Of course the professions of monks and friars are different - no offence
taken by my shorthand, I hope. But were monks and friars in the Middle
Ages always so precise about the distinctions between them?
The Carmelites changed from being an eremitically-based community
located in a single place - Mt Carmel - into friars as a result of a
simple change of wording in their rule. This did not meet with the
universal approval of all Carmelites, at least one of whom in 1270
regarded the change as a betrayal of profession. But 14th cent
Carmelites tended to blur the distinction when looking back to their
origins, and it is easy to emerge from reading Carmelite texts with the
impression that mendicancy was a sub-group of a generic profession
called `monasticism'. And after all Jordan of Saxony, in his life of
Dominic, makes explicit parallels between Dominic's practices and those
described by John Cassian - surely an attempt to present Dominic as a
traditional `monastic' figure?
Andrew Jotischky
Dept of History
Lancaster University
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|