MONASTIC LIFE LEXICON
From the Greek askesis, meaning denial or suffering; asceticism is the habit of subordinating physical pleasure to spiritual demands. Asceticism is the voluntary denial of the body and its physical, sexual and social needs through such acts as fasting, sexual continence, isolation and the self-infliction of pain. In the Christian Gospels, asceticism includes the imitation of Christ's life and the sharing of the hardships, dangers and penalties that this imitation brings about. In Paul's letters, asceticism is seen as a spiritual athleticism, a conscious effort at discipline and obedience to the spirit and teaching of Christ. Ascetics willingly take up lives of sacrifice and denial out of spiritual dedication. Asceticism is not unique to Christianity, but has been practiced by many individuals throughout history. NCE
From the very beginning, Irish monks observed spiritual traditions that set them apart from the rest of Christianity in Western Europe. Among the distinguishing characteristics of the Irish were a peculiar form of tonsure and a liturgical calendar that caused them to find a date for Easter different from the date the Romans used. It is important to note that certain Irish monastic houses, known--significantly--as the "Romani" kept to Roman traditions. But as a glance at Bede's History will demonstrate, the Irish were famous for keeping to their own ways and for resisting the demand that they conform to Roman customs. Celtic monasticism is also known for its unusually severe aesceticism; the Irish observed strict fasts and performed other acts of suffering (such as reciting the psalms while standing in cold water with arms outstretched--a custom Bede refers to) that were regarded as exceptional. We see that Bede admired these acts of self-denial even if he condemned other aspects of Celtic monasticism.
Divine Office is the service of prayers, psalms, readings, antiphons, responses, canticles, and hymns said and sung during specific parts of the night and day called the hours of matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, and compline. The Office was performed primarily by the clergy and members of religious orders, and both its structure and its length could vary enormously depending on the century, the geographical location, the time of year, and the specific needs and obligations of the persons and groups engaged in this liturgical activity. Because the Office came to be said privately in some quarters, there is dispute about its quality in such circumstances as a liturgical act, which generally has been described as the public worship of the church (DMA 221).
The name given to the branch of learning that has the saints and the worship of them as its object. Writings relating to the worship of the saints may be divided into two categories: 1) those that are the spontaneous product of circumstances or have been called into being by religious needs of one kind or another, which belong to what may be called practical hagiography; 2) writings devoted to the scientific study of this material, which constitute critical hagiography (NCE 894).
A person who has retired into solitude to lead the religious life. Although there were probably Christian solitaries before his time, an Egyptian named Paul was the first to popularize the eremitic life. From the beginning of the 4th century, this life was one of the standard ways, especially in the East, in which Christian asceticism expressed itself. In the East, after a first period of dramatic and often excessive austerity among hermits, ecclesiastical authority brought the eremitic life under control and provided that hermits should live adjacent to monasteries and under the control of superiors, as they still do at Mt. Athos and other places in the East. In the West, the 6th-century Rule of St. Benedict provided for the exceptional case of the ascetic who might be permitted to become a solitary, a provision modeled on the precepts of St. Basil. In the West the cenobitic life has tended to obscure the eremitic life more completely than it has in the East, but several periods of spiritual revival sent a comparatively large number into the desert places of western Europe; this occurred especially in the 11th century, and again with the mystical movements of the 13th and 14th centuries. (NCE 1077).
An English measure of area that probably originated as the amount of land needed to support a free Anglo-Saxon peasant family for one year, and served simultaneously as a unit for tax assessments. It included principally the tenement, arable land, and pasturage for cattle. It was undoubtedly the element of taxation that made the hide a definite measure. Beginning in the eleventh century, and especially after the Norman Conquest, the hide was usually expressed in terms of acres (DMA 222-3).
Derived from the Greek word homilia that means primarily being together, communion, social intercourse; the parallel Latin word is commercium. Homily connotes the idea of a meeting of minds and hearts, and so it very soon took on the meaning of familiar speech with someone, of conversation, and of familiar discourse with a gathering. These still remain the basic notes of a genuine homily: a familiar (in the sense of fatherly) conversation with a group of people. Although the etymology is an aid to understanding what that homily is essentially a familiar discourse, it does not really give the specific Christian meaning of the word. For that, one must look to the history of preaching and the use of the term in Christian literature. There the homily is a familiar discourse made by a pastor of souls to the people confided to his care, a conversational discourse that is given during the liturgical action upon a text suggested by the liturgy. This is the character of the genuine homily from the time it makes its first appearance in the second-century description of the Mass given by St. Justin down through the golden age of the homily in the fourth and fifth centuries and well into medieval times. This form of preaching at once so pastoral and so Biblical has been revived again in our own time (NCE 113).
Kinship is a family relationship; it constitutes the the oldest means of holding society together. Among Germanic peoples (including the Anglo-Saxons) anyone who killed a free man or woman immediately forced his kin to avenge the murder or to enforce payment of the "wergild" or compensation. The slayer's kin had to help pay the "wergild" or become involved in a feud. Kin were also bound to support each other's oaths before the law, but even in the early Anglo-Saxon period there was some skepticism about this practice, and "oath helpers" were sometimes required to be not one's kin but members of one's class instead. For all the importance of kinship in Anglo-Saxon society, the exact extend of one's kinship was not defined. In Roman law, however, kinship is defined very precisely. (Source: Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pages 315-17; AJF)
In the broad sense an ecclesiastical office is any employment that is exercised for a spiritual purpose, for example, that of sacristan. However, in the strict sense in which it is used here it is a position permanently established by divine or ecclesiastical law, conferred according to the norms of Canon Law and bearing with it some participation in the power of Orders or of jurisdiction... The definition of ecclesiastical office as found in the Code of Canon Law includes three elements: 1) a function -- an ability or capacity to perform certain actions tending to a spiritual goal; 2) a stable determination of the range and limits of this function through provisions made by Christ or by His Church; 3) a participation of ecclesiastical authority by those who exercise these functions (NCE 652).
A place where manuscripts were written and copied. In the West, most scriptoria seem to have been housed in monasteries until the late Middle Ages. Orders such as the Cistercians regulated the production of books in their scriptoria. Hence, characteristic palaeographical and codicological patterns sometimes allow scholars to group together isolated manuscripts and hypothesize their place of origin. The existence of permanent scriptoria in Byzantium is less certain. Scholars have linked small groups of manuscripts to imperial or monastic centers, and both types are documented. Private enterprise also produced manuscripts, perhaps on an ad hoc basis (DMA 119).
Typology is an allegorical system for reading and for interpreting history. Strictly typological interpretations are four-fold, interpreting events on the literal or historical level, on a Christological level, then on a moral and finally the anagogical levels. For example, the Exodus was commonly understood in this four-fold sense: first, as a historical event recording the migration of the Israelites from Egypt; second, as an event in the life of Christ, corresponding to the descent into Hell (that is, Christ's spirit went from the Cross into Hell and led holy souls out of Hell into Heaven); this also corresponds to the soul's release from sin--it's "escape" to grace--through confession and penance; and finally the event looks to the escape of the soul from earthly life to eternal life. Not all events have been understood in this four-fold scheme, and medieval authors rarely invoked typology in its fullest sense; nonetheless. When a historical event is said to correspond to a scriptural event or an event in the life of Christ, it is being interpreted typologically.
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