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2009, Journal of Medieval History
This essay examines the intersections of discipline, compassion and community in a selection of monastic texts from the late tenth through to the mid-thirteenth centuries, focusing on disciplinary rituals involving punitive flogging or flagellation. Although members of all of the major religious orders viewed flogging as a necessary method of correction needing little or no justification, as evidenced by customaries, letters, and even miracle collections, few scholars have examined the role of this practice in the shaping of monastic culture. This essay suggests that disciplinary rituals served a number of related functions within coenobitic monasticism: they reinforced hierarchies within communities, tested individuals' mastery of the virtues of humility and obedience, expressed superiors' compassion and love for their subordinates, and reminded penitents and spectators alike of Christ's bodily suffering. These conclusions are further supported by a close reading of Peter the Venerable's vita of the Cluniac prior Matthew of Albano, a text which depicts disciplinary violence as a synthetic element of monastic life, as well as a ritual means of promoting the spiritual growth of individuals and entire communities.
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The thirteenth-century Dialogus miraculorum of Caesarius of Heisterbach includes the tale of a vexed and unhappy novice who was ill-suited to his avowed monastic profession. Deciding to return to his prebend, the novice was confronted by the abbot, who on hearing of the novice's plans to abandon the Cistercian life announced: "Bring me an axe." When the novice inquired why, the abbot replied: "That your feet be cut off. Believe me, I would rather keep you without your feet than to let you go away and bring disorder upon our house.") This cautionary tale has a number of didactic functions , not the least of which is the seriousness with which thirteenth-century Cistercians like Caesarius of Heisterbach expected novices to regard even their preliminary vows. Anxiety over apostasy and the ensuing scandal that apostates might bring to a monastery are also important here, as is monastic fear of the triumph of temptation: this story is the fiftieth capitulum in the fourth book of the Dialogus miraculorum, collectively entitled De tentatione. Such themes and concerns are familiar to any student of the Cistercian order, an order which continued to privilege withdrawal from the world and stabilitas as the foundations of monastic life even after more "radical" notions of men-dicancy and apostolic emulation had begun to direct the purpose, function and expression of other forms of monastic life from the late twelfth century.2 Unfamiliar to the modern reader, however, may be the implicit agenda of forcible enclosure hidden behind the abbot's threat to disable the novice in this exemplum. The text's suggestion of violence may appear hyperbolic at first reading, despite the very real gravitas of the author's message. Yet even if the reader does acknowledge the didactic purpose embedded in Caesarius's rhetoric, the tale nevertheless continues to hint at a profoundly disquieting element of monastic life-confinement by force. Searching for instances of abbatial violence against recalcitrant novices thankfully turns up very little evidence that this was a common practice,3 yet it is clear that forcible enclosure was certainly present in other ways in the Cistercian monasteries of western Europe. ICaesarii Heisterbacensis monachi ordinis Cisterciensis dialogus miraculorum (hereafter Dialogus miraculorum) ed. J. Strange, 2 vols. (Cologne 1851) bk. 4 chap. 50: Item de tentatione Reneri successoris eiusdem. "Afferte mihi securim. Cum cui diceret novicius, quid debet securis? respondit: Ut praecidentur pedes vestri. Credite mihi, magis yolo vos sine pedibus semper pascere, quam vos sinarn abire et confun-dere domum nostrarn." "Pascere" can also have the meaning of nurture, or rear.
Paper presented at Leeds IMC 2015 on the changing role of the medieval monastic porter in England
2019, Grove Music Online
A broad survey of Benedictine monasticism from the time of Benedict to the present with sections on the Benedictine Office and music and monasticism. The bibliography (completed 2017) is divided by topic.
