Cassinese Horizons: Peter the Deacon, Cowdrey’s “Golden Age,” and Benedictine Tradition

This article reexamines the evidence for the intellectual life of Montecassino in the central Middle Ages, by interrogating a key text: Peter the Deacon’s De viris illustribus casinensis coenobii. This catalogue of the greatest scholars associated with the abbey lists their achievements in the liberal arts. Rather than being read sui generis, this text needs to be set within a longstanding Benedictine tradition. Peter’s catalogue reveals an attempt to reconcile the local achievements of Montecassino with a model of the universal church, as well as rising tensions between eremitical and coenobitic practices. The concluding section examines the historiographical implications of this argument for our understanding of eleventh-century Montecassino, and suggests that the label of a “golden age” would not have been welcomed by Peter himself.