Gone Medieval - St Benedict

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

Why did a young Roman nobleman reject status and education for a life of prayer, solitude and discipline?St Benedict’s quiet choices would go on to shape the future of Western civilisation. His is a story of medieval Christianity, monastic life, hospitality, order, prayer and work — and of a different kind of greatness.Dr. Eleanor Janega is joined by Dr. Tim Larsen to explore the extraordinary life and legacy of St Benedict, founder of Western monasticism and patron saint of Europe.MORE:St. Christopher & Summertime SaintsListen on AppleListen on SpotifySt. Francis & the First Nativity PlayListen on AppleListen on SpotifyGone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanorianica and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were.

And how we got here. Towards the end of the 5th century CE, a young man arrives in Rome, the greatest city in the Western world. Sent there for an education, for opportunity, for the kind of future any ambitious family would want. beside him travels the woman who has cared for him since childhood, his nurse, the once steady, familiar presence in a place meant to shape him into something important. Everything about this journey points forward. Rome is supposed to make him, but instead Rome repels him. This is Benedictus, the future's.

Saint Benedict. And what he sees in the city is not brilliance, not virtue, not promise, but moral confusion, vanity, and spiritual danger. He's still young, but he understands something decisive. Stay here, and he might gain the world while losing himself. So he does something extraordinary. He walks away. He leaves behind the road to success and status. He gives up the education, the ambition, the whole glittering machinery of Roman life. And his nurse, loyal to him still, goes with him. Together they withdraw to a quieter place near Rome, trying to live simply, obscurely, prayerfully. And then, in that hidden life, something very small happens.

His nurse borrows Asif. It's an ordinary household tool, probably for preparing food. Then it breaks. Not chips, not cracks. It breaks in two. And suddenly, this tiny little domestic mishap becomes a real sorrow. Because a borrowed item has been ruined. it. Because in a hard life, even small losses matter. Because sometimes the thing that undoes us

isn't a grand catastrophe, but a little humiliation at the end of a long day. And she begins to weep. And Benedict sees her. It doesn't dismiss her distress. It doesn't tell her it's only a sieve. He takes the broken pieces, goes away to pray, and as the story tells it, he weeps too. Picture that for a moment. The future founder of Western monasticism, not in a pulpit, he's not before a king, he's not working some dramatic public wonder.

He's kneeling over a broken kitchen tool, praying out of compassion for the woman who raised him. And when he rises, this eve, is perfectly mended. It's restored so completely that there is no sign of the break within it at all. This is Benedict's first miracle. It's not a spectacle, there's no thunderbolt. It's just mercy.

It's a broken thing that was made whole because somebody cared enough to pray. But of course, miracles don't stay hidden for long. People hear about it. They come to see it. And the townspeople are so amazed that they hang the repaired sieve at the church door, a sign as a memory, as proof that something holy has happened in their midst. And that is how the public story of Benedict begins. A young man who fled the corruption of Rome, a nurse in tears,

and a broken household object made whole by prayer. Maybe that's why the story lasted. Because it tells us right at the start exactly what kind of man Benedict would become. Rome offered him greatness, and instead, he chose goodness. A man who understood that holiness is not only found in grand gestures, but in tenderness, attention, and the refusal to treat another person's grief as something small. Who was this young man who walked away from Rome just when the world seemed ready to open itself? to him. What did Benedict see in the heart of a great city that made him turn from ambition,

success, and status, towards silence, prayer, and solitude? And how did that quiet, uncompromising choice shape the life of the man who would become one of the most influential saints in Christian history? The patron saint of Europe and the founder of Western monasticism? To explore the extraordinary story and legacy of St. Benedict, whose day is celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church, mainly on the 11th of July. I am joined by Dr. Tim Larson, McVanis Professor of Christian Thought and Professor of History at Wheaton College, Illinois. We've spoken before on God Medieval about St. Francis of Assisi and the first nativity play, and that episode is well worth revisiting. So I am delighted that he's agreed to come on the podcast again to help us know

is St. Benedict just a little bit better. Tim, welcome back to Gone Medieval. I'm so glad to be here again. Listen, the people clamor for more Tim, especially when it comes to chatting about saints, which is one of my favorite things to do personally. And this is one of these saints. You know, this is one of the things that the medieval world

is really obsessed with this guy. And so I think as a result of that, all medievalists we have to be obsessed with this guy. Oh, St. Benedict. Oh, St. Benedict. You know, like, someone needed to calm these monks down. Someone needed to get them out of the caves in the desert. So we've got St. Benedict.

And he's this really interesting character because he's living in, like, a really tumultuous time. You know, some would say not right-thinking people. Some would say that he's living after the fall of the Roman Empire. But I don't believe in the fall of the Roman Empire because, I'm a good little medievalist, right? I think that we have dissolved into a series of successor states. That's what I would say.

But I do wonder, what do you think about the idea that perhaps living through the instability of that, you know, moving from a really centralized imperial state to a more fracturous community of separate successor states,

do you think that has something to do with Benedict's? desire to kind of create order or stability and permanence, which is what we really see in his rule. Wow, that's a wonderfully insightful connection between the political landscape and the rule. Stability is absolutely central to Benedict's vision for what the monastic life should be like. And stability is quite literally staying in the same place with the same people, working it out in this place, not fleeing away because your problems are too big, not trying to find a better group of people who you can get along with more easily. And that does seem to chime in with what you're saying.

There's a lot of temptation to flee or need to flee in this world. And what would it be like to stay? I think he's a really interesting one too because this is, I suppose that now when we think about monasticism, really we're thinking about this idea that he's come up with this set of ideals. You know, you go to the monastery, you're attached to it. Granted, we talked about how Frat Svesee really blows that wide open and you can do it in a city now. But you always go back, right?