2000, Traditio
In a description of a trip through the Midi of France in 1835, Prosper Merimée devotes a lengthy paragraph to the analysis of the Christ in Vézelay's Pentecost tympanum (fig. 1). He marvels at the carving of the figure's feet and “blessing” hands, as well as the placement of the thighs in relation to the torso. Later in his treatment of the abbey church and its sculpture, the author notes that figures on the nave capitals convey a “savage zeal” (zèle farouche) by means of posture and facial expressions. Gestures, in the widely construed, medieval sense of the word, clearly struck the celebrated French author as a salient feature of Vézelay's sculpture. Merimée sympathized with Romantic visions of the Middle Ages as a period less tainted by the stifling effects of civilization, and perhaps his fascination with the dramatic body movement carved throughout the abbey church reflects the belief that these were unfettered by the artistic or social constraints of the early nine...
This PhD dissertation examined diverse narrative, legislative, and epistolary texts concerning conversion and leadership patterns in new religious communities of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with particular reference to Bernard of Clairvaux and early Cistercian monasticism. Congregations such as the Fonte Avellanesi, the Grandmontines, the Premonstratensians, and the Benedictines of Molesme were analysed to provide comparative perspectives. The thesis described the eleventh-century background of Cistercian asceticism and the secular contexts for Bernard of Clairvaux's early career. It examined the evidence on his extreme and idiosyncratic asceticism and situated his practices within the context of submission to abbatial and episcopal governance..
2014, Óenach Reviews, issue 6.1 (2014)
There are an uncountably large number of medieval cloisters in various states of preservation surviving in mainland western Europe. In order to make sense of this material, and tease it into acting as a continental context for claustral design in England and Wales, the following paper concentrates on four aspects of the Latin medieval cloister: its origins, uses, architecture and imagery. None of these exist in watertight compartments, and they will flow into and out of each other, but one — the origins of the medieval cloister — is fundamental and might be cauterised and treated separately, if only briefly. The rest of the paper concentrates on the cloister between the 11th and 13th centuries. There is little in it that has not already been published, but it was felt it would be useful to bring some of this material together in English. The paper was originally written to be read aloud, hence its rather colloquial presentation, and the detail which should have turned it into an article is in the endnotes.
This paper examines the use made of the cult of St. Maurus of Glanfeuil by Cluny and Cîteaux to connect themselves historically to St. Benedict and thereby legitimize their reform movements.
Peter Damian’s letters describe his socialisation as the junior of a congregation of hermit Benedictines, the disciples of Romuald of Ravenna (ca. 951-1027). Peter Damian (d. 1072) also authored the Vita Romualdi, based on his encounters and interviews with the followers and associates of this scarred and awesome hermit. His work represents the hermit elders of Fonte Avellana as a discipleship community, but also as an eremitical elite, who bordered on holding contemporary traditional Benedictines in open contempt. This draft paper explores the biographical, autobiographical, apologetic, and humanistic dimensions of Peter Damian’s letters as a record of his justification of the renewal of Benedictine spirituality.
2012
Any use you make of these documents or images must be for research or private study purposes only, and you may not make them available to any other person. Authors control the copyright of their thesis. You will recognise the author's right to be identified as the author of this thesis, and due acknowledgement will be made to the author where appropriate. You will obtain the author's permission before publishing any material from their thesis.
1974, Past & Present
Explores how monastic and mendicant spiritualities worked within the social contexts in which they arose and had both prestige and significance.
Not a single English Romanesque great cloister arcade survives in-situ. Despite this, the existence of a number of 11th- and 12th-century rear walls, and the discovery of quantities of stonework likely to have originated in cloister arcades, make it possible to recover something of the likely appearance and character of the cloister in Anglo-Norman England. The following paper considers that evidence, and assesses how our understanding of the underlying topography and archaeology of Anglo-Norman cloisters might enable us to reconstruct their lost walks. It concludes with an appraisal of the chronology of English cloister building.
