And though an account of the saintly women who have
led lives of seclusion would scarcely seem to be included under the
title of Montalembert's work, he does not neglect to add sketches of the
most conspicuous of them,--Euphrosyne, Pelagia, Marcella, Furia, and
others. These preliminary sketches fill the last half of the first
volume.
The Fourth Book comprises an account of the Life and Rule of St.
Benedict, and properly opens the history which Montalembert proposes
to narrate. It presents a sufficiently minute sketch of the personal
history of Benedict and his immediate followers; but its chief merit is
in its very ample and satisfactory exposition of the Benedictine Rule.
The next book traces the history of monastic institutions in Italy and
Spain during the sixth and seventh centuries, and includes biographical
notices of Cassiodorus, the founder of the once famous monastery of
Viviers in Calabria, of St. Gregory the Great, of Leander, Bishop of
Seville, and his brother Isidore, of Ildefonso of Toledo, and of many
others of scarcely less renown in the early monastic records. The Sixth
Book is devoted to the monks under the first Merovingians, and is
divided into five sections, treating respectively of the conquest
of Gaul by the Franks, of the arrival of St.
Pages:
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398