Tracing Early Monastic Culture: Books and Authority in New Textual Communities

Dear Colleagues,

While it is well known that medieval monasteries functioned as centers of education and learning, it is typically the High and Late Middle Ages that are associated with academic achievement. On the other hand, monastic life in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages—sometimes referred to as the “dark ages”—is thought to have been characterized by obedience to ancient authorities and compilation of their works, as opposed to innovation and development. However, as scholarship in recent decades has shown, transmission does not exclude creativity, and this period has gained increasing attention for its scholarly and ecclesiastical activities. Examples include the translations of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, as well as early monastic rules, into new languages.

How, then, could we best understand and describe the transmission of ancient learning and ideals to a medieval context? The intellectual field of textual culture, which forms a framework for the present issue of Religions, takes into account material processes and ideological concerns in textual production and use. On the border between book history and literary criticism, this implies an understanding of reading and writing as cultural practices in themselves. The concept of textual communities, referring to groups gathered around the reading and interpretation of a textual corpus, is instrumental in examining how certain texts were promoted in specific contexts and how practices of reading, sharing, and publishing texts had both the function of transmitting ancient monastic ideals and reinterpreting them in the service of new communities. By including studies of monastic texts and their transmission from one context to another—for example, from East to West, from Greek to Latin—this issue will contribute to our understanding of the importance of material culture in the transmission of monastic ideals, as well as in reshaping them, with a particular focus on the construction of monastic authority.

This Topical Collection seeks contributions on textual practices and their role in the development of monastic ideals, particularly relating to authority, in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (c. 300–800). Studies on monastic rules, which typically deal with obedience, have a place in this issue, alongside other kinds of texts by early ascetic writers, in which ascetic ideals and ideas of spiritual authority are expressed—for example, in exegetical and hagiographical works.

In this Topical Collection, original research articles are welcome on areas that may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Textual communities in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages;
• Early sources (monastic and non-monastic) for Western monasticism and their reappropriation;
• The transmission of the Greek paideia and the idea of the monastery as a school;
• Reception of ancient texts, including practices of reading, translating, and rewriting;
• Different ideas and expressions of monastic authority;
• Reinterpretation of philosophical and theological inheritance.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and abstract of 200–300 words, summarizing their intended contribution. Please send these to the Guest Editors, Dr. Andreas Westergren ([email protected]) and Dr. Katarina Pålsson ([email protected]), and cc the Assistant Editor of Religions, Margaret Liu ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring a proper fit within the scope of this Topical Collection. Full manuscripts will undergo a double-blind peer review.

Tentative deadlines:

Deadline for abstract submission: December 1, 2024
Deadline for full manuscript submission: June 1, 2025

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

References

Alciati, R., “The Invention of Western Monastic Literature: Texts and Communities”, in: A.I. Beach & I. Cochelin (eds.), The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020, p. 144–161.

Bray, J. & Evans, R., “Introduction: What is Textual Culture?”, Textual Cultures: Texts, Contexts, Interpretation 2 (2007), p. 1–8.

Contreni, J. J., “Carolingian Monastic Schools and Reform”, in: A.I. Beach & I. Cochelin (eds.), The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020, p. 450–465.

Haines-Eitzen, K., Guardians of Letters: Literacy, Power, and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Heath, J., “Textual Communities: Brian Stock’s Concept and Recent Scholarship on Antiquity”, in: F. Wilk (ed.), Scriptural Interpretation and the Interface Between Education and Religion, Leiden: Brill, 2018, p. 5–35.

Hörning, K. H., “Kultur als Praxis”, in: F. Jaeger and B. Liebsch (eds.), Handbuch der Kulturwissenschaften, vol 1: Grundlagen und Schlüsselbegriffe, Stuttgart: Metzler, 2004, p. 139–151.

Johnson, W.A., “Toward a Sociology of Reading in Classical Antiquity”, The American Journal of Philology 121.4 (2000), p. 593-627.

Larsen, L. & Rubenson, S. (eds.), Monastic Education in Late Antiquity: the Transformation of Classical Paideia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Schatzki, T. R. et al., The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, London: Routledge, 2001.

Stock, B., Listening for the Text: On the Uses of the Past, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.

Wallis, F. & Wisnovsky, R. (eds.), Medieval Textual Cultures: Agents of Transmission, Translation and Transformation, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016.

Dr. Andreas Westergren
Dr. Katarina Pålsson
Collection Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• monastic authority
• Late Antiquity
• Early Middle Ages
• textual culture
• textual communities
• textual transmission
• translation practices
• rewriting

Title: Community, authority, rule: re-thinking normative texts in early western monasticism

Abstract: This study focuses on the changing internal dynamics of early western monasteries from the fifth to the seventh century reflected in the development of monastic rules. It initially considers the reliance of western communities in the fifth and early sixth centuries on earlier monastic writings, along with hagiography, as guides to spiritual achievement and daily life. Re-thinking traditional chronologies, it places the emergence of written normative texts in the sixth century, highlighting their elevation of the rule itself and of the authority of an abbot or abbess. It examines the ways in which written rules might serve as substitutes for charismatic leadership and reinforce the spiritual authority of the community head; and it discusses shifting constructions of authority, obedience and community in rules composed in the sixth and seventh centuries. A number of texts, conventionally classified as the earliest western rules for monasteries, are identified as regulations compiled in this later period for satellite communities in monastic cells or dependencies. It makes reference throughout to the political and social contexts of these changes.