I n the famous Life of Odo of Cluny, written by John of Salerno around 943, a long passage explains how, and especially why, Odo chose the monastery where he became monk : it was not simply a matter of finding a monastery that followed assiduously the Rule of Benedict of Nursia, but first and foremost one that had the right monastic customs (consuetudines). At the time, Odo was still a secular canon in Tours ; he had a companion with similar spiritual aspirations, a layman called Adhegrinus. I have marked by expanded spacing the words of particular significance for this article. For wherever they could hear of a monastery anywhere in France they either visited it themselves or sent investigators, but nowhere could they find a religious house in which they felt inclined to remain. At last Adhegrinus decided to go to Rome, and having started on his journey, he came into Burgundy, and to a certain village called Baume. In this place there was a monastery which had recently been restored by the abbot Berno. Adhegrinus turned aside there and was received by the abbot into the guesthouse most hospitably, as St Benedict laid down. And there for some time he chose to stay as a guest ; not that he wanted anything from the monks, but that he might get to know their way of life and the customs of the place (mores habitantium locique consuetudines). For those who dwelt in this place were the followers of a cer tain Eut icus (imitatores cujusdam patris Eutici), the excellence of whose life there is no need for me to relate in this book, though later on I have thought it well to recall the death he merited to die. This Euticus lived at the time of the great Emperor Louis, and was well-loved by him, as he was by all, for he was an attractive character. As a layman (laicus) he was learned in unusual studies (peregrinis studiis), but giving up all those things in which human weakness is accustomed to take pride, he devoted himself entirely to the rules and institutions of the holy Fathers (beatorum Patrum regulis et institutionibus) ; and from these author it ies he took var ious customs (consuetudines) and collected them in one volume. After a little time he became himself a monk, and he was so esteemed by the king that a monastery was built for him in the palace. When his life had run its course he gave up his spirit in the presence of the brethren […Here follows a miracle related to his death…]. This Euticus was the founder of the customs (institutor […] harum consuetudinum) which to this day are kept in our monaster ies. When the venerable Adhegrinus understood this, he sent word immediately to Odo, who, taking a hundred volumes from his library, went at once to the same monastery. " 1
Ars Medica
The medieval monastery or convent was characterized by specific patterns of sound. Within it were spaces dedicated to particular functions, each of which generated patterns of sound that changed over time. the library, for example, started as a place of considerable noise, as readers pronounced aloud the texts before them; it later grew quieter, as silent reading became the norm.
in: William M. Johnston (ed.), Encyclopedia of Monasticism, t. 1, Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2000, pp. 136-143
dictionary entry, outline of history of Benedictines (male)
2019, Visibilité et présence de l’image dans l’espace ecclésial. Byzance et Moyen Âge occidental, ed. Sulamith Brodbeck and Anne-Orange Poilpré, Byzantina Sorbonensia 30, 63-91
2017, Journal of Religious History
The theme of learning in high medieval monasteries can be approached by analysing such contexts as “communities of practice” on the basis of preserved monastic letters and letter-collections. The letters' propagandistic function makes it extremely interesting to analyse the ways in which they represent learning in order to serve different purposes: to attract people to a monastery, to offer advice to members of monastic communities, and even to intervene in the debate that opposed monastic to secular and scholastic modes of study. Moreover, epistolary sources offer insights into the complex dynamics of social interactions within the monastery, in particular the plurality of learning agents and the reciprocal nature of learning exchanges. Therefore, this approach can offer a valuable contribution to the study of learning as a shared and dialectical process, which takes place through social interaction within a heterogeneous community. In addition, it helps to understand the way in which learning is linked to the shaping of identities, both individual and communal, because it affects and transforms the reciprocal social roles of the members of a monastic community.
2021, Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies
In this paper, I examine the functions of cognition between monk and environment, focusing on the everyday craft of monasticism at the Burgundian abbey of Cluny. By the eleventh century, Cluny operated at the center of a powerful monastic empire, and its population of monks tirelessly attended to the upkeep and maintenance of the monastery in addition to their primary duties of learning, reading, prayer, and Mass. To study Cluny's everyday cognitive operations, I adopt a dynamic systems-based methodology of analysis composed of extended mind theory, distributed cognition, and cognitive archeology. I apply this dynamic systems-based analysis in the form of three case studies, demonstrating that medieval life at Cluny constituted a computational and cognitive system wherein cognition was distributed spatially between monk and monastery, socially through tradition and culture, and across time through the construction of task settings.