You go back to that monastery. You go back to this centralized group of people. And, I mean, to me, I think it's really striking because this guy's like a dropout. You know, Benedict, yeah, he's from this incredibly, you know, wealthy family. He's a part of all of the most high fluton circles of Roman society. But he doesn't finish his education. And I mean, do you think that that has something to do with the fact that he's able to come up with this new concept as opposed to like, you know, the established sort of Praetorian thinkers who are educated in the correct Roman way, you know, capital C, capital R? His monasticism is not for the exceptional.

It is not for the exhibitionist. It is for the ordinary plotting person, which is what he is. I don't think he was great at his studies. He's not like the kind of person who is, you know, the elite person from a aristocratic family who has the world to do something with and chooses to kind of channel that in a religious direction rather than a political direction. He's trying to create a monasticism for the mediocre, for the plotters. And he is doing that with the rule. Listen, I'll tell you what. Shout out to anyone else who had to take medieval Latin as part of their educational process.

process such as myself because one of the big tests we were given early on was we had to do the rule of St. Benedict. And when you say plotting, I'm like, yeah, it's, hmm, it's not sophisticated Latin. It's really tricky, in fact, because it is, it's sort of vague. And you can tell that it kind of makes sense to anyone who's reading it within context. But when you're taking outside of that context, it becomes quite difficult. And, you know, this is really in comparison to. Yeah, the muckety mucks up at the top of the chain, who would probably have, you know, perfect studious Latin, right? You know, but I think that's quite perceptive of you. Yeah. I don't know where I'm going with that. I'm just praising you. Take your time.

It's interesting, right, because you've got Benedict on the one hand, but at the same time, he's got a twin sister, right? Scholastica. Scalastica. I mean, what a name. Bring it back. I think it's fantastic. How significant do you think it is that we have this,

let's be so real monasticism is a boys club it's by bros four bros yes we invent nuns later but they aren't the same thing right but i think it's kind of significant that there's a woman involved in the origin and she's born at the same time as the founder of this really blokey idea i mean am i just wanting to put women in no no no it's there so basically everything we know about benedicts life is from Gregory the Great's dialogues where he does the life. And that life, which is the only life, ends with Philastica. The last miracle is not Benedict's. It's hers. It's her defying him and getting her comeuppance on him. He is out in a pavilion meeting with her. And he's a good guy who follows the rule. And he's like, I got to go back to the monastery now. That's what the rule says. She actually is

acting prophetically because she's going to die in a few days. And she's like, no, you need to spend more time with me today. We need to have longer fellowship together. And he's like, no, the rule is the rule. I'm leaving. And so she prays and bruise up this tremendous storm that is so strong he can't leave the pavilion and has to stay there and continue to have fellowship with his sister. And he's mad at her and says, you didn't do what I said. And she's like, that's right, but I asked the Lord and he did what I said. She's so real for that, you know. And I do think that that's an interesting one because it does show that there are still things that we owe one another, even within the monastic setting. You know, you still kind of owe some kinship to your sister. You still do

owe something. I mean, at least if your sister is also a saint. I think that helps, obviously. But, you know, it's not just this complete and utter cutting of ties because you've come up with a pretty good rule. Yes, and also part of the wisdom is to know when the rule should be bent. And so if you're so rigid about rules, you're not really living a life-giving rule. That's a really good point. Look, let's go back to the founding of this, right? Because here's Benedict.

We've already mentioned it. He's supposed to be studying law. He's supposed to be studying the liberal arts as a good little Roman boy would do. And he gets to Rome and he doesn't seem to like it very much. I mean, do you think that him running away from Rome is this kind of turning away from the failure of educated classes, right? To actually offer anything meaningful, right?

Because he really seems to think of Rome as this sort of cesspit. So do you think I'm reading too much into that? Or is this kind of like a real turning point for him? It is the turning point. And I do think it is a kind of acuity to the whole life that he's chosen in a total sort of way. I think you're right that it is something about maybe this education isn't actually serving human formation the way that it ought to or the way that I think it ought to happen. I think he is seeing all kinds of worldiness in Rome that is confusing and depressing him. The interesting thing about what happens next is he does monasticism the wrong way, the way that in the rule he will say you don't do it.

He actually tries first this kind of extreme sport monasticism where he's living completely alone as a hermit in a cave, having his food lowered down to him by a rope. He's so isolated that he doesn't know it's Easter when it's Easter. That's how off the grid he is. And what's fascinating is the rule will tell you very clearly this is the wrong way to go about being a monk. And yet it's the way that he tries first. I have a really great quote about the desert fathers that have taken from Professor Peter Heather, friend of the podcast and indeed one of my mentors when I was in my PhD. Do you know what he says about the desert fathers, the guys in the cave?

He says, oh yeah, it's a bunch of guys who are living in the caves trying not to wank. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, he is refuting that, again, I think the extreme sport thing is the way that I see it. Like, Simeon Stylites, you like you build a column that's whatever 15 feet tall and you live on it. Why do you do that? just because it's difficult, but it's also, like, difficult in the most public way possible. And so you are like ostentatiously showing off how aesthetic you can live. And that is what Benedict is going to correct.

That's the fifth century. In the sixth century, Benedict is going to say, let's try a moderate, sustainable kind of monasticism, which is not showing off, which is not just for the people with superhuman wills or super big egos, just ordinary people living a moderate enough. rule that anybody of good faith can keep up with it and not be crushed. Do you think that there's kind of something to the fact that we have all of these people who are running off to caves, himself included? Do you think that that says something about kind of the limits of what Roman culture are?

