up the situation, as if things aren't bad enough already. Pope Alexander, thankfully, is around a while, he lives a dozen years, and during his time,

[10:44]

he confirms again what's already been done, and he really gets the reform off the launch pan, stressing, whenever he could, papal supremacy, the holy apostolic sea, and what it says has power, papal legates, he sent papal legates out all over the place and got people aligned and agreeing with this, and it takes a long time when you've got a situation like this. And, under Alexander, you have whole sections and territories aligning themselves with the pope, so like vassal states of the papacy. Remember, the pope has an army at this time. The pope has his own army and everything, it's a sovereign nation, basically. Excuse me. When Alexander dies in 1073, that's the year after Peter Damian dies, and Peter Damian

[11:53]

is no longer around to straighten out the situation, we have his old friend, very, very close friend, from Rome, Hildebrand, who was, I think, archdeacon of Rome or something like that during these times. He was elected pope. Many, if you look at Peter Damian's writings, many of his letters are to Hildebrand or to others regarding Hildebrand. Hildebrand gets to the throne then in 1073, and he took many occasions to maintain papal supremacy in a dramatic way, and was powerful and cagey and cunning enough to get the better hand of all the political powers who tried anything with him, and also came out with a number of doctrinal pronouncements regarding this sort of thing.

[12:58]

That is, under this pope, you discover that the papacy is of divine origin, it is a thing of God, and that the papacy is the only intermediary on earth. And the papacy has universal power over the entire church, and the pope has every right to depose emperors. Also, the pope, if he wants, can make any law to which no one has any appeal at all, in the sense that no one can be excused. He can make absolute laws where there are no appeals. He's an absolute judge of all others. I mean, this is stating things pretty strongly.

[13:58]

And, and this one didn't go over too well, the pope has absolute authority over all secular powers. Well, there'd be plenty of secular powers down the line who are going to imprison popes, kidnap them, and do other things. But anyway, this is on paper, and people get to believe it. It takes a while to align themselves with this policy. And under the successors of Gregory, the policy is continued and maintained. And as it goes along, the church gets more and more and more centralized power because of that. I mean, if it becomes the status quo, if it becomes the modus operandi, after enough decades, it's going to be reality, and that's exactly what happens, for the most part. Of course, history, from time to time, will come in and ruin things for a while,

[15:06]

but this is what's on paper. The reform of the clergy, there are two basic problems. We talked about this under Peter Damian and Romul. Peter Damian especially was involved in this stuff, although Romul was too, especially with Simony. Simony, you have about half the church, let's say, in Italy, all the clerics and half the bishops might not have bought their positions, whether or not they were educated for them. They have bought their way into the priesthood, or into the bishopric, and in some situations, into the cardinalate. And the Gregorian reform forbids all of this stuff, and also forbids any lay people, any laity, to give benefices to the church

[16:20]

and profit therefrom. And bishops cannot receive benefices from secular funds. Okay, this is in line with Simony, of course. It took a number of popes to really get things under control, but it began during this time. The whole lay investiture, which is aligned with this. The whole business about laity and secular powers mucking around in the fabric of the church for power and money, and getting away with it. That all has to be taken care of this time. Peter Damian spent most of his active ministry combating this. And the other is Nicolaitism. Nicolaitism is not aligned with, what did I say it was aligned with?

[17:22]

Nepotism. It's not aligned with nepotism as I was guessing last time around. Nicolaitism is what the immorality of the clergy is, as an ism. So you're talking mainly about priests who have concubines, who have mistresses, who have families. Some of them live in their own houses with their families and wives. Is that the same Nicolaitism that's mentioned in Revelations? When he writes the letters to the seven churches? No, no. Nicolaites or something like that was a name in there, wasn't it? Well, there were three of the letters. This is a medieval area. I thought maybe it just hung on something. Oh no, I think that's probably a person. I'll have to look at that. Anyway, this is mainly a medieval situation.

[18:30]

And it's rampant at this time, rampant in the time of Peter Daniel. And he was a real troubleshooter with this regard. That is, deposing people, having them get rid of their mistresses, and this whole business. And so decrees came out in this regard about priests who have concubines, who have mistresses, who have families. Decrees that said any priest who does this and celebrates mass, it's illegal, it's illicit. And they're forbidden to do so. And the faithful are forbidden to have anything to do with priests in this situation, or bishops in this situation. And celibacy, here's where you have celibacy being imposed church-wide on an entire order.

