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 (), 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 its own rule, called th ...

monk and the 9th

prior The term prior may refer to: * Prior (ecclesiastical), the head of a priory (monastery) * Prior convictions, the life history and previous convictions of a suspect or defendant in a criminal case * Prior probability, in Bayesian statistics * Prio ...

of Grande Chartreuse monastery, from 1174 to 1180. He died most likely in 1188 and is distinct from both Guigo I, the 5th prior of the same monastery, and the late thirteenth-century Carthusian Guigo de Ponte.

Life

Not much is known about Guigo's life. In 1173, he is called a "monk and procurator" in an agreement between the Grande Chartreuse and the nearby abbey of Chalais. In the following year, he was made prior and is called as such in two papal bulls in 1176 and 1177. Around 1180, he opposed unsuccessfully the petition of king

Henry II of England Henry II () was King of England The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the form of government used by the United Kingdom by which a hereditary monarch reigns as the head of state, with the ...

to have Guigo's successor as procurator, Hugh, to be sent to the newly founded Witham Charterhouse as prior. That same year, Guigo II was replaced as prior and his death is assumed to have been in 1188. Though not much else is known, Guigo enjoyed after his death among his community a singular reputation for sanctity.

Works

Three works have been attributed to Guigo: the ''Scala Claustralium'', twelve ''Meditations'' and the separate ''Meditation on the Magnificat''. Similar with a lot of other medieval works, most manuscripts that contain copies of these works attribute them to other authors or remain silent on who wrote them. The works cannot be dated more precisely apart from that they were written in the third quarter of the twelfth century and stylistic considerations make it seem that the ''Meditations'' were written before the ''Scala Claustralium''. Both works indicate that Guigo was familiar with writings of Hugh of Saint Victor, with the Sermon on the Songs of Songs by

Bernard of Clairvaux Bernard of Clairvaux, Cistercians, O.Cist. (; 109020 August 1153), venerated as Saint Bernard, was an abbot, Mysticism, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templar, and a major leader in the reform of the Benedictines through the nascent Cistercia ...

and also possibly with works by William of St-Thierry and Aelred of Rievaulx. Whereas more than 70 manuscripts of the Scala Claustralium survive, there are only seven complete manuscripts of the twelve ''Meditations'', indicating that it was clearly less widely known.

Scala Claustralium

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 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 to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, "discursive thinking", achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditat ...

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 Divinity, divine which Transcendence (religion), transcends the intellect, often in accordance with religious practices such as meditation or contemplative pr ...

. ''Scala Claustralium ''is considered the first description of methodical prayer in the western mystical tradition,''An Anthology of Christian mysticism'' by Harvey D. Egan 1991 pages 207-208 and Guigo II is considered the first writer in the western tradition to consider stages of

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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

or even

Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosop ...

), 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''.

References

Sources

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Life

Works

Scala Claustralium

See also

References

Sources

Further reading