English Abstract Gendered Penance and Monastic Sexual Misconduct While the requirement of celibacy was important for both monks and nuns – it is the former which traditionally received more notice from ecclesiastical authorities. Indeed, while fornication of any sort was condemned by the medieval Church, fornication with a nun was classified as one of the maiora crimina which incurred the highest ecclesiastical legal condemnation. However, while legislative sources emphasize the culpability of the sexual partners of nuns, they tell us very little about the degree of guilt attributed to the nuns themselves, and the punishment assigned to them. Similarly, although the physical chastity of monks was de-emphasized in comparison to nuns in monastic writings of the later Middle Ages, it was still expected of them. In this essay, I will demonstrate that although ecclesiastical discourse treated fornication seriously – particularly fornication with a nun, ultimately, the consequences of sexual misconduct were not particularly severe for either sex. Moreover, despite the greater weight legislative sources place on female chastity, the types of penance allocated to religious men and women were remarkable similar. However, despite being accused less, nuns were far more likely to be convicted of sexual misconduct and be allocated penance as a result. This discrepancy seems to be the result of a greater difficulty for women to clear themselves by compurgation which could be negated by affirmative evidence such as pregnancy. Résumé en Français Pénitence sexuée et conduite sexuelle monastique inappropriée Bien que l'obligation de célibat était importante aussi bien pour les nones que pour les moines – ce sont ces derniers qui ont traditionnellement reçu le plus grand nombre de rappels à l’ordre de la part des autorités ecclésiastiques. En effet, bien que la fornication sous toutes ses formes ait été condamnée par l'Église médiévale, la fornication avec une religieuse était classée comme l'un des maiora crimina et donnait lieu à la condamnation légale ecclésiastique la plus sévère. Cependant, alors que les sources législatives soulignent la culpabilité des partenaires sexuels des religieuses, elles nous en disent très peu sur le degré de culpabilité attribué aux religieuses elles-mêmes, et sur les sanctions qui étaient prises à leur encontre. De même, alors que la chasteté sexuelle des moines fut reléguée au second plan par rapport à celle des nones dans les écrits monastiques datant de la fin du Moyen-Âge, on ne l’attendait pas moins d’eux. Dans cet essai, je montrerai que, bien que le discours ecclésiastique traitait la fornication de manière sérieuse - particulièrement la fornication avec une religieuse, en fin de compte, les conséquences d’une conduite sexuelle inappropriée n'étaient pas particulièrement graves pour les deux sexes. En outre, malgré le fait que les sources législatives accordent plus d’importance à la chasteté des femmes, les types de sanctions attribuées aux hommes et aux femmes de foi étaient remarquablement similaires. Toutefois, malgré le fait qu’elles étaient accusées moins souvent, les religieuses étaient beaucoup plus susceptibles d'être condamnées pour conduite sexuelle inappropriée et d’être sanctionnées par la suite. Cette différence semble être le résultat d'une plus grande difficulté pour les femmes de se dédouaner en purgatoire, ce qui pouvait être remis en cause par une preuve affirmative, comme une grossesse.
2013, Viator no. 44
2021, The Downside Review
Medieval otherworld visions comprise a monastic genre: monks almost universally recur as either visionaries, vision scribes or both. With this in mind, the intention of this article is to interrogate the authorial and narrative intent of these monastic visions to determine whether the audience originally addressed and the concerns expressed could be located exclusively within the monastic enclosure. After examining 36 monastic visions dating from the late 6th to the early 13th century, ranging geographically from Ireland to Italy, it emerges that while many visions specifically addressed monks, nuns, abbots and abbesses about their actions in this life and destinies in the next, many also focused on life outside the monastery.
