Important Personalities (6th-10th Centuries) Flashcards
Venantius Fortunatus
sixth-century famous Latin Christian poet of Gaul, author of such hymns as Vexilla Regis, Pange Lingua, and Salve Feste Dies (a version of the last you will find in The Presbyterian Hymnal, #120).
Gregory of Tours
Gallo-Roman bishop of Tours in late 6 century Gaul, during the time of Merovingian ascendancy; his History of the Franks is our primary source of the early Frankish state and church.
Patrick
fourth-century Briton captured by Irish raiders as a boy, later escaped, trained in a Christian center in Gaul, then journeyed back to evangelize the northern Irish, with great success.
Isidore of Seville
bishop and scholar of the Visigothic church in early 7 century Spain, author of the encyclopedic Etymologies, an attempt at summation of knowledge at that time (though filled with legend and rather fantastic assertions)
Boethius
Roman aristocrat, Senator, and chief minister in the early 6th century of the Ostrogothic King Theodoric; early Medieval knowledge of Aristotle’s logical writings was due to his translations into Latin, as well as a few other select treatises and commentaries; his famous The Consolation of Philosophy was
written in his cell as he awaited execution on the charge of treason against the
king.
Cassiodorus:
another 6 century Roman aristocrat who collaborated with the Ostrogothic rulers in Italy, even planning educational institutions for their benefit, before Justinian’s invasion scotched his plans of Romanizing the barbarians through a common Christian and classical culture; he then founded a monasticcommunity called “vivarium” (“fishpond”) as a center of religious studies, and in which the defining characteristic was learned scholarship.
Gregory I “the Great”
first a papal envoy to Constantinople, subsequently pope (590-604), this Roman aristocrat was a prolific writer of spiritual and pastoral treatises (the two most famous of which were his Moralia in Iob and Pastoral Care), as well as instituting effective papal leadership over Italy during the crises of the Lombard invasions of the late 6th centuries. In his missionary efforts toward England, he set out a system of hierarchical control over the church that was to slowly take effect and bear fruit for papal headship. His conception of an active papal headship of the Western church, though long in attaining fulfillment, would become the vision of the Roman popes for centuries.
Benedict of Nursa
late 6th century monastic founder, who for his monasteries at Subiaco and Monte Cassino wrote a famous Rule which eventually came to be the primary expression of western Monasticism up until the 12th century.
Augustine of Canterbury
associate of Pope Gregory I, who was sent by that Pope as missionary and archbishop to the Kingdom of Kent in southeastern England, where he founded the see of Canterbury. From thence the evangelization of the south and midlands of England proceeded.
Columban of Iona
Celtic monk out of Bangor (Ireland) who in 563 traveled across to Scotland and founded the missionary church/monastery of Iona just off the western Scottish coast, from whence missions spread through Scotland and northern England.
Columbanus
Irish missionary monk (560-615), who traveled widely in Europe, founding numerous influential monasteries such as Luxueil and Bobbio, and numbering important disciples such as Saint Gall. [See the timeline below for 585 and 614.]
Aiden of Lindisfarne
celtic monk out of Iona who in 635 founded the monastery on the island of Lindisfarne just off the eastern coast of northern England, from whence the north of England (Northumbria and Strathclyde) was evangelized; the strong monastic and scholarly Christianity of northern England derives much from this mission effort.
“ T h e V e n e r a b l e ” B e d e :
A n g lo - S a x o n ( N o r t h u mb r ia n ) s c h o la r / mo n k o f t h e monastery of Wearmouth/Jarrow, wrote many important works in the early eighth century, above all his irreplaceable History of the English Church and People. He is considered by most scholars as the most learned man of Western Europe in his day.
Willibrord of Northumbria
Anglo-Saxon missionary to area of Belgium, arriving there around 690, building upon the work of Saint Armand, but whose missionary and evangelistic work was more permanently successful in the establishment of monasteries for the training of local clergy and the setting up of dioceses and a stable Episcopal hierarchy, in common with his compatriot Boniface/Wynfrith.
Boniface /Wynfrith of Northumbria
missionary monk and later papal legate (c.675-754) who set up many new monasteries and bishoprics in Germanic Gaul, as well as reforming the Frankish church under Pepin III; he was a staunchly loyal to the pope and an adherent of Roman discipline; his work ends the age begun by Clovis’ conversion, for the alliance between the Carolingians and the Papacy, which Boniface had largely helped to forge, was to play a central role henceforth. Boniface was martyred in Friesland (the area from northern Holland stretching over into north-eastern Germany along the North Sea) in 754.
