David Knowles

David Knowles (Studley, Warwickshire 1896-1974) was an English Benedictine monk of Downside Abbey and historian. He became Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge in 1954, retiring in 1963. His works on monasticism in England, through to the dissolution of the monasteries, are taken as authoritative.

Life

He was born Michael Clive Knowles, David being a religious name, by which he was always known. He was educated at Downside School, Christ's College, Cambridge, and the Collegio Sant'Anselmo, Rome.

At Downside, 1923–33, he was ordained. His research into the early monastic history of England was assisted by the library built up at Downside by Raymund Webster.^[1]

He was a kind of influential activist who wished to change the pattern of life at Downside. He was transferred to Ealing Abbey, another teaching establishment. This he left, becoming ex-claustrated.^[2] He then became a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge.

Works

• The American Civil War: A Brief Sketch (1926)
• The Monastic Order in England: a History of Its Development from the Times of St Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council, 943-1216 (1940, 2nd ed. 1963)
• The Religious Houses of Medieval England (1940)
• The Prospects of Medieval Studies (1947)
• The Religious Orders in England (three volumes) (1948-59)
• Archbishop Thomas Becket: a character study (1949)
• Monastic Constitutions of Lanfranc (1951) translator
• Episcopal Colleagues of Archbishop Thomas Becket (1951) Ford Lectures 1949
• Monastic Sites From The Air (1952) with J. S. K. St. Joseph
• Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales, with R. Neville Hadcock (1953, 2nd ed. 1971)
• The Historian and Character (1954) Inaugural Lecture
• Charterhouse: The Medieval Foundation in the Light of Recent Discoveries (1954) with W. F. Grimes
• Cardinal Gasquet as an Historian (1957)
• The English Mystical Tradition (1961)
• The Evolution of Medieval Thought. (1962)
• Saints and Scholars: Twenty-Five Medieval Portraits (1962)
• The Benedictines: A Digest for Moderns (1962)
• Great Historical Enterprises; Problems in Monastic History (1963)
• The Historian and Character and Other Essays (1963) with others, presentation volume
• Lord Macaulay, 1800 – 1859 (1963)
• From Pachomius to Ignatius: A Study in the Constitutional History of the Religious Orders (1966)
• The Nature of Mysticism (1966)
• What is Mysticism? (1967)
• Authority (1969)
• Christian Monasticism (1969)
• The Christian Centuries: The Middle Ages (volume 2) (1969) with Dimitri Obolensky
• The Heads of Religious Houses: England and Wales, 940-1216 (1972) with C. N. L. Brooke, Vera C. M. London
• Bare Ruined Choirs: The Dissolution of the English Monasteries (1976)
• Thomas Becket (1977)

Notes

1. ^ Dom Daniel Rees - Obituaries, News - Independent.co.uk
2. ^ Fools For God

References

• David Knowles remembered. Christopher Nugent Lawrence Brooke, Roger Lovatt, David Luscombe
• Obituary, The American Historical Review, Vol. 80, No. 4 (Oct., 1975), pp. 1086-1090
• David Knowles: A Memoir (1979) Adrian Morey