Because on the one hand, you've got this world that is, at least they're characterizing it as decadent. You know, the sort of thing that makes you say, if I'm going to get anywhere, I'm going to go run and live in a cave, right? You know, I have to kind of get so far away from this that I don't have a possibility of being involved with the idea of temptation. It's a perennial kind of issue in Christianity.

Can you live in the world without becoming worldly? And there are bad ways of doing it, which have been tried in every direction, and finding the right way to do it is much harder. And so one simple solution is, what if I am just physically cut off from these temptations? Would that be a way to actually live this life? And that's the one he tries first.

So Gregory in his life, like quote time. I've got a good quote for you. Gregory says that Benedict stands apart from Rome's life sensuousness, quote, like a man knowingly poisoned who steps back before drinking. And I think this is really interesting because it's like on the one hand we can say, okay, well, here's a guy who sees himself as being influenced, right? and he's trying not to give in to this. So you could say this is a kind of moral heroism, right?

But on the other hand, you could also say, okay, this is someone who is like unable to live with ordinary humans who are just having nice time and partying, right? Like, it could also be seen as, I don't know, a moral disgust as opposed to heroism, just, you know, being too shocked to even live alongside the ordinary.

I think that is a fair kind of, vein to mine for sure. And that's why when we get to St. Francis, it's like maybe the heroic thing would be to be out there amongst the people living this life rather than being sheltered from that life. He comes to the miracle game really early on.

That's one thing that's quite interesting about him. I mean, ordinarily, you kind of got to take a run up to it for a while when you are one of the medieval saints. But he's got this very early miracle and it seems like very funny because it's quite domestic.

It's like really homespun, right? You know, and later on he's getting the cosmic visions. It's the whole nine yards. But can you tell us a little bit about his first little miracle with the clay sieve? So I'm not sure if we're thinking of the same story. But what I'm thinking of is that he's in this, I think, probably boarding house. And there's a housekeeper. And she's borrowed a kitchen tool and breaks it and is very upset.

And he supernaturally. mens it. Why I love that story is because throughout the whole corpus with Benedict, including the rule, labor is so important. Manual labor tools are so important. In the rule, there is a section on literal tools, how monks should take care of the tools that the monastery owns. And there's a metaphorical section on the tools of good works, like how this has become something that's about the spiritual life. There's another story later on where a monk is, you know, using a sickle and it breaks and the head falls in the water and Benedict once again supernaturally recovers it. So the man cares a lot about tools and keeping the tools good.

You know, I think that actually speaks volumes about him. And one of the things that I like the most about what he really brings to the world is this emphasis on work because let's be so for real, monks are fancy boys, right? Like monks are not ordinary people. They don't come from you know, the peasant class very often. You have to have to have some money a lot of the time. You know, you have to be able to walk away from your parents' farm, right? And so these are people who really could deal with a good day's work. You know, I think it's great that he finds this way of kind of morally compelling

them to pick up a pick, you know, pick up a side and get out there, get out there in the field. Like, let's go, boys. If you really love the Lord. There's a story in which it says there's a son of a senator. So right away, you're told, like, this is a class of people who did, do manual labor who had everybody serve on them. They didn't make their own food. They didn't wash their own dishes or their own clothes,

which you're going to do in the monastery under Benedict. And the guy is injured out working. It's not quite clear if he's unconscious or he's actually dead. But whatever happens, Benedict supernaturally revives him. And then he tells him to go back to work and finish the shift of the day. He's very committed to work. I love that.

It's like, oh, you think you're shirk. No, you don't get the day off, son. Just because you were brutally dead. It doesn't get you off. Oh, I love it. It's kind of like the medieval counterpart. So you know those memes about, you know, dying so you don't have to go to work today. Yeah.

It's the same. But let's, can we rewind a little bit to the cave? Like, let's come with me to the cave. Pretend you are Plato. And what do you think actually kind of happened down there, right? Do you think that he kind of goes in, is, one kind of person and comes out at another, is he just like bored stiff down there and he's like there's got to be a better way or or is this like a useful time for him?

I think it's primarily a false start. I think he's trying to imitate the models that he's been given. This is the prototype monk is St. Anthony. You just go out in the desert by yourself. And that story got told over and over again. So he's wanting to live the religious life and he picks up this kind of heroic version of it that is there. And he realizes eventually that there should be a different template, that this actually doesn't produce the kind of spiritual growth, the kind of healthy spiritual life that one really ought to have. And so he finds a way to create a new model for racism that does actually lead to the

spiritual growth he thinks should come in the way that he thinks will actually work. But I want to talk about like one little thing because it's my favorite. So there's this story from this time for him, right? It's in the trying not to wank category, right? So there is this story that he, like many of the monks in these caves, is at a point in time struggling with the concept of lust, right? And he has this memory of a woman he knew in Rome who was quite sexy. And in order to overcome.

he ends up throwing himself into like a thorn patch. And this is something that comes up a lot in medieval literature over and over again when they are talking about ways to overcome lust, not just for clergy, but for everybody in general, right? And I think this is quite interesting because for us, it's sort of like, yeah, this seems excessive, buddy. But do you think this does represent a kind of failure of self-integration? or like regulation?

Or is he, or is this like being radically honest, you know, about his fallibility and normality as a person? It is a weird story. He actually is naked, it says. So he's naked rolling in a briar patch. Again, for St. Francis, he does the same thing. Only he makes snow people while he's naked. So that's the kind of Franciscan version of this. I'm going to give Benedict's some benefit of the doubt on this trajectory.

because what's interesting is there is no section in the rule on celibacy. It's 73 chapters long. He never talks in any kind of section about dealing with lust or about celibacy. He talks about obedience a great deal. That's the vow of the monk that he's really interested in. So I think he's not a sex mad monk from the rule. He seems to not have this centered at all in his thinking. It seems to have actually become something that got decentered in his life.

