Folia Theologica et Canonica 10. 32/24 (2021)

Sacra theologia

FOLIA THEOLOGICA ET CANONICA (2021) 49-58

Szabolcs Anzelm Szuromi, O.Praem.

THE ROLE OF PATRISTIC AND MEDIEVAL SOURCES

IN THE REVIVAL OF THE CANONS REGULAR’ COMMUNITIES

IN THE 11th- 12th CENTURIES*

Introduction; I. Chapters of Canons Regular; II. The Vita mixta as Principle of Canons Regular’ Way of Life; III. Centralized Activity of the Orders of Canons Regular; Conclusion

Keywords: canonical way of life; St. Rule of St. Augustine; Norbertine communities, vita mixta, abbot general, general chapter

Introduction

“(•••) Sola nobilitas spritualis generis sanctitas est religiosae conversationis” - emphasizes Adam Scot, Abbot of Dryburgh, preacher and spiritual writer (t 1213/1214), who followed the thought of St. Augustine’s theological works in his writing, entitled De tripartito tabernaculo.' In the last two decades, the formation of diocesan* 1 2 and religious chapters and the analysis of their functional characteristics have once again become the focus of research in ecclesiastical history, institutional history, monasteriology, history of spirituality and canon law.3 At the same time, the medievalist, municipal, educational and economic history researches have been intensified too, up to the reconsideration

* This paper is the enlarged English version of my Hungarian presentation of Gödöllő (September ll,h 2020), dedicated to the 900"' Anniversary Jubilee Year of the Norbertine Order. It was written in the British Library (London, UK), in the Cambridge University Library (Cambridge, UK), in the Collegio S. Norberto (Rome), and in the Wilmington Community of the St. Michael s Abbey of the Norbertine Fathers (Los Angeles, CA).

1 Migne, J.-P. (ed.), Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina, I-CCXXI. Lutetiae Parisiorum 1844-1864 (hereafter: PL) CXCVIII. 610.

2 For a summary of the results of recent research in Hungary, cf. Thoroczkay, G., A középkori magyar egyház intézménytörténetének egyes kérdései az elmúlt évtizedek kutatásainak tükrében, in Thoroczkay, G. (ed.), Püspökök, káptalanok, tizedek (Az Árpád- és Anjou-kor magyar egyházi archontológiájának kérdései 1), Pécs 2020. 39-49, especially 44-47.

3 Cf. e.g., Grassl, W., Culture of Place: An Intellectual Profile of the Premonstratensian Order, Nordhausen 2012.