We think of leadership positions as highly regarded and important positions and this is very true. Most of our leaders today are elected because they want to take on the leadership roles of whatever position they are filling. They know that there will be some people for them, some against, and some indifferent about their positon. They realize that not every decision they make will keep everyone happy. Yet, throughout their term in their position they stay strong no matter what has gone on and they continue their leadership strong until the day they die or are relived of their position. What about the abbots what kind of men where they and why were they chosen? What made them so special? What does it mean to be an Abbot?
The dictionary definition of an abbot is a man who is in charge of all the monks in a abbey. Although this is a very simple definition it does not fully give us the meaning of what abbots have to do in order to serve their god and people. We could compare them to a government official in todays time. They are not the president or a simple citizen, but they do hold a vast amount of power in which they can control the people and the president at times.
The abbot before abbot Samson was abbot Hugh. It was said that he was, “A gentle and kind man, he was good and devout monk, but lacked ability in business matters.”[ Jocelin Of Brakelond. Chronicles of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds. trans. Diana Greenway and Jane Sayers (Oxford University Press,1989), 3.] He would listen to other peoples advice more than he would listen to his own intuition and that led him to be a poor leader. It was not to say that he was a bad abbot but he simply did not care about most responsibilities he had. Everyone did as they pleased b...
... middle of paper ...
...hat the abbey could make money for use for the abbey, the abbot, the land, and for the king. The abbots response was to threaten Herbert and force him to destroy the mill that he had built.
Overall abbot Samson was a good abbot who was respected by his piers and by the people that followed under his rule. He was wise and was very good at maintaining the land he controlled. He also was able to pay of most of the debts that were created under abbot Hugh’s term. Abbot Samson had created new buildings and had appointed new management for the land in order to keep the land maintained and at peace. He listened to the king and the pope who were his superiors and there was never a serious issue while abbot Samson was in term.
Works Cited
Jocelin Of Brakelond. Chronicles of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds. trans. Diana Greenway and Jane Sayers (Oxford University Press,1989)
We live in a fallen world filled with evil desires, temptations, and idols. Many believed that if one desires to be as holy and as close to God as possible then they must distance themselves from sin. This involves putting aside worldly desires and possessions since anything of this fallen world is sinful. This calling brought many people to live simplistic lives alone. However, around fourth century a man named Pachomius founded a place where people with this similar interest could live together, known as a monastery (Benedictine Abbey of Christ in the Desert). This way of living became very appealing not only for spiritual pursuits but also for the pursuit of knowledge. Outside of monasteries the literacy rate was extremely low. For the most part only monks knew how to read and write. For these reasons monasteries began to be established all over Europe. However, with so many of them styles and rules became very different. There were many different kinds of rule that separated monasteries fro...
Kanner, Barbara, ed. The Women of England: From Anglo Saxon Times to the Present. Hamden: The Shoe String Press, 1979.
closer to God. The monasteries were a place to get away from evil and anything
Loach, Jennifer. “Mary Tudor And The Re-Catholicisation Of England.” History Today 44.11 (1994): 16. World History Collection. Web. 18 Nov.2013
In his youth, St. Boniface encountered many priests or clerics who traveled from town to town. Through these spiritual conversations, it became evident to St. Boniface that he wanted to pursue a life with God. Eventually, after continuos begging and his fathers fatal sickness, he was sent to the care of the Monastery of Examchester. (Appleton) It is here, that St. Boniface expressed to the Abbot at the time, that he wanted to live a monastic life. The father of the monastery, after council, granted him his wish. Here is where the saint began to prove his love for God, and could begin his journey of the Christian life. After exceeding all expectations and surpassing the knowledge of his teachers, he moved to a neighboring monastery, called Nursling, whereby he studied under the influence of Abbot Winbert.(St. Boniface Church) Here he gained vast knowledge of scriptures and the spiritual exposition of the Bible. Here, he gained such a reputation that men and women from far and wide traveled to study scriptures under his guidance. At the age of 30 he was humbly ordained a priest and yet another branch of his life was fulfilled.
