Authority and Asceticism from Augustine to Gregory the Great

When barbarians invaded the Roman Empire in the years around 400 AD, Christian monks hid in their cloisters - or so it is often assumed. Conrad Leyser shows is that monks in the early medieval West were, in fact, pioneers in the creation of a new language of moral authority. He describes the making of this tradition over two centuries from St Augustine to St Benedict and Gregory the Great.
Conrad Leyser examines the formation of the Christian ascetic tradition in the western Roman Empire during the period of the barbarian invasions, from about 400-600 CE. In an aggressively competitive political context, one of the most articulate claims to power was made, paradoxically, by men who had renounced "the world", committing themselves to a life of spiritual discipline in the hope of gaining entry to an otherworldly kingdom. Often dismissed as mere fanaticism or open hypocrisy, the language of ascetic authority, Conrad Leyser shows, was both carefully honed and well understood in the late Roman and early medieval Mediterranean. Dr Leyser charts the development of this new moral rhetoric by abbots, teachers, and bishops from the time of Augustine of Hippo to that of St Benedict and Gregory the Great This book is intended for scholars and students of ancient and medieval history, religion, and patristics; intellectual historians