[19:33]

From subdeacons up, subdeacons, deacons, priests, bishops, all have to live celibate lives. This is part of the Gregorian reform. So you have it happening in the late 11th century, late 1000s. That doesn't mean these problems all of a sudden disappear. They're going to hang on. But here's where you have the paperwork. And a lot of the problem was taken care of by people like Peter Daniel, working as troubleshooters for the Pope. Lay ascendancy. Lay ascendancy. By the mid-11th century, you have the situation where the local lords are the ones who choose who the bishop's going to be, who the priests are. Rulers really having the bishops as puppets, or giving the bishoprics as plums to one of their knights, or one of their warriors, as a gift.

[20:50]

The laity basically having control over church lands, church monies, church treasures, and using them for their own profit. Another myth, in other words, and this is at the same time. Working against lay investiture, which is aligned with this, helped to restore to the church the independence of the bishops. That is, they had to make a lot of changes, and they had to get proper bishops put in, their lands restored to them, the cathedrals restored to the church. You really had situations where they were used as public manors, or personal manors.

[21:55]

That is, M-A-N-O-R, their own home house, and that type of thing. Or puppets, performing liturgies with all the money going into the coffers of the local lord. And so you have a series of reforms dealing with this, at the same time as you have the other reforms going on. Needless to say, this all takes time, but this is the moment when it really gets off the ground, and actually goes somewhere. Rather than just somebody screaming about it, and it getting worse. This is where it really begins to slowly clean up its act, the church, that is. Moving on to England now, we're hopping back to England. We've already talked about England, remember we talked about Anglo-Saxon monasticism, even a little bit about Celtic monasticism in England.

[22:58]

Just for a little review then, just highlights, we'll look at Anglo-Saxon monasticism before the conquest, before the Normans come through. By the death of Oswald, which was in 992, so at the end of the 10th century, there were nearly 40 large monasteries of men, 40 abbeys, and 7 of women in England. In that renewal that Dunstan had started, and that was continued by his successors. So they had, remember, when Dunstan came in, there were just a couple monasteries left. They had already gone under, and already been, you know, gone into dissolution and whatnot. And Dunstan got another reform started, remember they even brought some people in from Fleury, later on Oswald did. In order to get the reforms that are going on in the continent, it started back in England, getting monasticism on its feet again. So by the end, by the death of Oswald, again 40 abbeys are back on their feet, of men and 7 of women.

[24:03]

And you have those lasting until the Norman conquest. Subsequent to Oswald then, you have these Danish invasions going on. The Danish Vikings, huh, coming through. And, excuse me. You have the houses that exist there. Not in the best situation, because even with the reforms, you still have the lay people, the lay powers, getting their hands into, as much as they can, into monasteries and their monies. But, just prior to the, and during the time of the Danish invasions, unless your place was destroyed, this is a time of liturgical reform, architectural influence and reform, monastically speaking.

[25:04]

And, pockets, pockets of education in England going on. The old schools, though, for the most part, were no longer what they once were. And things are, let's say, okay, okay monastically, but not the best. Then you have the Danes come in from 1015 to 1042. That is, those are the years of political power. Before that, they would just do their raids off and on. You never knew when they were coming. And this is when you have the English king being King Canute. Canute I from Denmark. King Canute of Denmark. And the Danish invasions, as such, didn't really do an awful lot to hurt monasticism.

[26:07]

It hurt the morale of the people, as such. There were a few monasteries destroyed and various plundering parties, mostly nunneries, for obvious reasons. But monasticism was still around. And under Canute, ironically enough, after they did destroy some monasteries, Canute himself became a champion of monasticism. This is the Viking king. And actually founds two very important houses in English monasticism. Bury St. Edmund's and Holmes Abbey. Remember now, what we're looking at today is we're going to look at what we get and then it's settled until the Reformation comes. And then just undoes everything. So during this time and the subsequent Norman conquest of England,

[27:09]

monasticism is going to be on the rise. So we're starting to go somewhere monastically. May wouldn't begin. After Canute, we have the great king, Edward the Confessor. 1042 until England was conquered by the Normans. And Edward had a number of friends and contacts who were Norman. Now, back in England, or back in France, Normandy and Brittany, sort of northern France, you're having wonderful things going on because of William of Dijon, who has a lot of power and is pro-monasteries and founds monasteries left and right and is in charge of the reform of monasteries. And some of these great monks, Norman monks, come over to England during this time.

