AROUND the year 270, a 20-year-old Egyptian heard the Gospel read in church in which Christ advises a rich young man to sell his possessions and give the money to the poor. This was Anthony, one of the earliest monks, who followed these instructions, sold what he had, and set out to lead an ascetic life in the desert.

This search for solitude by a single monk came at the beginning of a process that led eventually to the growth of the large communities across medieval Europe with large monasteries having many other houses dependent on them, and which became, as described here, the “engine rooms of medieval society”, providing intellectual leadership for Church and State, education, and agricultural management.

This book traces the stages of this story. It describes the beginnings of monastic life which took place across the Christian world as the faith became accepted by the Roman government. These first stages took varying forms in different regions mostly in the Christian East, and then spread westwards — also, it should be noted, east into Asia and south into Africa; but the expansion in these directions falls outside the scope of this study.

Then in the western parts of Europe, the Rule of Benedict, and also Rules attached to other founders, became widely followed, giving a widely shared pattern of community life. Then monasteries grew into more established institutions in both west and east, with lands and revenue. Then came the movements to reform these large communities and to return to the ideals of the early days. There were further developments and new forms of community until the dissolutions of the 16th century — with the growth of women’s monasticism, scholarship, and preaching, and more informal styles of life.

These developments are illustrated by examples and stories from the lives of the monks across Europe and the eastern Mediterranean. These show the variety and richness of the tradition, and also the local character, as the monasteries responded to the interest, generosity, and support of the communities in which they were set, and served the needs of those around them.

This led to the formation of ever more complete and complex communities, which were part of society and so resulted in a close relationship with those whom they served. The monastic houses within the congregation of Cluny, for example, received generous donations of land, given, as described here, with “apparently suicidal generosity”. These gifts led to relationships of exchange and gift which helped to create and sustain the fabric of society. Gifts of land gave to the donor a place within the family of St Peter, the patron of the monastic family.

A theme that runs through this long history is the nature and purpose of Christian community. Alongside the longing for solitude and the call to withdraw into the silence of the desert went the formation of communities following the discipline of sharing in the liturgy, of maintaining the life of the community, and of responding to the needs of society.

The two commitments are both present within the monastic movement in the alternative approaches of the coenobitic or communal monasteries, which grew into large and influential communities able to give guidance and leadership to the society around, and, alongside that, the eremitic calling to a life of solitude and asceticism. Within these two ideals, monks carried on a regular disciplined life. Both approaches were present within the communities.

Lying behind the movement are questions about the nature of the Christian gospel and the formation of Christian community which successive generations of monks and nuns were asking. These questions are at the heart of the life and ministry of the Church, and of the nature of the Christian life. While the story in this book comes to an end in the 16th century, when a half of the monasteries of Europe were dissolved or destroyed, the witness to God’s love and the way in which it can be lived out continues.

The Revd Dr John Binns is Visiting Professor at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge.

The Monastic World: A 1,200-year history
Andrew Jotischky
Yale £25
(978-0-300-20856-6)
Church Times Bookshop £22.50