I don't recommend his personal way of decentering it. I think I find quite interesting here, though, is, you know, he is one of the people who really ends up turning the trajectory of monasticism away from the caves, right? You know, with the rule, he's performing this communal life. And one of the things that we tend to say about it as medievalists, as we say, oh, yeah, well, this is also in the interests of the church. because every single guy who goes out to a cave in the desert, you can't really control, right? You don't know exactly what it is that you're doing out there. And these people are racking up disciples as well. And St. Benedict is not an exception to this rule.

You know, he suddenly gets disciples. I don't know where they came from. They just kind of show up. And it does seem that there is this sort of pattern that we get from a lot of the spiritual movements or monastic movements in the medieval period where it's like a teacher is hiding. They say, I'm not looking for glory. And that just makes people kind of try to follow them more.

I mean, what do you think results of that? You know, how do they even find Benedict in the first place to track them down? And what is it about this reluctance that really seems to get people moved, I suppose? So one of the origin stories is, again, I assume what's happening is he's developing a legend for being an extreme ascetic for holiness. So there's this amazing guy who can just live on very little food and be by himself.

So there's a group of monks who ask him to become their abbot. And he's like, no, you don't want me to be your abbot. You don't want to reform your lives. And they want him because he's holy. But when they actually get him, they do not want to reform their lives. He calls it exactly right.

And so, of course, you know, Like anyway, you can imagine anybody doing their solution is to try to assassinate him. Normal, normal. Yes. We've all had a boss like that. And so they try to poison him. And he blesses the cup that the poisons in and it supernaturally shatters. But he's like surprisingly lean it.

Like I told you guys it wouldn't work out. I'm just going to leave now. And so like, you know, he doesn't seem overly rattled by the fact that people tried to kill him. But this is the dynamic that's happening between people. honoring holiness and in the question of do you really want to conform to an abbot's will and to a rule? I think that that is really interesting because, you know, we do see him then bring about this rule and set up his particular way of doing monasticism. But, I mean, if he's so committed to the concept of, you know, staying in one place really working things out, like, is this a failure of leadership for him as Abbott? I mean, should he really have stayed there and fought?

Because to a certain extent, this reads like, yeah, well, you do what you can, but sometimes they are going to try to poison you and you just got to take off. Yeah, this is a rub point that even Gregory the Great Senses. So in his account, his account is the dialogues. And there's this deacon named Peter who's kind of like his Dr. Watson. He's there to ask the kind of dumb questions so that Sherlock Holmes can explain the brilliant thing. So Peter is always asking the questions. and then, you know, you're getting the explanation that Gregory wants you to have.

And he kind of asked that, isn't this kind of like Benedict not following stability to walk away from these bunks? And Gregory's answer is, you know, sometimes when a ministry is not fruitful, it is permissible to move on. I will keep that in mind. Thank you, Gregory. That's me in answering emails. Sounds good. But there's a really great image in this particular story. So, you know, he manages to sort of like unpoison the wine.

But also it becomes clear to. him that this stuff is poisoned because a raven sort of swoops in and carries off this poison bread. And I find this super interesting, A, because I'm a big Corvid fan. Like, shout out to ravens, shoutouts, or crows. But it's interesting because for ancient people, ravens are oftentimes thought of as birds of ill omen, right? You know, they've kind of like, oh, that's a death prophecy, sort of a thing.

And we all know Romans love to read stuff into birds, right? Like that's their entire thing. So why do you think we see this particular bird? Like, why is it a raven that shows up to protect Benedict? Does that add to the story at all? It certainly demonstrates his mysterious powers. And so there are over and over again stories. He's good at reading people's minds.

He knows when they've done stuff when he's been away. And so I think the connection that this raven also obeys the abbot. to me that's what I see in the story. That story is a separate story. It's from about a priest who's also trying to assassinate him. He's another attempt of assassination later on in this ministry. This priest also hires seven strippers to come and like a kind of singing telegram and do a dance for the monks in the hopes that this will dissolve the monastery because they will not be able to deal with the reality of this temptation. It's a strange story.

I love that. I love that as some kind of like a punishment. It's like, oh, the strippers are here. Oh, no. But I mean, yeah, like, Benedict gets away and he ends up starting his first communities. And he's doing this really interesting thing here because at first he's like, all right, we're doing groups of 12. Like, we are like the apostles. And I find this really interesting because are we saying that we are like the apostles?

I mean, because to an extent, it sounds a little bit like hubris. But, you know, clearly he's making it work. I mean, he's clearly understanding his mission in a particular way. But to me, it smacks a little bit of, I mean, yeah, sure, it's just a tribute act. But it does seem to be kind of cutting it close to the bone. I don't think he thinks that the monks are like the apostles. But he does think that the abbot is like Christ. So the Christ figure is what he wants to get out of that.

imagery. Your abbot is for you like Christ. He's very aware of people trying to be spiritual who are actually just shirkers and devious. And he wants them under the control of an abbot. He wants stability where their life can be watched and not them just showing up in town and saying, I have visions and being impressive and mooching off people and moving on. So that's where his mind is going. but my own reading of the rule, I don't think he particularly grasps the possibility that you might have a fanatical abbot. He's just loads so much into the abbot

and his authority, and he has very little checks on what about when you have a rogue abbot? He doesn't really dwell on that very much. And I find that interesting because to an extent what he's saying is that we're requiring every abbot to be on the same level as him,

which is actual sainthood. No pressure there, guys. And it's not as though he's not already running into people who are fairly dastardly, right? I mean, Florentina's the guy with the strippers and the poisoning and the hey, hey, right? Like, he also seems to be a priest, right? Who is to say what's going to happen when Florentine is gets in charge of a group of monks, right? Yeah, that's a great way of putting it. Benedict is surprisingly, it would be too provocative, but I'll say anyway, anti-clerical.