[28:11]

This is before the conquest. And have relationships with Edward. In fact, some of them were his own counselors in his court, Norman monks. And a number of key people appointed to bishoprics during this time were these friends of his. You don't sort of, back then, you're not thinking yet France versus England. No, it isn't that way quite yet. And the languages are shared. People understand, you know, all the literati in what is England there speak French. All the nobles speak French. And that's going to continue too. And there are very, very strong ties between the two territories, let's say. Historically, religiously, ethnically, culturally.

[29:14]

So we shouldn't be surprised that he's appointing Norman abbots as bishops in England. A few of them, anyway. Especially since they had been his counselors or were his counselors. Edward did see himself as the protector of what Anglo-Saxon monasticism still existed. But he wasn't closed to Norman influence. Not totally, anyway. And there was the drawback, of course, is that we're still thinking feudal, as in feudalism with Edward. He still sees himself as a feudal lord. And so the monasteries are his vassals. His vassal states. And so it's part of the income of the king out of the abbeys and whatnot. And whenever you're doing that sort of thing, when money gets mixed into it, into politics and religion, things get a little messy now and then.

[30:22]

As I said, monasticism as such is okay. But just holding its own during this time. Except for one real bright spot. Or, excuse me, two. Two bright spots. And that would be under these three abbots that I mentioned. You don't have to remember them, but they're the important abbots during this time of Edward. Moffric, Wollstone, and Ethelwig. Now, why did you take Ezekiel? You could have had Ethelwig. You said you seemed like Ethelwig. I'm like Wollstone. Anyway, these three in the houses of Peterborough and Worcester were bright spots at this time. But the rest of them were just sort of okay or going down a little bit even.

[31:30]

These two had real growth at this time and very good observance. They were like reformed houses on the continent. These would be two English houses that would be comparable. Jumping across, just paraphrasing, jumping across to what's going on monastically in Normandy. You have a great upsurge in monasticism, basically due again to William of Dijon. And he was reforming a number of houses. We've already seen them. Mont Saint-Michel, Jumiege, Sainte-Ouen, Fécamp. These are all great places. These are houses where also the new learning, the cultural educational centers, are in the abbeys, the Norman abbeys of France.

[32:34]

That is, they don't just have little schools. These are the cultural centers for the arts, for what education there is, and for new thinking. So they're also hotbeds at this time and very important. Between the years of, well, let's say almost between Cnut and Edward, during their reigns over in Normandy, William of Dijon was there the whole time. You have him founding 28 abbeys, big powerful abbeys. All these become cultural centers, political centers, religious centers. And Norman monasticism was getting influenced by Cluny, what was left of Cluny, what's going on at Cluny. And also what the reforms that are taking place in Italy at this time,

[33:35]

because the new learning is aligned with various parts of the empire, not just culturally. And so you have a lot of exciting things happening in Normandy at this time, and it's precisely in the monasteries. The Abbey of Becque was founded in the year 1034, so during this time, that's one of the monasteries founded, Becque. Becque, the two people who are real famous for Becque are two future archbishops of Canterbury. But right now, they're going to be the prior of Becque. And that is, the first one is L'Enfranc. I underline both of these people, very important. We have a fine book on L'Enfranc in English in our library,

[34:38]

his legislation. He was a legislator. But anyway, he was the prior of Becque, or yes, prior of Becque, and he built up its monastery and its school and the new learning. And he was moved by William of Dijon over to Caen, Abbey, and Anselm took over at Becque. Becque was built up by that time and very important. William, when he conquers England, is going to bring over L'Enfranc. And he actually ends up being the archbishop of Canterbury and very much in charge of the monastery, the abbeys, and whatnot. And he's going to be followed up with his successor, Anselm. It's like just two frogs hopping. Oh, literally.

[35:41]

I hadn't planned that. A frog hopping from one place to another, both ending up in Canterbury. I can say that, I am a frog. I can get away with it. And they're going to be very, very much involved with the new learning. And they also bring that to England, that kind of cultural and educational influence. How are we doing? Pretty good. What's the difference, then, between the two kinds of monasticism? What's the difference between English monasticism we have before it becomes Norman and Norman monasticism in the northern part of France at this time, let's say around 1050, 1060, just before the conquest? What are the differences or comparisons, similarities and differences?

