Download or read book Authority and Asceticism from Augustine to Gregory the Great written by Conrad Leyser and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When barbarians invaded the Roman Empire in the years around 400 AD, Christian monks hid their cloisters. Conrad Leyser shows that monks in the early medieval West were, in fact, pioneers in the creation of a new language of moral authority.