Title: Lupus of Ferrières and Heiric of Auxerre read Suetonius: Carolingian Monks and the Classics

Abstract: The Carolingian age provided the first great European audience for the Latin classics. It was the emergence of Roman authors in the curriculum, scriptoria, and onto library shelves of Carolingian courts and schools that prompted enthusiastic modern observers to detect an eighth- and ninth-century “renaissance” in the lands of the Franks. Despite persistent reservations about the place of pagan writers in Christian culture, Carolingian intellectuals embraced the classics, even to the point of adopting the names of Roman authors as nicknames. While it is clear that “emulation” of the classics did not inhibit Carolingian “innovation,” the question of what the classics ultimately meant to Carolingian intellectuals remains elusive. This paper attempts a response to that question by examining, as a case study, the Collectanea of Heiric of Auxerre. The Collectanea consists of the notes Heiric collected as a young student under the tutelage of Lupus of Ferrières The notes he took from Lupus of Ferrières consist largely of extracts from Roman authors, especially from Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars. Are there any patterns in these classical excerpts? What possibly could they have meant to a high-profile scholar such as Lupus of Ferrières and to his most scholarly student? Answers to these questions might suggest what the classics meant to Carolingians and specifically to monks.

Title: Textual Transmission and the Construction of Spiritual Authority: The Early Medieval Reception of Jerome of Stridon

Abstract: Although Jerome of Stridon (d. 419) had been a controversial figure in his own lifetime, he came to be regarded as a father of the church and one of the most important authorities in the Middle Ages. How did this transition come about? While it has been acknowledged in previous scholarship that Jerome had an extensive reception in the Middle Ages, a comprehensive study of the transmission of his works in the first centuries after his death has not been undertaken. Likewise, the mechanisms involved in transforming Jerome’s memory from that of a radical ascetic suspected of heresy to a defender of orthodoxy and tradition, have yet to be studied. Combining philological, historical, and theological approaches, the present article seeks to contribute to Hieronymian scholarship by studying the reception of Jerome from the 5th to the 11th century, taking into account two different but interrelated aspects of this reception: First, an analysis of manuscripts will answer questions concerning the transmission of Jerome’s texts: Which of his texts were most common in the early medieval manuscripts? Which texts appear together? Considering the social contexts in which Jerome’s writings were copied and read, we may get a clearer picture of how, and why, Jerome’s spiritual authority continued to be constructed after his death. Secondly, the article will consider presentations of Jerome in texts from these centuries, asking how he was commonly described and in which ways he was seen as an authority. The article examines how these aspects of reception contributed to the creation of an image of Jerome, and an interpretation of his work, that would become important in the development of medieval Christianity.

Title: Reading Cassian’s Conferences as elaborated chreias

Abstract: Many scholars have pointed out that John Cassian’s writings reveal an extensive education. In his works he reflects upon his own education as well as provides education for the readers. But it is also clear that he employs his own rhetorical education by using conscious rhetorical strategies. This third aspect will be in focus in this article. I will discuss how Cassian uses a deliberate rhetorical approach in his composition of the Conferences. In Late Antique higher education, the chreia was one of the basic progymnasmata exercises. It could be elaborated through the so-called ergasia exercise. By giving examples from the first conference I will show how Cassian employs elaborated chreias presenting his own patterns of ergasia elements. In connection to this I will also discuss Cassian’s view on the origin of the thoughts and its derivation from Evagrius. Cassian can be seen as a monastic rhetorician providing the Conferences as a monastic counterpart to the Graeco-Roman rhetorical handbooks, or rather, collections of model exercises. As a collection of Christian chriic texts, the Conferences could have functioned as model texts for monks and monastic students wanting not only to read, but also to compose their own monastic texts according to the rhetorical structures taught in traditional schools of rhetoric.

Title: The Purposes and Authority of Secular Education in the Monastic rule of Cassiodorus

Abstract: This article is a study of the integrity, purposes and limitations of “secular education”, or the seven liberal arts, in the second book of Cassiodorus’ Institutiones divinarum et saecularium litterarum. Previous scholarship has claimed that Cassiodorus take the Holy Scriptures to be the origin of the liberal arts. Both the Institutiones and the Expositio in Psalmorum have statements of how in the beginning of spiritual wisdom seeds of the liberal arts were planted in Holy Writ, which secular magistri later adopted and developed. Claims have also been made that, for Cassiodorus, the very purpose of studying the liberal arts is exegesis of the Holy Scriptures. To be sure, the method and comments of Cassiodorus Psalms commentary lends itself very well to this second claim. However, there are statements in Institutiones II that point in other directions, that have hitherto not been sufficiently explored. The most striking example is perhaps when Cassiodorus, taking both Pythagoras and the Holy Scriptures as support, presents the origin of the mathematical disciplines to be in the very structure of the created cosmos. In addition, Cassiodorus lists quite a few different benefits, and so at least prima facie purposes of “secular education”, some of which are clearly not reducible to biblical exegesis. This article analyses and discuss the implications of the different purposes and claims of origins, authority and limitations of “secular education” in the Institutiones, a book often identified either as the monastic rule or the functional substitute of a rule at the monastery Vivarium.