Monasticism in South Italy from the beginning of the ninth century to the foundation of Grottaferrata (1004)

Abstract

The foundation of the Greek cenobium at Grottaferrata twelve miles from Rome, in 1004, marked in many ways the culmination of a remarkable revival of the religious life in South Italy in the ninth and tenth centuries. This remote and mountainous region, colonized in ancient times by Greek settlers, remained throughout the greater part of the Middle Ages essentially a province of the Byzantine Empire, Greek in language, culture and outlook. Monasticism was established there at least as early as the fourth century, and was subsequently re-invigorated by successive waves of refugee monks from the East. But little is known of monastic life in South Italy before the ninth century, when the Saracen invasion of Sicily caused a stream of religious to seek shelter and quiet in the desolate mountains of Calabria. Their coming coincided with a revival of the monastic life in those parts, and did much to reinforce it. Calabria became a land of monks and hermits, a new Thebaid, whose reputation spread over all the Byzantine world, and made its impression on the West. At first, all types of the monastic life were practised, based on independent interpretations of the precepts of St Basil, and many hermitages, laurae and monasteries sprang up in the South. But as the Saracensbegan to attack the coasts of the mainland, and then to push into the interior, the holy men tended to group together for safety, and move further northwards, until they came into the orbit if the Latin world. This thesis attempts to trace the development of this monastic revival and to describe its main features. It includes a study of the relations of the Calabro-Sicilian monks with Byzantium, Islam and the West during this critical period in the history of the Church and of mediaeval Europe.