The Foundation Charter of Cluny outlines the rulings set by Duke William and established what would come to be known as the ‘cluniac reforms’. The charter focuses on spiritual salvation and is dedicated to honouring the Apostles Peter and Paul presenting them as the patrons of the monastery. It highlights the monastery’s freedom from lay authority and specifies the ownership of the monastery and that the abbot could not be subject to external influence. Duke William also stipulates that the monks and all their possessions come under the named abbot Berno. The Foundation Charter of Cluny was hugely influential affecting not only the original abbey of Cluny but also the several later establishments, which adhered to the charter set by Duke William I in 910. Duke William I focuses great...
As we have looked into the causes of monasticism, the development of monasticism and the history behind some of its practices. We can start to understand whom these hooded little men really are and what they stood for. We can see that this movement was truly needed. Monasticism aided in the rapid development of a hierarchical, centralized organization in the church because the monks were bound to obedience to superiors who in turn owed their allegiance to the pope. We do admire the fine contributions the monks made to medieval life. This was not only a movement in the history of Christianity, but it is still practiced today. One author defined monasticism as such: "Monasticism did not begin by being passed one to another but arose like spontaneous eruptions, or like a spring gushing forth in different places from a source underground."
Great leaders come once in a generation. Two tremendous examples of historical leadership come in the form of Beowulf and The Rule of Saint Benedict. Beowulf and The Rule of Saint Benedict provide clear depictions of ideal leaders and subjects.
The cover of the November, 1975 comic book "Beowulf: Dragon Slayer" features a red-haired, horn-helmeted Beowulf swinging a large broadsword at a purple-caped villain also bearing two razor-sharp swords. As Beowulf rears up on his steed, a bikini clad woman, cloth slightly aside to reveal the shadow of a buttock is drawn falling, face filled with terror. In the background, a rising full moon and silhouetted gothic castle keenly set an atmosphere of dread and foreboding. Above the emboldened title of the comic book reads in smaller letters, "Beowulf: First and Greatest Hero of Them All!" Text in the bottom-left corner gives the juicy hook for this edition: "Beowulf Meets Dracula." Despite over eight hundred years of literary separation, English literature's earliest known epic hero gallantly faces off against its biggest villain.1
Many bishops and abbots (especially in countries where they were also territorial princes) bore themselves as secular rulers rather than as servants of the Church. Many members of cathedral chapters and other beneficed ecclesiastics were chiefly concerned with their income and how to increase it, especially by uniting several prebends (even episcopal sees) in the hands of one person, who thus enjoyed a larger income and greater power. Luxury prevailed widely among the higher clergy, while the lower clergy were often oppressed. The scientific and ascetic training of the clergy left much to be desired, the moral standard of many being very low, and the practice of celibacy not everywhere observed. Not less serious was the condition of many monasteries of men, and even of women (which were often homes for the unmarried daughte...
Clements, Victoria. Introduction. A New-England Tale. By Catharine Maria Sedgwick. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
History is often constructed from stories that were passed down by word of mouth and those that were put to record. When stories are shared by word of mouth the human mind has the ability to exaggerate the truth and the lines between fact and fiction can become blurred. Most of this exaggeration comes from the human nature to try and manipulate the truth to benefit oneself. The Strange Story of Thomas of Elderfield is a perfect example of what verbal passing of a story can do. I will first give a short synopsis of the story, then I will explain why this story was of great enough significance to document and finally I will explain what a person of the time would most likely take from this tale.
Emerson, Kathy Lynn. The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in Renaissance England From 1485-1649. Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books, 1996.
* Rowse, A. L. Bosworth Field: From Medieval to Tudor England. New York: Doubleday, 1966.
Samson Agonistes is Milton’s final work, and as such is remarkable for its lack of finality. The poem is maddeningly oblique; Milton gives no answers, and barely poses any questions. However, Milton succeeds in writing Christian tragedy in Samson Agonistes by presenting the ease with which a Christian can be guided away from a real interaction with his own faith. Samson’s blindness is the blindness of all Christians who seek the path of salvation without divine guidance, and his tragedy is the tragedy of all those who convince themselves they have found it on their own. While Milton is very much working under the circumscription of Greek tragedy, his choices of interlocutors for Sampson speak to his fascination with a major paradox of Christianity: that man cannot work out his faith alone, and yet he must. By removing all direct divine presence from the poem, Milton explores the consequences of following Christian law without striving for Christian faith.