This detailed, well-written and magisterial study of monastic superiors, abbots and priors in late mediaeval and Reformation England transforms our understanding of the subject. It is a significant addition to the literature on mediaeval English monasticism and clarifies many obscure corners. It takes a refreshingly clear look at a neglected subject and shows the ways in which the role, and even the character, of the monastic superior developed and changed in the generations before the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
Guests and dependents formed part of the monastic perspective from the earliest times, and St Benedict in his sixth-century Rule presents the abbot, the linchpin of his system, as both the father of his community and the personal interface with the outside world. Primitive monasticism had more emphasis on the internal life of the monks within their enclosure and less on the outside world. The abbots and priors studied in this book are as much at home in the world as in the cloister. Prolonged absences on business became commonplace and brought with them all the problems associated with absent fathers. As landowners, often with great estates, monastic leaders had become an integral part of elite society, playing a full part in national and regional ceremonial and administrative life. Thirty abbots were called regularly to the House of Lords by the early sixteenth century.
The holy and humble model of the ascetic abbot gave way to an increasingly prelatical ideal, with the office of bishop becoming the ecclesial pattern for religious superiors. The use of pontificalia and personal coats of arms were the outward signs of the elevation of the dignity of the superior. Increasingly, the abbots and priors lived in separate buildings away from the monastic dormitory. Fashionable Aristotelian ideals of liberality and affability tended to be the qualities the superiors emulated. Some abbots had their own jesters and indulged in hunting. Retired abbots retained much of their status and did not return to conventual life.
Dr Heale suggests that it would be wrong to see such changes as indicating decline. In many places the greater monasteries at the Dissolution were strong in numbers and living according to their rule of life. The Dissolution was a disastrous interference from the outside rather than an inevitable consequence of decline. It destroyed the freedom of the monks so vital to their self-understanding. Much of monastic display was about the identity and independence of the communities. In a closely argued chapter the author discusses the election of the superiors and shows that most elections were conducted without outside interference. Monastic superiors, unlike those of the friars (who are not part of the author's brief), were generally elected for life. Stability was seen as a monastic necessity; vacancies were regarded as dangerous periods of uncertainty and long abbacies as a desideratum.
The office of abbot or prior was exercised within a complex of legislation. The bedrock of monastic life was provided by the foundation rules of St Augustine and St Benedict, which were themselves reflections on the gospel. These were added to by the canon law of the Church, by the provincial chapters of the orders and by the statutes of the religious superiors themselves. Exemption from episcopal control gave such statutes a strong local force. Late mediaeval monks had been profoundly effected by the clericalisation of the Church, which meant that most monks and canons were ordained to the presbyterate and that university education made up part of the formation of an increasing number of them. The litigious abbot or prior, especially as a man of property, was a well-known type in this period.
The semi-autonomous monastic community, with its increasingly powerful superior, developed in contrast to the communal aspirations of the late mediaeval town and the representative tendencies of the Friars. It nevertheless represented a significant sector of mediaeval society. This book clearly puts it in its proper place.
