Quand les moines dirigeaient le monde...

Continuing our [History Courses] series, dedicated here to medieval Christianity (Year 7 and Year 10 programs). Interviewed by Christophe Dickès, historian Arnaud Fossier presents in this second installment the role of monks in the medieval period. What Georges Duby called the time of the monks before the famous time of the cathedrals. He answers the following questions: What is a monk? One of the paradoxes is that these men, who lived apart from the world, very quickly acquired enormous political weight in the West. Why? Can we say that these men ruled the world? What were the relationships of monks with the rest of society? How can we explain that monks, theoretically outside the "century," contributed to the birth of the feudal system? - Isn't the best example of this integration of monks into the feudal system that of Cluny, initially a simple abbey, which, two centuries after its founding in 912, became the largest religious congregation in the Christian world? Subsequently, the Cluniac monks were "corrupted" by the influx of wealth and the desire for power... Was there no resistance to this evolution of monasticism? A desire to put spirituality back at the center of monastic life? In the 13th century, traditional monasticism therefore seemed to have broken down, as if disarmed in the face of the initiatives of a more educated laity, who no longer had any reason to rely solely on monks. This was also the time when a new kind of religious order, known as the Mendicants, emerged. Who were they? What did they do? And could it be said that they had supplanted the monks? Our Professor: A graduate of the École Normale Supérieure and former member of the French School of Rome, Arnaud Fossier is currently a lecturer in history at the University of Burgundy. His research focuses on Church government and medieval Italy. He has recently published The Souls Office, Writings and Administrative Practices of the Apostolic Penitentiary (13th-14th Century) with the French School of Rome. Arnaud Fossier presents a three-part series for Storiavoce devoted to medieval Christianity. ____________________________________________________ Find us at www.storiavoce.com/ Our Twitter account: twitter.com/Storiavoce Our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/storiavoce/