[36:44]

Similarities, there are a number of powerful abbeys in both systems with royal protection, with noble families represented in the communities, and so they have a lot of relationships politically, culturally, and more importantly, economically. They are independent of one another, houses, that is. Although under William of Dijon, there was a sort of subtle oppression, not necessarily bad, but he had an awful lot of influence there. And the normal recruitment for vocations are through the schools. They're getting the vocations in both systems, basically, through the schools they run. Of course, in Normandy, the schools are much more important than at this time in England, where the schools are just holding on, just making it.

[37:45]

In Normandy, they're the centers of the French universe at that time. In both situations, they're an integral part of both the church setup and the state at this time, although in England, it's less so than it used to be. But there's still power there, and there's still influence. In both situations, both countries, you have the political rulers, the sovereigns, having a lot of influence and authority over monasticism. At this time, it's okay, it's good, but there's always a danger with that as well. And the general conceptions of what monastic life should be are basically the same. They're both principled, it's just that the Normans are able to live it more at this time, because they're going up, they're not degenerating, they're going up.

[38:50]

The English monasticism is just sort of holding, or moving down a little bit. What are some of the differences? In England, the bonds between abbots and monasteries and kings were based on, well, it's been this way for a long time, tradition, and almost a political loyalty. It's tied to that, political loyalty. And the limits of spiritual jurisdiction, and even temporal jurisdiction, were vague in England. It wasn't as clear at this point in history how much power they had, how much leverage they had,

[39:50]

where they had to work around things. It was a somewhat unclear situation. Not so in Normandy. Everything's fairly stripped and in order and clear there. There, we're on a feudal system. Duke William of Dijon is the lord, and the abbots are vassals. They are vassals of their lord. And they will go in the conquest with him, many of them. They are his vassals. And William controlled the reform. It's a good reform. He's not a mess. It's a good reform, but he's the one doing it. The lay ruler is the one doing it. And he had absolutely unrestricted freedom in church politics and in church organization in France. He's a very powerful man. Okay, you get the point.

[41:08]

I can look at a number of areas where it just points out that Normandy's going up. You can look at the stock market, economically, politically, religiously, monastically. It's all going up, and England's sort of shaking. And in some areas, it's going down. That's basically what has to be said there. Okay, you have 1066, the Battle of Hastings. You're in the conquest of England. The Normans come in, and the Normans take over. What happens monastically? At the time of the conquest, 1066, there were 35 wealthy, Benedictine, autonomous monasteries. That is, there's no foreign connections to these monasteries, no dependencies. There's no federation or congregation as such. They're all each separate entities. There's no interdependence there.

[42:10]

They're all independent. And for William I, the monastery—William I is William the Conqueror. Then Normandy just took over. Very important person. Yes. Yes. No, Willie. Just think Willie, and it's all the same. And he's around for 20 years, something like that. There's Ruler. And during that time, he sees the monasteries very, very important to him. Why? Because they're wealthy. They are incredibly wealthy. They might not be too good monastically right off, but then some of them aren't too bad. But they're all fairly wealthy.

[43:12]

In other words, they got money and power, at least some kind of power. Economic, no other power. And this is real important to him. They're also social centers, not as big as it was in Normandy at this time, but they're still social centers. So. He could have been a lot worse to monasteries than he was. He could have said, we've conquered you. You don't have any lands. I just assume this. I take it all. He didn't do that. He didn't do that. He didn't dispossess them. Some of the monasteries got hurting a little bit. But just in general, he didn't do that sort of thing. And so they were grateful. And for the most part, became quite loyal to him.

[44:14]

He wasn't stupid. There's a memorial for all the blaze builders. He's going to build a large number of monasteries. One thing he does, though, in the ensuing years, and it's very cagey, is that, well, how are you going to ensure that these abbeys and monasteries are going to stay in your pocket? How are you going to ensure that without oppressing them? How would you do it? Without oppressing them, you want these abbeys all to be in your pocket. You don't want to alienate them. You don't want to oppress them. You don't want to take away their property. You want them to stay as powerful as they are, if not become more powerful. But you want them in your pocket. What do you do during the coming years?