He's suspicious of priests, actually. You see that throughout. He doesn't like the idea of monk priests. He admits that's possible, but his vision is for lay monks. He doesn't really want priests in the monastery because he worries that people will treat them as special. And he wants all monks to be treated equally. It doesn't matter if you're a former slave or you're a senator's son, you do the kitchen work. And he doesn't want you to say, well, I'm a priest, though I'm special.

He's like, no. And that does also tie into the authority of the abbot, I think. He doesn't want another source of authority. He's very grumpy about a monastery having a prior. He allows the possibility, but he worries about it being a different seat of authority from the abbot. You can have like a kind of opposition party kind of coalesce around the prior. You see that sort of in the Brother Cadwell mysteries. There's always a tension between what the prior wants versus what the abbot.

once and that's pure Benedict. That's how he saw it. And so, yeah, priests can be a problem. But, I mean, he wins, though, right? Because eventually Florentinas gets killed because a balcony collapses underneath him, which is very loony tunes. A good image there. And, you know, I think enough time is past that I can make a joke about that. But Gregory the Great writes about this. And he wants us to know that when Florentina, you know, that when Florentina is a lot of him. dies, Benedict weeps. And I think this is really interesting touch that he's got in here because this is sort of presented almost as a, it's certainly it's a saintly quality.

There's a reason that Gregory is recording it because here we've got a guy who's willing to forgive his enemies and mourn their passing. But it's really human. You know, here's a guy who can do miracles, who's got the Ravens on his side, etc. etc. But he can still cry for the guy who was trying to seduce him and all of his friends with strippers. And he's annoyed that the monks are kind of gloating over this death. He doesn't want it to be something that is our team won and we're now going to have a kind of victory party. He wants the sobriety of it to kind of sink in, that this is a kind of life going awry and that now it's ended. You get a feeling

that maybe there's some unfinished business between them that he thought maybe there'd be some kind of resolve to this conflict in the relationship, but instead, just you're dead, and now we leave it there. And, you know, this really kind of marks the next transition in his life because Florentina dies. And off he goes, and he starts the big community at Monte Cassino, which is what we tend to associate him with, right? Like Montecasino, the big mountain monastery, it's sort of the ur-monistary at everybody's head.

And I find it really interesting where he chooses to put it because he's found this hilltop sort of mountainside thing. And it's still got an old pagan temple on it. And he gets to do the whole nine yards. He goes in there. He smashes up the statues. And I find that really interesting because it's kind of a deliberate provocation, right? Like, I mean, do we need to see this almost violent reaction to anything other than Christianity to really understand him? Or is this just a piece of theater that we're meant to kind of understand sets us up to take on the rule?

There is this kind of strain of he's got an evangelistic or a missionary calling as well. So in the story, this is actually still pagan territory. Pagan means the countryside. These are people who have not gotten on board of Christianity yet, and he converts them. So that is not how we think of Benedict. It's not how I think of it usually. But I think that's the kind of payoff of the story. He creates this chapel, which is like, like you're saying, taking over sacred space

and kind of rebranding it as true sacred space. But he names the chapel after St. Martin, who's a missionary bishop in conflict with pagans. So I think it is about this Christianization It's really the kind of how I read that story That's what Gregory wants you to see Of course Gregory is going to care about Christianization He's going to send missionaries out famously to England The entire kind of English world

is really a Benedictine mission In Christian terms All the way up to Westminster Abbey Is a Benedictine Abbey And so I think Gregory wants you to see Benedict is so much a model That he's also a part of the mission of the church I think that that is quite profound because certainly, you know, this Benedictine mission, you know, it's been called kind of one of the fundamental parts of Western civilization, you know, if you believe in the concept, right?

Like, especially the rule, right? It's one of these foundational documents. But it's so interesting because when he actually writes it down, he wasn't doing it to torture me, you know, like 1,500 years in the day. future or whatever. I mean, he managed to do it, but that's not why he did it. I mean, it's supposed to be, here's this rule for this tiny community of guys who are living on a mountain. I mean, what does that tell us about how cultural influence works, right? You know, this isn't something that was designed to change the world. It was supposed to change a community. And yet it gets out there anyway, right? And so, like, how do we get these cultural blink lines, I guess? I really do think that there is spiritual genius in the rule. And therefore, I think it is winning out because of the wisdom that it embodies. Obviously, you can tell a historical story of

accidents. The story goes that when Monte Cassino is overrun, the monks have to leave. They come to Rome, they bring the rule. Maybe that's when Gregory discovers the rule. Obviously, later on, Charlemagne will dictate that the rule is the template. So you have these turning points. But I think the rule itself, because of stability, because of moderation, because of manual labor and the abbot, I think those four pillars in particular create a very viable template that can be used over and over again. And you can tweak the rule in various directions and that will happen over and over again throughout monastic history. But those basic pillars, I actually think, are a very wise way to make a sustainable community. And it wins out because it actually works.

It's got one of my favorite kind of bedrock principles in it as well, this idea that when you have guests come, you're supposed to receive them as you would Christ. And I find this really interesting. I was joking around with my friends the other day. You know, they're watching one of those shows where people kind of race around the world. And they were saying it's funny because everywhere they end up, people will say, renowned for their hospitality, no matter what. And I mean, do you think that in Europe, at least, this kind of Benedictine tradition has something to do with the creation of a concept of hostility that we sort of cling to now? Yeah, if you're traveling around Europe, staying at youth hostels, like the origin of that,

is staying at monasteries, which are Benedictine monasteries. And that's being done for radically spiritual reasons. The guest is Christ to you. You treat them like Christ. Benedict says in the rule explicitly, you should especially do this for the poor because the rich will find a way to take care of themselves. Don't worry about them. They've got this.

