Scholarship as an expression of Monastic Life

Our Br. Thomas Sullivan, OSB, is Conception Abbey’s in-house researcher, whose work has centered on medieval monks at universities. Br. Thomas asks—and answers—questions such as: Who were the monks who attended these universities? Where did they come from? What did they study, and why?

Br. Thomas has been doing research for nearly his entire monastic life. He began his graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1973, just four years after his first profession, before returning to Conception Abbey in 1977 to serve as Dean of Students. He later went back to the university and completed his PhD in 1982 under the direction of Dr. William J. Courtenay, the scholar who first inspired his study of monks at medieval universities. Courtenay had a deep interest in social and intellectual history and a passion for university history, while Br. Thomas was drawn to monastic history. Combining their interests, Courtenay suggested that he write his dissertation on monastic university history. Br. Thomas’s initial response was to say that he’d rather investigate “monks and the angelic life.” After six months preparing to write on another topic entirely, he came to his senses and took up his advisor’s suggestion. A match was made in heaven. Monks at medieval universities have remained the central focus of his research ever since, and he and Dr. Courtenay remain close friends to this day, co-publishing an article together in 2025.

One of Br. Thomas’s great strengths as a scholar is the insight he brings from 57 years of monastic life. He is able to intuit certain details that a non-monastic reader might easily overlook. In one document, he and Courtenay were studying together, for instance, the text noted that the monks began a particular observance “on the Abbot’s side”—a phrase that could pass unnoticed by an outside reader. For Br. Thomas, it was immediately recognizable: the monks standing on the Abbot’s side of the choir were beginning the antiphonal chant for that week. His lived experience of the monastery illuminates the sources from within.

In order to identify who these medieval university monks actually were, Br. Thomas has worked extensively with the method of prosopography—a methodology that studies the individual
biographies of selected persons and brings them together into a single collective biography. Showcasing the lives of many, it produces a unified picture of a group of people across time. Because it is a methodology rather than a subject, it can be applied to any group at any period, and Br. Thomas has made full use of that flexibility, applying the same questions to fifteenth-century Paris and nineteenth-century Missouri alike. The work, he finds, is deeply rewarding: it draws together eclectic sources into a single narrative and sheds light on lives that might otherwise remain hidden.

For Br. Thomas, scholarship is not separate from monastic life but an expression of it. Like the rhythm of the monastery itself, his work reflects the ancient Benedictine balance of ora et labora.

—Br. Dominic Martin, OSB

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