[45:20]

Exactly. Exactly. And during that, by the time William died, he had all Norman abbeys, in all the abbeys except three. There are still three old ones still living on, but they get replaced, too. And this is a good thing for English monasticism. I mean, they really put things, they get things going well. The Normans were, remember, the Normans monastically speaking, were in a very positive period right now. And they bring great influences into what was left of English monasticism. And who's going to be very instrumental in this whole Normanization, let's call it, of monasticism in England? William I. And who's going to bring in the reforms that are going on in Normandy, and who's going to put monasticism on its feet and align monasticism with William I?

[46:27]

His archbishops. And so these two are very important to William during this time because he appoints them for a reason. They're very capable, good men, but they're also friends and counselors of the king, and very significant to monasticism at this time. So this is to show that if you want to, church and state can work very well together. Yeah, for a short time. And you'll see it a number of times. So much of it depends on who the ruler is, where he's coming from, and does he need your money. You have a lot of very capable, good rulers from time to time in history who, once they need money, abuse monasticism rather than use it, or rather than align themselves with it. I think William respected the cultural aspect of it. Yeah, he would.

[47:29]

They would, they'd do some rebuilding. They'd rebuild a lot of the monasteries or add it on to them, and they built the Norman way rather than the Anglican way. He seemed to get away with it. Of course, it was a gradual thing, although not all that gradual. We're talking 20, 30 years. It pretty much changed the whole face of English monasticism. But it worked. It worked. The thing is with William, remember, just from remembering what he was like in Bernadine, he's pro-monasticism. He's not just pro them having money and good. He's pro-monastic observance. He believes in monasticism. He started the reform as a lay ruler. So here you have an ideal situation for that to happen, for them to get along. And the church life at this time, well, William was not too much in favor of this,

[48:35]

because this is just too much Rome, too Rome-centric. He didn't like all the centralization, but a lot of the reform of the church aspects, yeah, okay, okay. But none of this, you know, all that stuff about lay ascendancy and lay investing, don't let the lay people, eh, he didn't care too much about that, because that's exactly what he's doing. Thank God he's within element, but he's doing it. And so his relationship with Gregorian reform is only sort of like 50-50. But he does a lot for church reform in his own land, with his archbishops in the pocket. And they aren't puppets, either. These two men are authentic saints, as well as very, very capable men. So it's just a good time in England because of that. The Normans are really having their heyday. Okay. There was another aspect, though, that he brought over,

[49:44]

and that is he liked his habits to be vassals. So there's still a feudalistic term, still thinking feudalism. And so there were times when these abbeys have to pay their vassalage tax. And when there's time for a war or some disciplinary action, whatever, abbeys have to pay or send knights. They have to furnish knights, depending on how big and rich they are. They've got to furnish so many knights to the army of the king. Oddly enough, ironically enough, even three of the nunneries had to do that. You had three nunneries who had to send knights to war. Now, obviously, it was just they didn't dress up three of the nuns in armor and send them off. They paid for it. And it was real hard on one of them because one of the ones that fell onto this system

[50:45]

through circumstances didn't have a lot of money. It was really, really hard on them. So what you have happening is a normanization of the monasteries. And vis-a-vis church life, you have Lafrock, who is a legislator, writing up his own consuetudiness. Remember that word, what that means? He's writing his customary or constitution for church life in England. Where are we going to go with this? For the monasteries, what Lafrock does in that regard is sort of comes up with documentation that sounds a lot like the regularus communis of Cluny, Cluny's initial consuetudiness. It's going to be sort of like a second Clunyization, Cluniacalization, Clunization of the English church

[51:54]

at this time. Now, during this time, there are other monasteries, as the one you mentioned, Battle Abbey, I believe. He's going to, on his own, just start new abbeys that are Norman from the beginning. So he builds them Norman architecture, Norman monks go into them from the beginning. It's all Norman. And Battle Abbey is probably the most famous of those. Also, he fills up his bishoprics during this time with abbots. Abbots, Norman abbots, take over monasteries until he needs a bishop. And then they become the bishops and archbishops in England. By the end of his reign, almost certainly the majority of them were ex-abbots, Benedictine abbots. Another situation you have, which has its strong points