1998, The Devil, Heresy, and Witchcraft in the Middle Ages: …
1999, Mending Bodies, Saving Souls: A History of Hospitals
Another aspect of Christian hospitality linked to the care of the sick were Europe’s Benedictine monasteries. This chapter illuminates these activities, retelling a contemporary account describing an accident that occurred around the year 968 involving the ruling abbot of the St Gall monastery, a famous Benedictine institution near Lake Constance. For better context, the incident allows for a brief history of this prominent establishment and Benedict’s successful monastic movement before focusing on the spectrum of caregiving efforts centered on its infirmaries and hostels. Details regarding the communitarian and medical approaches follow, including the important role played by St. Gall’s infirmarius in managing the spiritual, medical and surgical aspects of the injury afflicting its abbot. A final comment on the eclipse of monastic medicine stresses the growing rise of lay medicine.
Melanges Anselme Dimier, ed. Chauvin, v. 5 (Pt. 3, Nr.204) (Arbois:1982), pp. 123-49.
2012, Digital Philology
Ex quadris lapidibus. La pierre et sa mise en œuvre dans l'art médiéval, Mélanges d’Histoire de l’art offerts à Éliane Vergnolle, ed. Yves Gallet, Turnhout: Brepols, 2011, p. 35-49
2021, Online bibliography late antique and early medieval Monasticism
http://earlymedievalmonasticism.org/bibliographymonasticism.htm This is a bibliography of academic literature on late antique and early medieval monasticism. It is certainly not complete, but it will be extended and updated regularly. Included are titles on topics such as political history, auxiliary sciences, gender studies, queer studies, church history, anthropology, etc. that may be relevant to monastic studies. Some bibliographical information may be incomplete or contain errors. Editions and translations of primary sources are generally not included.
2017
A different history of the liturgical ministries that Benedictine women religious performed in central medieval England can be told, one that challenges previous scholarly accounts of these ministries that either locate them exclusively in the so-called “golden age” of double monasteries headed by abbesses in the seventh and eighth centuries, or read the monastic and ecclesiastical reforms of the tenth through twelfth centuries as rendering women completely dependent on the sacramental ministrations of male clerics. Study of the surviving documents of practice from communities of women religious in England that flourished during the central Middle Ages, especially liturgical manuscripts, reveals a different history: women religious continued to perform many of the ministerial acts cited in earlier Anglo-Saxon sources well into the twelfth century, even those acts that came to be defined strictly as sacraments. To demonstrate the persistence of such acts, this article focuses on one liturgical site: the practice of penance. It examines the prayers scripted both for female confessors and for female and male penitents found in prayerbooks and psalters produced from the ninth through the twelfth centuries. These texts suggest that, far from being pushed to the margins of their houses’ ministerial activities by resident or visiting clerics, women religious continued to exercise primary control of and agency in the confessional roles directing their communities. But only by reviewing their practice of penance through their own manuscripts can these women be fully restored to the ministries that they once performed. Showcased here is the introduction to the article. For the complete article, follow the link provided.
2009
2002, Ogma: essays in Celtic studies
The influence of Cluny on Galician and Portuguese monasticism in the period 1100-1300, through direct foundation or liturgical emulation, is assessed on the basis of the Costumary of Pombeiro (MS Oporto, BPM 578) and of three liturgical fragments with music (Braga AD, frags. 24, 169; Lisboa, TT, S.Pedro de Pedroso mç 43, nº5). Topics include rubrics for the blessing and imposition of the ashes, Communion variants, rare Alleluias, and De Regum antiphons series.
2011, Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages
Full Bibliography for The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages Production, Reception, and Performance in Western Christianity Edited by Susan Boynton and Diane J. Reilly Columbia University Press
1991, Speculum
A study of various dispute resolution techniques employed by different monastic communities.
1978, The American Historical Review
2019
ii Chapter One – Introduction 1 Chapter Two – The Desert 22 Chapter Three – John of Forde’s Life of Wulfric of Haselbury 50 Chapter Four – The Vita of Christina of Markyate 77 Chapter Five – Fourteenth-Century Mysticism 112 Chapter Six – Conclusion 145