But the poor need you. And you are to treat them as if they're Christ, which does create a whole different way of moving about Europe, of a whole. culture of hospitality and shelter and safety, which is really important, without a doubt. I think you can still stay in a lot of monasteries today, you know, if you're on pilgrimage, right? I mean, I know people who have stayed in monasteries as just youth hostels. Yes, that's totally true. And people go on retreats all the time as well.

People, you know, whatever their faith or lack of faith, they just go and spend three days to kind of de-connect from some of the things that are kind of oppressing them and kind of pressing in on them and to recenter themselves. I just think that that is so interesting because, you know, you've already touched on this before because the rule is pretty on extreme, right? Like be nice to people, listen to your abbot. And, you know, it's something that kind of beginners can do. So, you know, you can decide that you want to go hang out at a Benedictine monastery for a couple of days.

And you can probably make that work, right? Like that is something that you as an outsider could do. Should we understand this as just pastorally a smart move because it's just going to be easier to get people in? Or is that a compromise, right? Is this just like, oh, this is just an easy way to get people living a good life? So the part of the rule that makes me laugh out loud every time is when he allots a daily amount of wine for the monks. And the sentence goes something like, you could read people who say that monks should not drink wine. at all, but I find you cannot convince modern monks of this. And that's like, it's like the

perfect example of the moderation. He's like, how can you make this an actual sustainable life for your ordinary person who's not somebody of superhuman will, who's just trying to live a good life, but has the normal kind of limitations and temptations? The rule is filled with that. So when it comes to food, he's like always serve two dishes. If somebody has a real big aversion, they just hate mushrooms. There's a second dish. They can have that instead. Like, don't make it unreasonably difficult and hard.

There are all these accommodations in the rule that I love. It's like when the days are shorter, like make the service of worship shorter, okay? Just help people out of it. When you start the service, you start by singing a psalm, sing it really slowly. So the people who are a bit late, I actually show up before it starts and they don't feel like they've missed it and done something wrong. Like it's just filled with wonderful touches along those lines. You know, I think that we could all do with being a little bit less hypercritical. And Benedict is this great example, I think, for all of us.

And clearly this takes off, right? Suddenly everybody's aware of Monte Cassino. But this is interesting because not everybody's into it, right? Can you tell us a little bit about how Totilla, the king of the Ostrogoths, tries to kind of get in there and break up the party? Yeah, this is one of the stories that is told in my reading of it to illustrate how Benedict has this supernatural ability to know things that he doesn't know through ordinary means. He's often reading people's hearts. So the king wants to kind of test him on his kind of spiritual discernment. So he has somebody dress up like him, put on his robes and his jewelry, and come to visit him as the king.

And of course, Benedict knows immediately what's going on. and he just says write out what's happening. And so he passes that test. And then when he actually does meet the king, he prophesies his future to him. I think he says you've got nine more years to rule. And so I think it's one of those stories that is illustrating the spiritual gifting and holiness of Benedict

leading to a supernatural knowledge. This one is so important because it really sets you up for what are tests of saintly attributes going forward. because quite famously, the Defon puts St. Joan of Arc through this test later, you know, in the 15th century. This is still going on. Like, a thousand years later, kings are still like, oh, okay, is this person on the level? Let me dress someone up. And that's kind of like one of the hallmark signs that someone's a saint, right?

Yes. And there's also complicated feelings about Goths throughout this story because of them as invaders. And so, yeah, this is, I think Gregory also. wanting to get a dig in at the Gauss. Why do you think people like this, though, right? Why are we still using it for thousands of years, right? Like, what did you think this means in terms of what people want from saints? I mean, there's the same thing in Eastern Orthodoxy.

You can read Russian saints, for example. They have this ministry called the elder. And often somebody will come to them and they will know what their problem is without them saying anything. They will just start recounting to them what their issue is that they've come to see. advice for, it is, I guess, reassuring if somebody knows something they couldn't naturally know, then the advice that they give presumably also is going to be better than your average advice. So it kind of functions as a kind of sign and wonder that this person is a good person to take advice from.

And he's got that the extra one as well. You've already told us about the prophecy that he does for Totilla. And it's this all happens, right? You know, he enters Rome, he crosses the sea and he dies nine years later. And it's really interesting, like this idea that you have a prophetic power does come up a lot in hagiographical tradition, right? And so it's that spiritual perception you were talking about. But also, I am like, you know, sorry to be a historian about it, but I'm like, yeah, or is it just that Gregory the Great knows that that happened? And so he's able to write down a really good story and be like, and ha ha, lo and behold.

You know, it's a game to pass, right? It's possible that in Gregory's account of Benedict, there are a few AI hallucinations. I'm going to give that to the reader as a possible warning, but it is also true that he prophesies, according to Gregory, that Monte Cassino itself will be overrun, but he also gets as a kind of concession from God that the monks will escape and be safe. So he's not always controlling events, but he's sometimes just seeing them. You heard it here first, everyone. Tim Larson says that Gregory, the great is AI.

It's not really intelligent. Oh, I love it. New beef, new beef, fantastic. But fundamentally, right, what ends up coming out of the story is the thing that we all want to see in saintly hagiography. So Tilda's like, oh, Benedict, I'm so wrong.

I'm prostrating myself at your feet. I'm groveling. And that, I think, is incredibly important because this image, of course, especially for Gregory the Great, who is in a position where he's trying to make an express political argument for the spiritual authority of the church over worldly power. He's saying, oh, look back. Look, look.

