02 — The Gallic Foundations
The fruit of the exile: the three monasteries Columbanus founded in the Vosges — Annegray in the ruins of a Roman fort, then the larger Luxeuil on the site of a derelict spa, and Fontaines nearby — under the patronage of the Burgundian kings; and the two rules he wrote for them, the spiritual Regula monachorum and the disciplinary Regula coenobialis, with the severe penitential discipline that set the Columban houses apart from anything the Franks had seen. These files cover the foundations and the rule.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (pre-Schism; Celtic; missionary to the Continent)
When Columbanus and his band came into the kingdom of Burgundy in the early 590s they were welcomed by King Guntram and, after his death, by his successors, and were granted the derelict Roman site that became Luxeuil — soon the centre of a network of houses that drew Frankish nobles in such numbers that Columbanian monasticism became a movement, the seed of dozens of later foundations across Francia. What held it together was the rule. Columbanus’s Regula monachorum sets out the inner life of virtues; his Regula coenobialis lays down the customary discipline, including the graded corporal and penitential punishments for which the Columban houses became famous and which later Frankish monasticism would temper by blending his rule with Benedict’s. This section treats the foundations and the rule; the penitential system in its own right is the subject of Section 03.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Annegray, Luxeuil, Fontaines | The three Vosges foundations c. 590–595; the Burgundian court of Guntram, Childebert II, and the boy-king Theuderic II under Brunhild; the explosive growth of Luxeuil and the gathering of a Frankish aristocratic monasticism around the Irish exile. |
| The Columban Rule | The Regula monachorum (the ten chapters on obedience, silence, food, poverty, humility, the office) and the Regula coenobialis (the customary of graded penances); the severity of the discipline; the rule’s fate in being merged with the Benedictine. |
See Also
- The Call to Peregrinatio — the exile out of which the foundations grew
- The Irish Penitential System — the confession-and-tariff discipline behind the Regula coenobialis
- Discipline and the Monastic Ideal — the rigor of the rule compared with Benedict’s
- The Frankish Bishops and Queen Brunhild — how the same court turned against him
- St. Benedict of Nursia — the rule that would absorb and supplant Columbanus’s
References
- Jonas of Bobbio. Life of Columbanus. Trans. Alexander O’Hara and Ian Wood. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2017.
- Walker, G. S. M., ed. and trans. Sancti Columbani Opera. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1957.
- Wood, Ian. The Missionary Life. Harlow: Longman, 2001.
- O’Hara, Alexander, ed. Columbanus and the Peoples of Post-Roman Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.