[53:01]

and its weak points. I'm actually going to finish this today. You have, by the year 1200, now we're moving up a bit. So what you have in the ensuing years, during the next century, the 1100s, up to the point of 1200, is you have something strange going on in monasticism in England. That is, you have all kinds of tiny little priories started, tiny little pockets. You have a farm that is acquired by a monastery and they send two monks out there. It never grows any bigger. They never want it to grow any bigger. They call that a cell, a monastic cell. Well, you have all of these little priories and cells and houses that have their properties and monies and whatnot and somehow fit into the monastic organization. And sometimes, to their detriment, are plumbs for politicians who need money

[54:03]

and fit them into, well, what would I do if you're an abbey? Well, we're going to do the same thing to you, priory or so. And there are a lot of former monasteries and ruins, a lot of decayed places that little communities started out there with just a little handful of monks trying to get off the ground during the 1100s. You have a lot of monasteries being founded during the 1100s by local gurus who say, so that my family and me do not go to hell or whatever or in Thanksgiving for the birth of my son or whatever, I'm going to found a monastery. You have a lot of that going on, but they can only pay so much. And so you have a lot of half-monasteries built or like little abbeys, miniature foundations

[55:05]

that never get off the ground very far. They stay like little priories. And the problem is you get so many of these. And later on, of course, these are going to be plumbed politically, plundered because they don't have a lot of power. They're powerless. They're not like the big established places. There are, just hopping back now to the feminine side of monasticism, when William comes and conquers in 1066, there are nine big nunneries in existence in England. The six more important ones there I've listed. These are important, the nunneries. Shaftesbury, Amesbury, Ramsey, Barking, Wilton, and Winchester, all large nunneries, which fell into the feudal system in the Abbasids were vassals of the king.

[56:10]

And that's, you know, three of them mainly had to send knights even to supply knight service. That is K-N-I-G-H-T. These six I've mentioned are the great, the six great old Anglo-Saxon nunneries that are still around, still functioning when William comes in. After the Normans take over, things aren't so hot for women. Some of them were reduced in status from abbeys to priories for various reasons, political, economic. And three Norman convents were founded. It was more obvious among the women that the Normans were taking over

[57:15]

and coming to the ascendancy very quick. These are the three big Norman English convents or nunneries that become big abbeys then under the Normans. Godstow, Elstow, and Molling. Molling is a functioning Anglican Benedictine nunnery now, East Molden. And these poor women don't weather as much as the men do under the Norman Cataclysm, for whatever reasons. Of course, with the men, there's a lot of politics in there too. Last, a note about Cluniacs in England. Yes, Cluniacs in England. There weren't a lot of Cluniacs in England. In fact, a number of times, Cluny refused to make foundations in England. Not because they hated England, but because the time,

[58:18]

by the time England was asking for Cluniac foundations, Cluny had already gone into legislation under Hugh that said, we're not making any more foundations. We already have 800, 900, whatever. And things are stretched too far. But, at the same time, Abbot Hugh was convinced by a very wealthy Englishman to make a foundation, Lose Abbey Priory, in England, following the Cluniac Reform Observance. So it's like this congregation, let's say, founds a house in England. Like we would, a Commodities house. This is a Cluniac house. And it starts out real slow, and, excuse me. And this house ends up founding four houses under it.

[59:19]

Four smaller houses. I've got their names there for the tape. They are Wenlock, Castle Acre, Pontefract, and Thetford. And these are all Cluniac houses, of note. There are other smaller ones during the centuries. The other main, big main house of Cluniac is Bermondsey. And Lose and Bermondsey are the two biggies. And this one leaves the Cluniac movement, Bermondsey. Lose stays Cluniac, and its foundations stay Cluniac. But they never amount to anything. They don't become all that powerful or notable in England. They're just there. And they're living a rather simple, quiet monastic life. So from a monastic history perspective, it's not that important. But I just wanted you to know that they were there. That Cluny was also in England. And so by the year 1160, so a mere century after William took over,

[60:25]

you have some 36 houses of Cluniacs. 36 houses. But a lot of them are real small. A lot of them would fall into this cell thing, too off on a farm. That type of thing. Never Cluniacs were into that. And so although you have a large number of them, they weren't all that noticeable to English monastic history and tended to be isolationist, if not a bit paranoid, about Normans and the other kind of monasticism going on in England. So they stayed to themselves. Next time then, when we get together Monday and Tuesday, I want to talk about Byzantine monasticism, just to look a little bit at the Eastern Church monasticism, the roots of it. And then we're probably going to move into the Reformation.

[61:26]

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