Everybody remembers St. Benedict. It happened then. And so, you know, Tocilla gave it up and said that Benedict was the person that he should be following. And of course, yeah, that is really convenient. Thanks, Gregory. We love this. But, you know, it's not as though we don't sort of have equivalent ideas today, right? Like, it's quite a powerful image.

And I think also to an extent probably something that ordinary people want. You know, it is nice to have some kind of spiritual restraining power on the worldly powerful, no? Yeah. All the Christian history and stories, I think it was a martyrdom story. or the early church is like this is something of really bad happening to people who are faithful. And yet there are miraculous touches in the stories that say it's not totally out of control. God is still in control even though this bad thing is happening to good people. And so these stories function that way.

You have these powerful people who can do stuff that is really harmful. But we have a story that says there are limits on it and that God's sovereignty, God's control, still going to pop up and not let this thing go completely wrong. I want to take us back to the story about Scholastica at the storm because I just think it's very sweet. And also I like it when there's a woman with a name in a story. It's like, we can't do the Bechdel test in medieval literature. We're looking for one named woman. And she's probably going to talk about a man, but it's like. We know that the point of Benedict is that he's created this rule. And we see Scholastica beat.

the rule, right? And the thing that we see as a part of it is that Gregory writes down, she who had the greater love had the greater power. And I find that really interesting because it's quite subversive, right? It's, we have this conventional saints life. We have someone that we are lionizing very particularly because of the rule, but we have this call out to the power and context of emotional bonds. Like, is this Gregory making a pretty orthodox point that Benedict would have accepted, or is this actually quite important?

It feels to me like a corrective. Like, the point is that love is greater than law. And Benedict at this moment is, like, focused on law. And actually, love is the conqueror, even of law. And so sometimes you follow, the fruit of the spirit, which is love and against such things, there is no law. And this rule has to be set aside momentarily, at least, because love is a bigger concept, a truer value than law. So three days later, Scholastica dies, right? And we learn this because Benedict has a vision, right? He is

sitting there praying, you know, surprise. And he looks out his tower window and he sees this gorgeous white dove ascending into heaven and he's like, oh, my sister's dead. And that's her soul. And this is a really beautiful image. But it also kind of arrives maybe as a result of his unwillingness to stay with her. Possibly it is almost a way of remonstrating with him for doing so. Do you think that the grief involved in this changes the meaning of this vision? Or is this just a way of kind of redeeming him for his refusal to spend his sister's last hours with her?

The story that I think when I read it that it rhymes with is in the Gospels, when the woman takes the enormously expensive perfume and anoints Jesus' feet with it. And it's the wrong thing to do. And people call her out on it. is the wrong thing to do. It's too ostentatious. You're spending money in the wrong way. This money should go to the poor. But the reason why it's not actually wrong, it's the right thing to do, which is prophetic, but people don't know, is that Jesus is about to die. And if you know Jesus is about to die, then she's anointing his body for burial, and it's the right thing to do. And so the story,

as I read it, is kind of rhyming with that story, that what Scholastica is asking for, this fellowship that breaks the rule that goes on longer is the right thing to do in light of this prophetic reality of her coming death. But Benedict then gets scripted as the kind of muddling disciple who says, this should not happen this way. This is wrong. I don't like it. But the reality of the prophetic insight is overwhelming that. And again, he will eventually understand that, just like the disciples will eventually understand and be able to write down, well, she was preparing his body for burial. Now we know. So Benedict is realizing, okay, she actually has. a kind of spiritual prompt that this was appropriate when it seemed inappropriate in light of her death.

This rhyming, as you put it, I really like that. Thank you very much. This rhyming, it sort of shows up in Benedict's own life. You know, he's got this sort of sequence of events that are fairly similar in terms of the last week of his own life, right? So it's almost like we're setting up an understanding of how holy people exit the world or whether it's Jesus, whether it's Galastica, whether it's Benedict. Yeah, and his own exit is not easy. It's pretty clear about the lingering and the pain. And so I feel that, again, that's also touching and has a reality to it when I read it.

Towards the end of Benedict's life, he has this thing that we call his great vision. And this idea is that, so he's standing at the window in the middle of the night, all the monks are asleep. and he sees this really bright light descend out of heaven. And it's so bright that it lights up the entire night. You know, it drives all the darkness out.

And everything outside becomes more clear than the day itself, is the quote. And in the middle of that, the whole world sort of appears to him as though it is gathered into a single beam of sunlight, right? and he sees the soul of one of the bishops he knows, Germanus of Capua, carried up into heaven by angels in a global fire, which, wow, not to put too fine a point on it, but okay. And Gregory kind of uses this to end the hegeography of Benedict. And it's really interesting because here we've got Benedict, who's basically been in the middle of 60 years of sustained religious practice.

You know, he's one of the best to ever do it. One of the people who really comes up with a way of making it possible to have a sustained practice, right? Because it's a marathon, not a sprint. You have to have a fairly lax rules in order to keep it up over this time. And like, this to an extent becomes the way in a European context that you've, get this expanded perception. Do you think that this is, this is one of

the things that eventually people like Gregory and people who are promulgating this life want to teach, you know, there's this possibility of prophetic expansion via sublimation to the rule. That's what

Benedict himself says at the end of the rule. That I've written a rule that is for beginners. This is enough to get you started. on the spiritual life, but there is a long way to go that you can read the great, you know, early church figures who take you farther. But if you do this, if you live this, you will have found a sure path to deepening your spiritual life, which then, as you're saying,

who knows how great that might unfold for individual people? That vision at the end where he sees the whole world in that one point, again, rhymes with me with Julianne of Norwich, seeing everything in the hazelnut, which is a kind of... of ultimate mystical kind of sense of the unity of all things and perception of all things. Okay, it's time for some rule chat. Are you ready? Okay, you've, you've hinted at it already. But one of the big reasons why the Benedicting rule gets adopted as a sort of standard is Charlemagne, which is the reason why, I don't know, everybody has to learn Plato, right? It's because of Charlemagne. It's the same things, right? And it's really interesting because usually you don't see spiritual

movements like this survive when an imperial power gets involved with them, right? Like that very involvement of the worldly can sometimes change or taint it. Do you think that

