ABSTRACT
Jeffrey Richards, The Consul of God: the Life and Times of Gregory the Great (London, 1980) or the fine study by Carole Straw, Gregory the Great: Peifection in Impeifection (Berkeley, California, 1988). For a more general treatment of the papacy under Byzantine rule see Jeffrey Richards, The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages, 476-752 (London, 1979). Judith Herrin, The Formation of Christendom (Oxford, 1987) is a broad-ranging treatment of the religious transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages. The Rule of St Benedict should be read by anyone wishing to understand medieval Christianity. There are several translations, including two with both Latin and English: Justin McCann, The Rule of Saint Benedict (London, 1952) and The Rule of St. Benedict in English and Latin with Notes, edited by Timothy Frye (Collegeville, Minn., 1980). For an English translation of the Rule see Owen Chadwick, Western Asceticism (Philadelphia, Pa., 1958), pp. 291337. Cuthbert Butler, Benedictine Monachism, 2nd edn (London, 1924), remains a good introduction to the history of Benedictine monasticism.
