English Benedictine Cathedral Priories

The English Benedictine Cathedral Priories offers a detailed study of nine monastic communities. Joan Greatrex follows the lives of the young men, only some of whom are known by name, from the day of their arrival at the monastery to the moment of their death or departure. The individual chapters provide the details that fill in many of the gaps in the monastic biographies to be found in her earlier work. The result is the first comparative study of theimplementation of the Benedictine Rule, and the daily routine, observances, and customs practised by the nine priories, as well as of the monks' progress through the successive stages of their monastic life. The author exploits to the full the archiepiscopal and episcopal registers, which record their officialacts, in addition to the monastic accounts of the monk office holders who were responsible for the various departments within the monastery.

The result of her work is a commendable well-contextualised, rich and colourful account of the daily lives, inside as well as outside the choir, of these particular black monks., A very important and well-informed volume.

Joan Greatrex retired early from her teaching post at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, in order to pursue her research at first hand. Her interest in the English medieval cathedrals, in which monks rather than canons comprised the chapter, arose during the preparation of her doctoral thesis on Winchester cathedral. Since then, she has edited the monastic accounts of the former Peterborough abbey and the earliest surviving register of Winchester cathedral. TheBiographical Register of the English Cathedral Priories (OUP, 1997) is the forerunner of this present volume. She has also published some fifty articles on related subjects in various scholarly journals and conference proceedings. She is a member of the Ecclesiastical History Society and of the standingcommittee of the Monastic Research Bulletin. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.