Guigo II, sometimes referred to as Guy, or by the moniker "the Angelic", was a

Carthusian The Carthusians, also known as the Order of Carthusians ( la, Ordo Cartusiensis), are a Latin enclosed religious order of the Catholic Church. The order was founded by Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns. The order has i ...

monk and the 9th

prior Prior (or prioress) is an ecclesiastical title for a superior in some religious orders. The word is derived from the Latin for "earlier" or "first". Its earlier generic usage referred to any monastic superior. In abbeys, a prior would be low ...

Grande Chartreuse Grande Chartreuse () is the head monastery of the Carthusian religious order. It is located in the Chartreuse Mountains, north of the city of Grenoble, in the commune of Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse (Isère), France. History Originally, the ...

monastery, from 1174 to 1180. He died possibly in 1188 or 1193, and is distinct from both

Guigo I Guigo I also known as Guigues du Chastel, Guigo de Castro and Guigo of Saint-Romain, was a Carthusian monk and the 5th prior of Grande Chartreuse monastery in the 12th century. He was born in 1083 near the Chateau of Saint-Romain, and entered the G ...

, the 5th prior of the same monastery, and the late thirteenth-century Carthusian

Guigo de Ponte Guigo de Ponte, also known as Guigues du Pont, was a Carthusian monk of the Grande Chartreuse. Little is known about him, but he probably professed there in 1271, and died in 1297. He is known for his treatise ''De vita contemplativa'', also known ...

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His most famous book is most commonly known today as ''Scala Claustralium'' (''The Ladder of Monks''), though it has also been known as the ''Scala paradisi'' (''The Ladder of Paradise'') and the ''Epistola de vita contemplativa'' (''Letter on the Contemplative Life'', which is its subtitle). Drawing from Jacob's vision in Genesis 28.12 of angels ascending and descending a ladder to God, bringing human prayers to heaven and God's answers to earth, Guigo wrote an account to explain how the ladder was meant for those in the cloister, seeking the contemplative life. Guigo named the four steps of this "ladder" of

Lectio Divina In Western Christianity, ''Lectio Divina'' (Latin for "Divine Reading") is a traditional monastic practice of scriptural reading, meditation and prayer intended to promote communion with God and to increase the knowledge of God's word. In the v ...

prayer, a practice which continues daily in contemporary Benedictine ritual meditation, with the Latin terms ''lectio'', ''meditatio'', ''oratio'', and ''contemplatio''. In Guigo's four stages one first reads, which leads to think about (i.e.

meditate Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm ...

on) the significance of the text; that process in turn leads the person to respond in prayer as the third stage. The fourth stage is when the prayer, in turn, points to the gift of quiet stillness in the presence of God, called

contemplation In a religious context, the practice of contemplation seeks a direct awareness of the divine which transcends the intellect, often in accordance with prayer or meditation. Etymology The word ''contemplation'' is derived from the Latin word ...

. ''Scala Claustralium ''is considered the first description of methodical prayer in the western mystical tradition, and Guigo II is considered the first writer in the western tradition to consider stages of

prayer Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication. In the narrow sense, the term refers to an act of supplication or intercession directed towards a deity or a deifie ...

as a ladder which leads to a closer mystic communion with God. The work was among the most popular of medieval spiritual works (in part because it commonly circulated under the name of the renowned

Bernard of Clairvaux Bernard of Clairvaux, O. Cist. ( la, Bernardus Claraevallensis; 109020 August 1153), venerated as Saint Bernard, was an abbot, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templars, and a major leader in the reformation of the Benedictine Order through t ...

or even

Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...

), with over one hundred manuscripts surviving. It was also translated into some vernacular languages, including into Middle English.Bernard McGinn, ''The Growth of Mysticism'', (1994), p357 It is still a basic guide for those who wish to practice ''lectio divina''. Guigo II also wrote twelve ''Meditations'', which were clearly less widely known as they survive in only a few manuscripts. From internal evidence, it appears they may have been written before the ''Scala Claustralium.''Colledge and Walsh, 'Introduction', SC 163: 25-6

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