Good training and equipment more valuable than a large workforce - lessons from Boadicea

Hi Victoria,

I’d go back even further, to the 500’s and St Benedict. He proposed his ‘rules’* which were initially for the successful running of a monastery but have equal meanings in running a business - indeed, they’re very successfully followed by many big names outside of the Catholic church such as Timpsons.

Get past the religious aspects and it makes perfect sense - particularly with regards to HR.


* www.researchgate.net/.../242336203_The_Rule_of_Saint_Benedict_and_Corporate_Management_Employing_the_Whole_Person

The problem with applying things like the RSB to modern business life is you have to ignore a lot of what he said/wrote and just be very selective about those bits that "fit".

But thats true about most attempts to create a modern lesson out of something that happened a long time ago. We use our modern prism and our 21st century world view to reinterpret and translate events that were seen very differently then.

History famously never repeats itself ....

The immense difference between then and now is probably in main part the beliefs and actions of those being ruled in these long-ago Societies. Then, everything in Life was 'under God'. The King and the aristocracy ruled by the grace of God and the Church and all its priests and monasteries etc were the earthly arm of God. Everyone (except for a few outlaws etc who weren't tolerated at pain of death and worse) was absolutely subservient to God's rule and that of God's agents on Earth, so legitimacy and power and 'employee / subject engagement' were very very different to the point of little or nothing being a valid example or comparison now.

The immense difference between then and now is probably in main part the beliefs and actions of those being ruled in these long-ago Societies. Then, everything in Life was 'under God'. The King and the aristocracy ruled by the grace of God and the Church and all its priests and monasteries etc were the earthly arm of God. Everyone (except for a few outlaws etc who weren't tolerated at pain of death and worse) was absolutely subservient to God's rule and that of God's agents on Earth, so legitimacy and power and 'employee / subject engagement' were very very different to the point of little or nothing being a valid example or comparison now.

Agreefor the middle ages but I don't believe this would have been accurate at the time of St Benedict. "Dark age" kings' hold on power was more precarious and they relied on references to the Roman Empire to project their authority more than they relied on the power of the church which itself had suffered from the break up of the Roman Empire. The Church had "piggybacked" on the administrative structures of the Empire for its growth after Constantine's "conversion." (There is evidence that he tended towards the heresy of arianism towards the end of his life).

I believe the immediately post-Roman world was more fluid in social mobility and varied in its religious beliefs than the Middle Ages. Arianism was the predominant religion amongst the visigoths in Spain for example.

It took the catholic church until the 11th century to fully establish its hold over Western Europe, for example, by way of encouraging the practice of primogeniture and only considering marriages conducted by a priest as valid. At which point many in the Church regarded the rules of St Benedict as far too lax and came up with much stricter codes.

Sorry, completely off topic. You can probably tell I throw things at the telly when some historical documentaries are perpetrated on us.