Stylite, Constantinople, 11th century
To our modern eyes, this is a profoundly weird image – but it would have been a recognisable, even iconic, one if we were living in the early medieval Middle East. To explain how we got here – and how that guy got on that pillar - we need to step back and tell the origin story of one of the most recognisable characters in medieval life: the monk.
First, let’s wind the clock back all the way to the mid-third century. Rome is still the bustling, million-strong metropole of a continent-spanning empire. Legionaries are off fighting battles against the Goths along the Danube. Christianity is a curious minority sect clinging to life despite often-ferocious persecution from the emperor’s officials. And in the wealthy province of Egypt, a young man, barely 18, who we will come to know as Anthony makes an unusual decision. Mourning the recent death of his parents, he finds inspiration in Christ’s teaching that the perfect man will give everything he has to the poor. Once he’s set aside a little of his money to provide for his younger sister’s welfare and chucked her in a convent, he departs for the endless desolation of Egypt’s desert interior (We have no idea, by the way, what the sister made of all this business. I suspect she was less than impressed).
Eventually, Anthony pitches up in an old, abandoned tomb in the desert, to live a life of isolation and mortification (a religious concept, meaning to deny the desires of the flesh), eating and drinking only just enough to keep his body at bare minimum functionality. Did this make him a devoted servant of Christ who accessed a level of connection with his god unprecedented for a mortal man, or a total bore? Your mileage may vary.
Unfortunately for Anthony, his dream of a life of solitary contemplation didn’t work out as planned. He quickly became a local celebrity, with countless Egyptian Christians making proto-pilgrimages to visit the home of a man they came to believe had a unique connection to the Almighty. This only got worse when Emperor Constantine legalised Christianity in 313, and Anthony moved further into the desert to avoid his admirers.
Aran Prince-Tappé
More : https://weirdmedievalguys.substack.com/p/the-medieval-monks-who-lived-on-top
