
Monk-Bishops and the English Benedictine Reform Movement
Reading London, BL, Cotton Tiberius A. iii in Its Manuscript Context
Studies and Texts 193. xviii, 368 pp., including 5 colour plates. 2015. ISBN 978-0-88844-193-5 • Cloth • $95
London, BL, Cotton Tiberius A. iii is a compilation manuscript made at Christ Church, Canterbury, (arguably) in 1020–1023. Its ninety-four texts and two illustrations initially seem to present an incompatible miscellany: a monastic customary and texts concerning pastoral care; private prayers and public liturgical forms; scientific treatises and prognostics. This book argues that when viewed as a product of the third generation of the English Benedictine Reform, and an episcopate that was almost entirely monastic, however, the codex begins to make sense as a reflection of a reform movement that involved much more than the ejection of some clerks and the establishment of a few Benedictine monasteries and monastic sees.