'When Our Lord said “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom”. He was calling down upon it long life and blessing. The praises of this life were first sung by the apostles, who learned it either from our Lord or from the Holy Spirit, with whose grace they had recently been clothed from on high. They established a way of life such that the multitude were of one heart and one soul. They had all things in common and with one accord they would all meet in the temple. Since that time there have always been men to imitate the community of the apostles . . . ‘

The quotation is from William of Saint Thierry, a Cistercian, writing not very long after the famous dictum of Etienne de Muret: ‘If you are asked which order you belong to, say you belong to the order of the gospel. I will not be monk, canon or hermit: the titles are too holy for me'. A period of evangelical revival was beginning, which would culminate a century later with the beginning of the friars under Innocent III. And so it is not really surprising to find a monastic author like William, in the twelfth century, identifying the scope of a life which we have tended to think of as enclosed, exclusive and specialized, with the most basic demands of the Christian life.

Of course we have always known that the monastic life was essentially nothing more or less than a concentration on Christian ideals.