Benedict's original vision is actually preserved in this, or does it become distorted as a result of becoming state policy? One of the interesting things is that Benedict's,

are not in order the way like the Jesuits are in order with a hierarchical command structure. It's more like open source software, which anybody can take and use as they want to use. And so Benedictine has within itself the ability to renew itself over and over again because there isn't one direction that's being forced on the whole Benedictine world, whether it's good or bad, whether you like it or not. Every community has the potential to rediscover parts of the rule that have been lost, And yes, absolutely, along the way things go in directions that Benedict would not have liked at particular times with particular communities. For me, I think the loss of manual labor that happens with some of the communities is a really big kind of departure from what Benedict hoped for.

I think Benedict has got such spiritual wisdom that we're embodied creatures that to pray all the time is not a really a healthy way to live as a human being. It's also a very elusive way to live as a human being. It's very hard to know sometimes how the prayer is going, but you can know how the vegetables are growing pretty clearly. You can know whether the fence has been made or not made, whether the walls being built or not. And this kind of keeps you embodied and sane. So when they later Benedictine, some of them want to fudge that and say,

well, really, our work is much more spiritual. And it should be much more about saying masses. I think they're getting away from the spiritual life that Benedict actually new would make them flourish the most. I think that this is a really interesting point because, you know, one of the big things that happens under Charlemagne, and it's something that we're really indebted to as medieval historians or, or indeed, if you're a fan of the liberal arts and classical literature at all, is one of the big, I suppose, redirections of that work that happens in monasteries is that they get repurposed

within monasteries to copying out classical literature, right? these guys suddenly are just 100% writing out Cicero, you know, writing out Aristotle over and over again. And that's great, right, because we wouldn't have these things if it wasn't for these interventions of monks in the 9th century. But at the same time, you know, as you say, this isn't manual labor. This is something else. And, you know, another thing that people tend to say about it is that it kind of withdraws resources or talent. that people, because they're still living under the rule, right? They're still living in monasteries.

And so you do have people copying these things out, but they're doing it within a very enclosed environment. What do you think about those criticisms? Also, just to carry on with your thread, Benedict says in the rule that you cannot charge too much for your goods. So the manual labor is producing goods. But if anything, you should sell them a bit below market value. In Benedict's mind, that's like a way of making sure.

sure the monks are not greedy, but it's actually like a kind of ruthless capitalism. But here are these workers which have very few benefits. They just wear one set of clothes. They get their food rationed. They don't own anything. And they're producing goods that undercut the market. So I think there are unintended consequences sometimes. But the monks certainly do not just only the copying, but they produce all kinds of produce.

all kinds of crafts. Of course, Benedictine is also the name of a liqueur that they admitted along the way and still produce. So there's a lot going on economically as well. That's interesting. Unfortunately, I love Benedictine. I'm like one of these, I'm a herbal liqueur girly. I'm like, oh, is that a digestive? I love it.

Yum, yum. It's meant to be medicinal. Listen, I got a lot of ailments, Tim. Okay? Tell you that much. So ultimately, we end up seeing. being Benedict named as the Patriot Saint of Europe in 1964 by Pope Paul the 6th. And interestingly, like later on Pope Benedict the 16th calls him the fundamental reference

point for European unity. I find this fascinating, right? Because here, well, I'm living. You're not in the secular pluralist, you know, like 21st century Europe, right? Do you think that this is a useful kind of framing point? or is this kind of like a historical courtesy that the church is kind of trying to throw out there that still puts them at the fulcrum of European life?

And then ultimately, do you think that actually matters, one way or another? It is an interesting choice to make him the patron saint of Europe for sure. It is a kind of a thumb on the scale for Western Europe. So part of that I think is like here is like the Western European way of doing things. and values. It is a way of trying to create something that is held in common and people can be proud of across different national lines. The rule is definitely a document that has more influence than almost any other from quite a few stretch of centuries. So in that sense, it does have a certain

kind of logic to it. And there are ways, like you talk about the manuscripts being copied, but also like the wasteland that the monks kind of restored, like they do actually literally change the landscape of Europe by their labor. So I don't know. You could, I couldn't, I couldn't imagine an answer that would not be contested, but I can see the logic behind it. So not, it's not in the rule, but it's more of the motto of the Benedictines in general, but aura at Labora, so praying and working, has been described as probably the global

North's deepest answer to cultural production, right, about how a human should spend their time. Would you agree with that? You don't want to have just crass materialism. That is not satisfying for most people of what the human condition is. Human beings have a side of them that is connected to the spiritual, to the eternal, to the aesthetic, to things that go beyond just. just like the things that we share with rodents, which is like finding food and water and a mate and shelter.

And so the prayer is meaning to signal that, but the work is signaling our embodiedness, that those things matter. We're not so above the rodents that we don't also need food and water and mates and shelter. That's part of our lives too, but our lives can't be reduced to that, even though it's part of it. I think ORA at Labora is one way to say that.

Tim, this has once again been an absolute delight. I do love it when you come hang out and gossip. Thank you so much for your time today. It's been delightful. Thank you, Eleanor. My thanks once again to Professor Tim Larson and to you for listening to Gone Medieval. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my recent film with the lovely Matt Lewis on Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II's Rise to Power. as well as ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com forward slash subscription.

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