Excerpt from The Monastic Life: From the Fathers of the Desert to Charlemagne, Eighth Volume of the Formation of Christendom I have followed in this volume the sources of history, as far as possible, by transcribing the words of those who wit nessed the acts which they record. Herein I hold that no historical testimony equals in value the official authentic records of the Holy See in the government of the Christian kingdom and commonwealth. Therefore, the great collee tion of Mansi, in 3 1 vols. Folio, stands first in the rank of those whom I have consulted. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.